St. Lawrence of Rome
He was one of the seven deacons of the Roman Church. When Valerian's edict ordered every bishop, priest and deacon killed at once, he was the last of the seven to die, four days after the pope, on 10 August 258. What he is famous for saying is in no early account.
Died 258 · Canonized
Nothing is recorded here about his birth, because no document held for him mentions it. The article opens at his death and nowhere looks earlier: its whole heading is "Martyr; died 10 August, 258." The year and the day are among the few things about him that are firm, and they are firm because a contemporary was writing them down.
In August 258 the emperor Valerian ordered that every bishop, priest and deacon be put to death at once. Cyprian, writing at the time, quotes the order and then reports what happened in Rome: on the 6th Pope Sixtus II was caught in a catacomb and executed on the spot, and four deacons with him. Two more died the same day.
Lawrence was one of the seven deacons of the Roman Church and the last of them left. He was killed four days later, on 10 August. A Roman almanac drawn up in 354 still gives the day and names the road his grave was on, the Via Tiburtina.
That is most of what can be said about him, and it is more than survives about many martyrs of that century. What made him famous came later. A hundred and thirty years after he died, Ambrose of Milan wrote that when Lawrence was ordered to hand over the treasures of the Church he brought out the poor instead, having already given the money away, and that he was burned to death on a gridiron. The poet Prudentius told it again with more detail. Both are repeating what people said rather than anything written down at the time, and the encyclopedia that carries their account also takes it apart.
What is certain is that Rome did not forget him. Constantine built an oratory over the grave, Pope Damasus cut a poem in marble for the tomb, and two churches in the city still carry his name. Outside the apostles and evangelists, only three saints have a feast on the Church's calendar rather than a memorial: Mary Magdalene, Stephen the first martyr, and him.
What they carried
He had four days' warning. The pope and four deacons were killed on 6 August 258 and he was the last of the seven, taken on the 10th. Nothing held here records what he did with that interval, and nothing is invented to fill it.
State of life
deacon · martyr
Themes
care of the poor · martyrdom · persecution · courage under pressure · hidden work
St. Lawrence (Catholic Encyclopedia)
- There are several saints called Lawrence and this is the deacon of Rome who died in 258. He is not Lawrence of Brindisi, the Capuchin Doctor of the Church who died in 1619 and whose day is 21 July; nor Lawrence Ruiz of Manila, martyred in Japan, who is kept on 28 September; nor Laurence O'Toole, the first Irish-born bishop of Dublin; nor Lawrence Justinian, the first Patriarch of Venice. Nor is he the Lawrence who followed Augustine as archbishop of Canterbury and died in 619.
- The feast is 10 August, and it is a feast rather than a memorial. The Universal Calendar of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales prints under 10 August "St Lawrence, Deacon, Martyr" with the word feast beneath it. https://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/Universal/AugUC.shtml The United States calendars agree and print him unbracketed, which is how that calendar marks a day that is not optional: "Saint Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr", in red, on 10 August. https://www.usccb.org/resources/2026cal.pdf THE ENCYCLOPEDIA AGREES TOO: "The feast day of St. Lawrence is kept on 10 August".
- What is known about his death is known because somebody was writing at the time. Cyprian of Carthage, who was killed in the same persecution weeks later, quotes the emperor's order in a letter — "episcopi et presbyteriet diacones incontinenti animadvertantur", that bishops, priests and deacons be put to death immediately — and then reports what it did in Rome: "Xistum in cimiterio animadversum sciatis VIII id. Augusti et cum eo diacones quattuor", that Sixtus was taken in the cemetery on the sixth of August and four deacons with him. The encyclopedia adds two more deacons, Felicissimus and Agapitus, killed the same day, and then Lawrence, "the last of the seven deacons", four days after. A Roman almanac compiled in 354 gives the anniversary and the road: "III id. Aug. Laurentii in Tibertina".
- The two things everyone knows about Lawrence are both reported by the encyclopedia and both marked by it as unverifiable, and the marking has to travel with them. Ambrose of Milan, writing about a hundred and thirty years after the death, "relates (De officiis min. xxviii) that when St. Lawrence was asked for the treasures of the Church he brought forward the poor, among whom he had divided the treasure, in place of alms"; the same bishop "also states that St. Lawrence was burned to death on a gridiron". The poet Prudentius tells it again "with more poetical detail". Then the article turns on both. The meeting with Sixtus "is not compatible with the contemporaneous reports about the persecution of Valerian". The gridiron "also gives rise to grave doubts". "The narrations of Ambrose and Prudentius are founded rather on oral tradition than on written accounts", and there are "no means of verifying from earlier sources the details derived from St. Ambrose and Prudentius". Of the fuller sixth-century accounts it is blunter still: they "cannot claim any credibility". The article's own last sentence keeps the qualification attached to the image: "He is pictured in art with the gridiron on which he is supposed to have been roasted to death".
- Against all that the article is firm about what it will not doubt: "there can be no question that St. Lawrence was a real historical personage", "nor any doubt as to the martyrdom of that venerated Roman deacon, the place of its occurrence, and the date of his burial". The sentence is worth reading twice, because it marks out exactly how much is solid and exactly where the solid ground stops.
- What can honestly be said about what Lawrence did is short, and the last sentence of the line at the top of this record says so rather than leaving a reader to work it out. He held an office, he was killed for it on a day that is fixed, and the scene he is remembered for is not in any early account.
- This record rests on one encyclopedia article and the calendar. No document of the Holy See held here says anything about him. That is not for want of looking, and it is not surprising: the modern papal catecheses that carry so much of this corpus are portraits of people who left writings, and Lawrence left none.
- Rome did not forget him, and the building is the evidence. "Since the fourth century St. Lawrence has been one of the most honoured martyrs of the Roman Church." Constantine put a small oratory over the grave; Pope Damasus "wrote a panegyric in verse, which was engraved in marble and placed over his tomb"; Sixtus III raised a large basilica on the hill above it, and in the thirteenth century Honorius III joined the two buildings into the San Lorenzo that stands today. Two more churches in the city carry his name, San Lorenzo in Damaso and San Lorenzo in Lucina.
- Lawrence is the Latin Laurentius, from the laurel. The forms carried here are the ordinary equivalents in other languages — Lorenzo in Italian and Spanish, Laurent in French, Lorenz in German, Lars in the Scandinavian languages — together with Laura and Lauren, which are the same name given to a girl.
- No patronage is recorded for him. The one document held for him was searched for "patron", "patrono", "patrona" and "protettore" and the terms returned zero occurrences. No held document declares one.
- Catholic Encyclopedia (Herbermann, 1907-1913), J.P. Kirsch, "St. Lawrence", vol. 9, 1910 — the source for everything in this record except the calendar: the edict of 258 and Cyprian's two letters, the death of Sixtus II and the six other deacons, the date and the burial road from the almanac of 354, the seventh-century itineraries to the grave, the basilicas and the Damasus inscription, the accounts of Ambrose and Prudentius and the article's reasons for doubting them, and the judgment that he was nonetheless a real man really martyred on a known day in a known place. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09089a.htm