Saint Leo IX

Saint Leo IX, born Bruno of Egisheim, was bishop of Toul for twenty-five years and pope from 1049. He traveled through Italy, France, and Germany convening synods against simony, and he began the great reform of the Church in the eleventh century. The Church commemorates him on April 19.

He was born on June 21, 1002, in Alsace, into the family of the counts of Egisheim, who were related to Conrad II, the future emperor. At the age of five he was sent to the cathedral school at Toul. There he became a canon and a deacon, and later he served in Conrad’s court chapel. In 1026 the clergy of Toul elected him bishop, and on September 9, 1027, he was consecrated. In this frontier diocese he patiently renewed the life of the clergy and the monasteries.

In 1048 Pope Damasus II died, and Emperor Henry III named Bruno as his successor. The bishop agreed on condition that the clergy and people of Rome elect him. He entered the city barefoot, dressed as a pilgrim, and after his election he took the name Leo and on February 12, 1049, ascended the Chair of Peter. He called to his side men devoted to the renewal of the Church, among them the monk Humbert of Moyenmoutier and Hildebrand, the future Pope Gregory VII.

Just two months later he convened a synod in Rome that condemned simony, the buying and selling of Church offices, and the breaking of celibacy by the clergy. Then he set out on the road to carry out the reform in person. He presided over synods at Pavia, Reims, and Mainz and called bishops to account for simony. In five years he visited Churches from France to present-day Slovakia and from Lorraine to southern Italy.

In southern Italy the Normans were seizing more and more land and oppressing the people. When negotiations failed, Leo himself set out with an army against them in 1053. In June his troops were routed at Civitate, and the pope gave himself up to the victors. The Normans treated him with respect, yet for many months he remained their prisoner at Benevento. From there, in January 1054, he sent legates to Constantinople, led by Cardinal Humbert, on account of the dispute with Patriarch Michael Cerularius.

In the spring of 1054 the pope, gravely ill, had himself carried to Rome. He died there on April 19 and was buried at Saint Peter’s Basilica. His legates were still in Constantinople. On July 16, three months after Leo’s death, they laid on the altar of Hagia Sophia a bull excommunicating the patriarch, and the patriarch with his synod answered by excommunicating the legates. On December 7, 1965, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I together expressed regret for these sentences and removed them from the memory of the Church.

Healings were soon reported at Leo’s tomb. In 1087 Pope Victor III had his body moved inside the basilica and recognized his cult. He is especially venerated in Alsace, Lorraine, and Benevento.