Saint Leander of Seville

Leander of Seville (Spanish: Leandro de Sevilla; Latin: Leandrus; c. 534 AD – 13 March 600 or 601) was a Hispano-Roman Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Seville. He was instrumental in effecting the conversion of the Visigothic kings Hermenegild and Reccared to Catholicism. His brother (and successor as bishop) was the encyclopedist Isidore of Seville. Leander, Isidore and their siblings belonged to an elite family of Hispano-Roman stock of Carthago Spartaria (Cartagena). Their father Severianus is claimed to have been a dux or governor of Carthago Spartaria, according to their hagiographers, though this seems more of a fanciful interpretation since Isidore simply states that he was a citizen. The family as a matter of course were staunch Catholics, as were most of the Romanized population; the Visigothic nobles and the kings were Arians. The family moved to Seville around 554. The children's subsequent public careers reflect their distinguished origin: Leander and Isidore both became bishops of Hispalis (Seville), and their sister Florentina was an abbess who directed forty convents and one thousand nuns. The third brother, Fulgentius, was appointed Bishop of Astigi (Ecjia). All four siblings are considered saints of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. The Catholic hierarchy were in contact with representatives of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine emperor, who had maintained a considerable territory in the far south of Hispania ever since his predecessor had been invited to the peninsula by king Athanagild several decades before. In the north, Liuvigild struggled to maintain his possessions on the far side of the Pyrenees, where his Merovingian cousins and brothers-in-law cast envious eyes on them. Leander, enjoying an elite position in the secure surroundings of tolerated Catholic culture in Seville, became, around 576, a Benedictine monk, and then in 579 he was appointed bishop of Seville.