Pope Saint Leo IX – Saint Of The Day – 19 April
Pope Saint Leo IX. One of the most historically significant Popes of the Middle Ages. A very good musician and a flower of the aristocracy.
Pope Leo IX (1002–1054) was born Bruno von Egisheim-Dagsburg (modern-day Alsace, France). His father was a cousin of one of the German Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. Bruno was tall, handsome, a good musician, a flowers of the aristocracy.
Pope Leo IX was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 1049 to his death in 1054.
Leo IX is considered to be one of the most historically significant popes of the Middle Ages. In 1054, he was instrumental in the precipitation of the Great Schism – the separation between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.
As the head of the Catholic Church he strengthened the papacy and did everything to eradicate clerical marriage and simony the practice of selling and buying church positions).
He went campaigning against the Normans in Sicily and with this act he has alienated the Eastern church. In the year when he died (1054) his representatives excommunicated the patriarch of Constantinople.
