Leo 53 was bishop of the island of Karpathos; in 787 he attended the Second Council of Nikaia (the Seventh Ecumenical Council). A former iconoclast, he was brought before the first session of the Council, on 24 September 787, with fellow bishops and iconoclasts, for examination to determine if as former heretics they could be readmitted to communion: Mansi XII 1015. They had all taken part in the disruption of the Council summoned at Constantinople in the previous year: Mansi XII 1015-1018. See further Hypatios 1. At the end of the session he and the others read out their statements of repentance accepting the veneration of icons, all identical with the previous statement read out by the bishop of Ankyra, Basilios 21; the decision whether to readmit them was then postponed to a later session: Mansi XII 1050. At the third session, on 28 September 787, after further discussion he and the others were readmitted and allowed to take their seats at the Council: Mansi XII 1119. Later in this session he accepted as orthodox the statements of the faith contained in letters from Tarasios 1 and the eastern patriarchs and condemned iconoclasts: Mansi XII 1154. He is styled Λέων ὁ εὐλαβέστατος ἐπίσκοπος Καρπάθου or similar: Mansi XII 1015, XII 1050, XII 1119, XII 1154. He is attested at the fourth and seventh sessions, on 1 October and 13 October 787; he perhaps attended the last six sessions, from 28 September to 23 November 787: Mansi XIII 141-486. In the list of those present at the seventh session he is styled Λέοντος ἐπισκόπου Καρπάθου: Mansi XIII 368. Elsewhere he is styled Λέων ἐπίσκοπος Καρπάθου: Mansi XIII 141. At the fourth session he subscribed the statements read out from the Fathers in support of the veneration of icons: Mansi XIII 141. His name is missing from the list of those who subscribed the statement of the faith adopted by the Council at the seventh session, but he attended that session and the omission is perhaps due to a defect in the text.

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