Leo of Ohrid (

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

: Λέων Άχρίδος; died 1056) was a leading 11th-century

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

churchman as

Archbishop of Ohrid The Archbishop of Ohrid is a historic title given to the Primate (bishop), primate of the Archbishopric of Ohrid. The whole original title of the primate was ''Archbishop of Justiniana Prima and all Bulgaria'' (). The archbishopric was established ...

(1037–1056) and advocate of the

Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (, ; ; , "Roman Orthodox Patriarchate, Ecumenical Patriarchate of Istanbul") is one of the fifteen to seventeen autocephalous churches that together compose the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is heade ...

's views in the theological disputes with the

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, which culminated in the

East–West Schism The East–West Schism, also known as the Great Schism or the Schism of 1054, is the break of communion (Christian), communion between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. A series of Eastern Orthodox – Roman Catholic eccle ...

of 1054.

Life

Nothing is known about Leo's early life. Sometime after 1037, he was appointed

, prior to which he had held the position of ''

chartophylax A ''chartophylax'' (, from χάρτα, "document" and φύλαξ, "guard, keeper"), sometimes also referred to as a ''chartoularios'', was an ecclesiastical officer in charge of official documents and records in the Greek Orthodox Church in Byzant ...

'' in the

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. Under Patriarch

Michael Keroularios Michael I of Constantinople (''Cerularius'' or ''Keroularios''; ; 1000 – 21 January 1059) was the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 1043 to 1059. His disputes with Pope Leo IX over church practices in the 11th century played a ro ...

(1043–59), Leo was sent as the spokesman of Constantinople to theological debates with clergymen representing the

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. He reiterated his views in a 1053 letter to the bishop John of Trani, which was however addressed to the Pope and all

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bishops. In this letter, "Leo for the first time shifted the religious estrangement between East and West toward liturgical and disciplinary issues" (J. Meyendorff), and condemned various practices of the Western Church such as the eating of strangled meat, with blood, the fasting on Saturdays (contrary to the Council of Trullo), or various minor issues of ritual. The most important point of friction, however, was the Western use of unleavened bread ('' azyma'') for celebrating the

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, which provoked a running argument carried out in a series of letters with Cardinal

Humbert of Silva Candida Humbert of Silva Candida, O.S.B., also known as Humbert of Moyenmoutier ( 1000 to 1015 – 5 May 1061) was a French Benedictine abbot and later cardinal. It was his act of excommunicating the Patriarch of Constantinople, Michael I Cerularius ...

, which finally led to Humbert's mission to Constantinople in 1054 and the finalizing of the Great Schism between Rome and the East through their mutual

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s, resulting in the existence as separate Churches of the

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and the

Eastern Orthodox Church The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church, and also called the Greek Orthodox Church or simply the Orthodox Church, is List of Christian denominations by number of members, one of the three major doctrinal and ...

.André Vauchez, Richard Barrie Dobson, Michael Lapidge (editors), ''Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages''
(Routledge 2000 , vol. 1, p. 841

References

Sources

* {{authority control Year of birth unknown 1056 deaths 11th-century Byzantine bishops Archbishops of Ohrid Byzantine theologians 11th-century Byzantine writers 11th-century Christian theologians Hagia Sophia East–West Schism

Life

See also

References

Sources