Leontius of Monemvasia

Venerable Leontius of Monemvasia (Leontius of Achaia) was a monk born at Monemvasia in the year 1377, who lived the ascetic life in the northern Peloponnese in the fifteenth century. The Orthodox Church commemorates him on 11 December.

News of his life is known mainly from his first biographer, who is, according to some scholars, the Byzantine philosopher and Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Gennadius Scholarius. His Life, entitled in Greek Encomium of the Venerable Leontius of Achaia, whose Commemoration Is Celebrated on the 11th of the Month of December, is found in the manuscript Gr. II, 186 (=1180) of the Biblioteca Marciana.

Leontius was born into an aristocratic family. His mother, Theodora, was a daughter of the emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos, and his father, Andrew, was the governor of the Peloponnese. He went to Constantinople for higher studies in philosophy and science, but later returned to Monemvasia and became a monk. It began with a visit to Mount Athos, where he stayed for some time, living an ascetic life. Later he realized that he should go to the northern Peloponnese, to a certain place near the present-⁠day city of Aigio, in the region of Achaea. Arriving near Mount Klokos, he built a small church dedicated to the holy Archangels and lived in an inaccessible place, continuing his ascetic labour.

With the support of his uncles, Thomas Palaiologos and Demetrios Palaiologos, who were impressed by the holiness of their nephew's life, he established the monastery of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel (known as the Monastery of Pammegiston Taxiarchon). The Palaiologos family donated to the monastery relics of saints, the most important of them tied to the Holy Passion of the Lord (small portions of the True Cross, the Crown of Thorns, the Sponge and the Purple Robe of the Lord). Today the honourable body of Saint Leontius is kept in a special shrine in the church of the Holy Archangels inside the monastery. A church in his name is in the town of Aigio and another at Monemvasia.