St. Leander of Seville

St. Leander of Seville was born about 534 at Cartagena in Spain, into a remarkable family that gave the Church several saints, being the elder brother of St. Isidore of Seville, St. Fulgentius, and St. Florentina. He became a monk and then, about 579, bishop of Seville, and rose to be the foremost churchman of the Visigothic kingdom of Spain, then divided between its Arian rulers and its Catholic subjects.

Leander devoted himself above all to winning the Visigoths from the Arian heresy, which denied the true divinity of Christ, to the Catholic faith. He befriended and influenced Pope St. Gregory the Great during a stay at Constantinople, and, through his patient labors, he converted the Visigothic prince St. Hermenegild and afterward King Reccared, so that at the Third Council of Toledo in 589, over which Leander presided, the whole Visigothic nation renounced Arianism and embraced the Catholic faith, a turning point in the history of Spain. He also composed a rule for nuns and reformed the Spanish liturgy. He died about 600, and is venerated as a saint, his memory kept on 13 March.