Career
Nothing is known about Leo"s early life. Sometime after 1025, he was appointed Archbishop of Ohrid, prior to which he had held the position of chartophylax in the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Under Patriarch Michael Keroularios (1043-1059), Leo was sent as the spokesman of Constantinople to theological debates with clergymen representing the Pope of Rome in southern Italy.
He reiterated his views in a 1053 letter to the bishop John of Trani, which was however addressed to the Pope and all Latin bishops.
In this letter, "Leo for the first time shifted the religious estrangement between East and West toward liturgical and disciplinary issues" (J Meyendorff), and condemned various practices of the Western Church such as the eating of strangled meat, with blood, the fasting on Saturdays (contrary to the Council of Trullo), or various minor issues of ritual.
