The life of St Leander of Seville
Leander became a monk and then, around the year 579, bishop of Seville, and for the next two decades he was the most influential churchman in Visigothic Spain, most of whose rulers still held to the Arian denial of Christ's full divinity. He helped bring the king's own son, Hermenegild, to the true faith, work that provoked the wrath of the boy's Arian father and cost Leander a period of exile in Constantinople, where he became a close friend of the future Pope Gregory the Great.
Leander later had a share as well in winning over Hermenegild's brother and successor, King Reccared, and it was Leander who preached the closing sermon at the Third Council of Toledo in 589, where the Visigothic kingdom formally renounced Arianism for the Nicene faith. He also wrote a rule of life for his sister Florentina, who had taken up the monastic life, and a homily celebrating the kingdom's conversion. He died around the year 600 and was succeeded in his see by his brother Isidore.
