Saint Lawrence


Saint Lawrence or Laurence was one of the seven deacons of the city of Rome under Pope Sixtus II who were martyred in the persecution of the Christians ordered by the Roman emperor Valerian in 258.

Life

Lawrence is thought to have been born on 31 December AD 225, in Huesca, the town from which his parents came in the later region of Aragon, which was then part of the Roman province of Hispania Tarraconensis. The martyrs Orentius and Patientia are traditionally held to have been his parents.
Lawrence encountered the future Pope Sixtus II, a famous teacher born in Greece, in Caesaraugusta, and they travelled together from Hispania to Rome. When Sixtus became the pope in 257, he ordained the young Lawrence, who was only 32, as a deacon, and later appointed him as Archdeacon of Rome, the first among the seven deacons who served in the cathedral church. This was a position of great trust which included the care of the treasury and riches of the Church and the distribution of alms to the poor.
St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, noted that at the time the norm was that Christians who were denounced were executed and all their goods confiscated by the Imperial treasury. At the beginning of August 258, the Emperor Valerian issued an edict that all bishops, priests, and deacons should immediately be put to death. Pope Sixtus II was captured on 6 August 258, at the cemetery of St. Callixtus, while celebrating the liturgy, and was executed immediately.
After the death of Sixtus, the prefect of Rome demanded that Lawrence turn over the riches of the Church, and St. Ambrose wrote that Lawrence asked for three days to gather the wealth. He worked swiftly to distribute as much Church property to the indigent as possible to prevent it from being seized by the prefect. On the third day, at the head of a small delegation, he presented himself to the prefect. When ordered to deliver the treasures of the Church, he presented the city's indigent, crippled, blind, and suffering, and declared that these were the true treasures of the Church: "Here are the treasures of the church. You see, the church is truly rich, far richer than your emperor!"

Martyrdom

As a deacon in Rome, Lawrence was responsible for the material goods of the Church and the distribution of alms to the poor. Ambrose of Milan related that when the treasures of the Church were demanded of Lawrence by the prefect of Rome, he brought forward the poor, to whom he had distributed the treasure as alms. "Behold in these poor persons the treasures which I promised to show you; to which I will add pearls and precious stones, those widows and consecrated virgins, which are the Church's crown." The prefect was so angry that he had a great gridiron prepared with hot coals beneath it and had Lawrence placed on it, hence Lawrence's association with the gridiron.
Lawrence was sentenced at San Lorenzo in Miranda and imprisoned in San Lorenzo in Fonte, where he baptized fellow prisoners. He was martyred in San Lorenzo in Panisperna and was buried in San Lorenzo fuori le Mura. The Almanac of Filocalus for 354 states that he was buried in the Catacomb of Cyriaca on the Via Tiburtina by Hippolytus and Justin the Confessor, a presbyter. One of the early sources for his martyrdom was the description of Aurelius Prudentius Clemens in his Peristephanon, Hymn 2.
File:San Giacomo dall'Orio - Martire di San Lorenzo di Palma il giovane.jpg|thumb|350px| Martyrdom of San Lorenzo, by Palma il Giovane, in San Giacomo dall'Orio
Despite the Church being in possession of the actual gridiron, historian Patrick J. Healy argues that the traditional account of how Lawrence was martyred is "not worthy of credence", as the slow, lingering death cannot be reconciled "with the express command contained in the edict regarding bishops, priests, and deacons which ordinarily meant decapitation". A theory of how the tradition arose is proposed that as the result of a mistake in transcription, the omission of the letter "p" – "by which the customary and solemn formula for announcing the death of a martyr – passus est – was made to read assus est ." The Liber Pontificalis, which is held to draw from sources independent of the existing traditions and Acta regarding Lawrence, uses passus est concerning him, the same term it uses for Pope Sixtus II, who was martyred by decapitation during the same persecution 4 days earlier.
Emperor Constantine I is said to have erected a small oratory in honour of Lawrence, which was a station on the itineraries of the graves of the Roman martyrs by the seventh century. Pope Damasus I rebuilt or repaired the church, now the Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, while the Minor Basilica of San Lorenzo in Panisperna was erected over the site of his martyrdom. The gridiron of the martyrdom was placed by Pope Paschal II in the Minor Basilica of San Lorenzo in Lucina.

Associated Roman churches

The Roman Catholic Church erected six churches on the sites in Rome traditionally associated with his martyrdom:
  • the Minor Basilica of St Lawrence in Damaso, the site where he performed his duties as deacon of Rome;
  • the Minor Basilica of St Mary in Domnica alla Navicella, the site where he customarily distributed alms to the poor;
  • the annexed Church of St Lawrence in Miranda, the site of his sentencing and condemnation by the Prefect of Rome;
  • the annexed Church of St Lawrence in Fonte, the site of his imprisonment by the centurion Ippolito and of the fountain in which he baptized his fellow prisoners;
  • the Church of St Lawrence in Panisperna, the site of his actual martyrdom/death and the oven used to roast him to death; and
  • the Papal Minor Basilica of St Lawrence outside the Walls, the site of his burial and sepulchre.
There are also three other significant churches in Rome which are dedicated to Saint Lawrence but not associated with his life:
  • the Minor Basilica of St Lawrence in Lucina, which possesses the relics of the gridiron on which and the chains with which he was martyred;
  • the Church of St. Lawrence in Palatio ad Sancta Sanctorum, Pontifical Sanctuary of the Holy Stairs, proximate to the Archbasilica of St. John in Laterano, which was originally a private Papal chapel when the edifice that houses it was a Papal palace, and which housed some of the most precious relics of the Roman Catholic Church, hence the title "Sancta Sanctorum" ; and
  • the Church of St Lawrence in Piscibus, which is proximate to the Basilica of St. Peter.

    Miracles

The life and miracles of Lawrence were collected in The Acts of St Lawrence but those writings have been lost. The earliest existing documentation of miracles associated with him is in the writings of Gregory of Tours, who mentions the following:
The mediaeval Church of St Mary Assumed in the small commune of Amaseno, Lazio, Italy, houses the famous reliquary of the ampulla containing relics of Lawrence, namely a quantum of his blood, a fragment of his flesh, some fat and ashes. Tradition holds that annually, on the Feast of St. Lawrence, and sometimes on other occasions, the blood in the ampulla miraculously liquefies during the Feast and re-coagulates by the following day.

Veneration

Due to his conspiring to hide and protect the written documents of the Church, Lawrence is known as the patron saint of archivists and librarians.

Roman Catholic Church

Lawrence is one of the most widely venerated saints of the Roman Catholic Church. Legendary details of his death were known to Damasus, Prudentius, Ambrose, and Augustine. Devotion to him was widespread by the fourth century. His liturgical celebration on 10 August has the rank of feast in the General Roman Calendar, consistent with the oldest Christian calendars, e.g. the Almanac of Philocalus for the year 354, the inventory of which contains the principal feasts of the Roman martyrs of the middle of the fourth century. He remains one of the saints enumerated in the "Roman Canon" of the Holy Mass as celebrated in the Latin Church.
Lawrence is especially honoured in the city of Rome, of which he is considered the third patron after St. Peter and St. Paul. The church built over his tomb, the Papal Minor Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, became one of the seven principal churches of Rome and a favourite place of Roman pilgrimages. The area proximate to the Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura is named the "Quartiere San Lorenzo".
Because the Perseid Meteor Shower typically occurs annually in mid-August on or around his feast day, some refer to the shower as the "Tears of St Lawrence".
File:san lorenzo's grill.png|thumb|right|upright=1.15|The shrine containing the gridiron that was used to roast St Lawrence to death according to tradition is in the Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome.
His intercession to God is invoked by librarians, archivists, comedians, cooks and tanners as their patron. He is the patron saint of Ampleforth Abbey, whose Benedictine monks founded one of the world's leading public schools for British Roman Catholics, located in North Yorkshire.
The Festival of San Lorenzo is a religious celebration occurring every year in Tarapacá, Chile.

Anglican Communion

Within Anglicanism Lawrence's name is traditionally spelled Laurence or Lawrence. His feast is on 10 August which is in the calendar of the Book of Common Prayer, the volume of prayers which, in its 1662 format, was the founding liturgical document of a majority of Anglican provinces. In the Book of Common Prayer the feast is titled "S Laurence, Archdeacon of Rome and Martyr". His feast on 10 August has been carried into the contemporary calendars of most Anglican provinces, Laurence is remembered in the Church of England with a Lesser Festival under the title "Laurence, deacon, martyr, 258" on 10 August.
Anglo-Catholics venerate Lawrence, who is the patron of many Anglican parish churches, including 228 in England. A major church in Sydney, Australia, in the former civil parish of St Laurence, is known as "Christ Church St Laurence". The Anglican charitable society, Brotherhood of St Laurence also bears his name.