LEO V., called the Armenian, because his father was from that country, held a command in the army under the reign of Nicephorus, but being accused of treason he was confined in a convent. Michael Rangab6, on ascending the throne in 811, gave him his pardon and restored him to his rank. Leo however was too ambitious to bo grateful. After obtaining some success against the Saracens, he accom panied Michael on an expedition against tho Bulgarians, in which he is charged by the historians with betraying his master, and causing the loss of the battle near Adrianople. Being left by Michael in charge of the remains of the army, he urged them to rebel, and being proclaimed emperor by them he marched to Constantinople. Michael made no resistance, but sent to his successor the crown, sceptre, and other imperial insignia, and retired into a convent. Leo entered the i capital in July 813, and was crowned at St. Sophia by the patriarch Nicephorus. The Bulgarians having invaded the empire and threatened Constantinople, Leo took the field, defeated them at Messembria in 814, and in the next year he obliged them to sue for peace. Leo, like his predecessors, was an Iconoclastic, but such was the fanaticism of the people in favour of their images, that they willingly exposed their lives for them. It is a remarkable fact, that about the same time the abuse of the images attracted the attention of the Western Church. An assembly of western bishops took place at Paris in the year 824 to examine the subject of the worship of images, to which the opinion of those prelates was not altogether favourable. Leo
however, like his Iconoclastic predecessors, went to the extreme, fancying that the only means of correcting the abuse was by destroy ing the images altogether : he exiled the patriarch Nicephorus, who would not consent to an Iconoclastic proscription, and he put to death many who were on the same side, which was that of the mass of the people and clergy, and especially the monks, who had great influence in the eastern empire. Pereecutiou and discontent prepared the way for conspiracies. Michael, surnamed the Stammerer, who had contributed to Leo's elevation, and had been consequently made a patrician, raised his thoughts towards the empire. He was arrested, convicted of treason, and condemned to death; but his friends, having disguised themselves as priests, introduced themselves into the chapel of the palace, where Leo used to attend matins, and on a given signal, as the emperor began chanting a new psalm, they fell upon him and killed him, in spite of his desperate resistance, in 820. On learning this catastrophe in the place of his °Zile, the patriarch Nicephorus exclaimed, "The Church is freed from an enemy, but the state has lost an able prince." Michael the Stammerer succeeded to the throne.