Everything about Leander Of Seville totally explained
Saint Leander of Seville (
Cartagena, c.
534–
Seville,
March 13,
600 or
601), brother of the encyclopedist
St. Isidore of Seville, was the
Catholic Bishop of
Seville who was instrumental in effecting the conversion to
Catholicism of the
Visigothic Kings
St. Hermenegild and
Reccared of
Hispania (the
Iberian Peninsula, comprising both modern
Spain and
Portugal).
Family
St. Leander and St. Isidore and their siblings belonged to an elite family of
Hispano-
Roman stock of
Carthago Nova. Their father
Severianus wasn't
dux or governor of Cartagena, as
hagiographers have made him out to be — St. Isidore simply states that he was a citizen. The family moved to Seville around
554. The children's subsequent public careers reflect their distinguished origin: St. Leander and St. Isidore both became bishops of
Seville, and their sister
St. Florentina was an
abbess who directed forty
convents and one thousand nuns. Even the third brother,
St. Fulgentius, appointed Bishop of
Écija at the first triumph of the
Catholic Faith, but of whom little is known, had been venerated as a saint. The family as a matter of course were staunch Catholics, as were the great majority of the Romanized population, from top to bottom; only the
Visigothic nobles and the kings were
Arians. It should be stated that there was seemed a little less Visigothic persecution of Catholics than legend and hagiography have painted. From a modern standpoint, the dangers of Catholic Christianity were more political. The Catholic hierarchy were in collusion with the representatives of the
Byzantine emperor, who had maintained a considerable territory in the far south of
Hispania ever since his predecessor had been invited to the peninsula by the former Visigothic king several decades before. In the north,
Liuvigild struggled to maintain his possessions on the far side of the
Pyrenees, where his
Merovingian cousins and in-laws cast envious eyes on them and had demonstrated that they'd stop at nothing with the murder of Liuvigild's sister.
Life
St. Leander, enjoying an elite position in the secure surroundings of tolerated Catholic culture in Seville, became at first a
Benedictine monk, and then
579 he was appointed bishop of Seville. In the meantime he founded a celebrated school, which soon became a center of Catholic learning. As Bishop he'd access to the Catholic
Merovingian princess
Ingunthis, who had come as a bride for the kingdom's heir, and he worked tirelessly with her to convert her husband
St. Hermenegild, the eldest son of Liuvigild, an act of court intrigue that can't honestly be divorced from a political context. St. Leander defended the new
convert even when he went to war with his father "against his father's cruel reprisals," the
Catholic Encyclopedia puts it. "In endeavoring to save his country from Arianism, St. Leander showed himself an orthodox Christian and a far-sighted patriot."
Exiled by Liuvigild, as his biographies express it, he withdrew to Byzantium — perhaps quite hastily — when the rebellion failed, from
579 to
582. It is possible, but not proven, that he sought to rouse the
Byzantine Emperor
Tiberius II Constantine to take up arms against the Arian king; but in any case the attempt was without result. He profited, however, by his stay at Byzantium to compose works against Arianism, and there became acquainted with the future
Pope Gregory the Great, at that time legate of
Pope Pelagius II at the Byzantine court. A close friendship thenceforth united the two men, and some of their correspondence survives. In
585 Liuvigild put to death his intransigent son Hermenegild, who is a martyr and saint of the
Roman Catholic Church. Liuvigild himself died in
589. It isn't known exactly when Leander returned from exile, but he'd a share in the conversion of Reccared the heir of Liuvigild, and retained an influence over him.
Catholic sources aver that it isn't known exactly when St. Leander returned from exile, but it's extremely unlikely that it was during the old king's lifetime. When Liuvigild was dead, St. Leander swiftly returned to Hispania to convoke within the very year (589) the
Third Council of Toledo, where Visigothic Hispania abjured Arianism, and Leander delivered the triumphant closing sermon, which his brother St. Isidore entitled
Homilia de triumpho ecclesiae ob conversionem Gothorum a homily upon the triumph of the Church and the conversion of the Goths. On his return from this council, St. Leander convened a synod in his metropolitan city of Seville (Conc. Hisp., I), and never afterwards ceased his efforts to consolidate the work of extirpating the remains of Arianism, in which his brother and successor
St. Isidore was to follow him. St. Leander received the
pallium in August, 599.
Works
There remain unfortunately of this writer, superior to his brother St. Isidore, only two works:
De institutione virginum et contemptu mundi, a monastic rule composed for his sister, and
Homilia de triumpho ecclesiæ ob conversionem Gothorum (
P.L, LXXII). St. Isidore wrote of his brother: "This man of suave eloquence and eminent talent shone as brightly by his virtues as by his doctrine. By his faith and zeal the Gothic people have been converted from Arianism to the Catholic faith" (
De script. eccles., xxviii).
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