Life and Martyrdom
Accounts describe Leo as an ascetic known for his hospitality, who received all his visitors as though they had been sent by God. By tradition he would say, with an enigmatic smile, that he was 'on his way to becoming an Emperor' — a play on the Greek word for king, understood to point not to an earthly throne but to a heavenly kingdom.
When hostile soldiers attacked his town, the inhabitants took refuge behind the walls, but a number of the captives were taken. The synaxarion relates that Leo left the safety of the fortress and offered himself to the raiders in place of those who had been seized, arguing that he still had the strength for labor while they did not. The captors released the others and led Leo away instead.
On the march Leo, weakened by constant prayer and vigil, could go no farther and was unable to perform the work expected of him. His captors, supposing he had deceived them, beheaded him. In this his saying about becoming an emperor was understood to have been fulfilled in the heavenly kingdom won through his sacrifice.