Venerable Leo, Bishop of Catania in Sicily

Leo was born at Ravenna into a noble family, served as a cleric in Calabria and, in the second half of the 8th century, became bishop of Catania in Sicily. He was known for feeding and clothing orphans, widows, the sick and strangers at the church's expense, and for opposing the sorcery and pagan practices that still survived on the island. His Life tells of the sorcerer Heliodorus, a baptized man who deceived the people of Catania with illusions and even disrupted the liturgy: the bishop bound him with his omophorion and stood with him in a fire until the sorcerer was burned, coming out unharmed himself. Leo died in old age, c. 780 (or 789 by another reckoning), and was buried in the church of St Lucy, which he had built.