My Albion: Pope Leo II, a saint of Catholic identity

onsdag 30. juni 2021

Pope Leo II, a saint of Catholic identity

This blogpost was originally planned for June 28, but was delayed. The date of June 28 is the feast of Pope Leo II, who reigned as pope from 681 to his death in 683. His feast was universal throughout the medieval Latin Church, and it presents an interesting showcase for how saints serve as elements of identity-construction. As I am particularly interested in questions of how identity is constructed, maintained and altered, the feast of Pope Leo II is a small but valuable example for why studying saints is very rewarding when dealing with such questions.

The surviving information about Pope Leo II is primarily taken from the Liber Pontificalis, the Book of Pontiffs, an overview of the biographies of popes. Given the brevity of his reign, there are not that many details to be gleaned from the book. Leo was known for his skills in Latin and Greek, as well as his musical talents, and his eloquence. The defining event of his papacy was the condemnation of the belief of Monothelitism as heretical. This belief claimed that Christ had only one will, not two, which is seen in the name "monothelitism" which can be translated as "one will". Monothelitism was one of several beliefs circulating within the wider Christian world.

At this point in time, the Roman Church was still subservient to the emperor in Constantinople, and it was the emperor who consecrated the pope. Consequently, the contact between the Greek and the Latin churches were much closer, and the events within each different language sphere had also impact in the other - although the influence from the Greek to the Latin sphere was much greater than the other direction, since the Greek sphere included the seat of the emperor.

While the condemnation of Monothelitism was ratified by Pope Leo II, the condemnation itself was the result of the sixth council of Constantinople, which was held in 680. Pope Leo also confirmed the condemnation of Pope Honorius I (r.625-38), who had not condemned Monothelitism and whose lack of action was considered treasonous. It is in this event, this refusal of a particular doctrine, that more than any other aspect of Leo's papacy explains Leo's elevation to sainthood. By confirming the heretical nature of Monothelitism, Pope Leo II appears as a guarantor of the validity of the Catholic doctrine, and as such he becomes a reference point in the formulation of a Catholic identity.

It must of course be emphasised that this rather clinical analysis of the appeal of Pope Leo II as a saint is only part of the story. As with most, if not all, saints, the belief in their sanctity must be understood as stemming from a genuine conviction. The veneration of Pope Leo II must therefore not only be seen in light of the construction of a Catholic identity. Moreover, it is likely that in time the importance of his condemnation of Monothelitism grew somewhat less, especially as he retained a relatively minor position among the universal saints of the later medieval Latin Church. When we find Leo's feast included in a thirteenth-century calendar produced in England, which was later brought to Sweden, we should perhaps not expect that the issue of Monothelitism and its importance in seventh-century Latin Christendom was that well-known among those who celebrated the feast on June 28. Pope Leo II does not appear to have ever held a high status among the saints in the catalogue of the Latin Church in the centuries following his death. Yet even so, the very inclusion of the feast of a relatively minor saint, and its universality, attest to the issue of Catholic identity as one that has played a crucial role in the proclamation of this pope's sanctity. While the avatars of such an identity might increase in number over time, and while some - as Leo - might be relegated to a lesser importance in the wider roster of such avatars, Pope Leo II nonetheless reminds us that saints are crucial elements in the construction of identity.