Leontius of Jerusalem

Saint Leontius II was the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem from 1170 to 1190 and reposed in 1190. He is commemorated on 14 May. He was born in Tiberiopolis (today Strumica, in Macedonia), on the Balkan frontier of the Byzantine Empire. Our record gives the birth year 1200 and the death year 1190, which cannot fit.

He was tonsured a monk in Constantinople, where he lived until he travelled through Patmos and Cyprus to Crete. He became abbot of the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian on Patmos. In 1170 he was elected patriarch, succeeding Nikephoros II. Little is known of his work as patriarch. He was known for his character and virtue. He wrote fourteen dogmatic chapters on the Holy Trinity. A Bulgarian source says fourteen books (volumes) on the Holy Trinity. In his time, he is regarded as the last of the patriarchs of Jerusalem to live in exile in Constantinople, since Jerusalem was in the hands of the Latin crusaders.

In 1177 he was sent to the Kingdom of Jerusalem as the representative of the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos to King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem. Theodosius Goudelis, an acquaintance and biographer of Leontius, wrote that the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Amalric of Nesle, attempted to have Leontius assassinated, which the historian Bernard Hamilton considers improbable. Amalric was, however, hostile to him. King Baldwin wanted Leontius to be treated well in order to win Byzantine protection, but Amalric yielded to the king's demands only so far as to allow Leontius to celebrate the Divine Liturgy in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the presence of the Orthodox canons only. The emperor soon recalled him, to avoid a conflict with Amalric and, through Amalric, with Pope Alexander III. In the village of Vodoča, near Strumica, there is today the monastery of Saint Leontius, with a church of the same name.