Leo I, King of Armenia

. Leo II ( Levon ) ( † May 1, 1219 in Armenia) was the first king of Armenia, and reigned from 1187 to 1219 Census as Leon II includes the rubenidischen " Men of the Mountains" is a - as the first King of Armenia he also counted as Leo I..

Leo was in 1187, after the death of his brother Ruben III. Prince of Armenia. In order to strengthen the independence of his principality against Byzantium he pursued a policy of rapprochement with the Roman- German Empire. He supported the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa generous than this on the Third Crusade reached his principality and maintained later diplomatic contact with his son, Emperor Henry VI .. He approached the Armenian Apostolic church of the Roman Catholic and paid homage to the Holy Roman Emperor to to be raised by him to the king.

Leo was crowned on January 6, 1199 at Tarsus by Archbishop Conrad of Mainz to the king, in the presence of the Armenian Catholicos Grigor VI. Apirat (1194-1203), the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and the Greek Metropolitan of Tarsus. For the celebration of Nerses Lambron had previously translated the Latin coronation liturgy in the Armenian.

Leo was married twice: In his first marriage he married 1188 Elisabeth " of Austria " († 1207 ). The chronicler Smbat Sparapet they called niece ( daughter of his brother ) of the Sibyl, the third wife of Bohemond III. of Antioch. Elisabeth was cast in 1206 by Leo, imprisoned and poisoned in 1207. Around 1210 he married his second wife Sibylle of Lusignan, daughter of King Amalric II / I of Jerusalem and Cyprus. Leo made ​​his daughter from his second marriage, Isabella his heir, even though he had a grandson of his eldest daughter from his first marriage, Rita, and with Raimund Ruben a grandson of his brother Ruben III. existed.

1203 attacked Leo Antioch, but was repulsed. Then he took the Templar castles of Roche and Roche Guillaume Roussel and tried Darbsak recapture of the Aleppinern. 1213 attacked the Templars Baghras which they did despite the excommunication of Leo received back until 1216.