Laurentius

Family: Church · Role: priest · First appears: Book I · Chap. XXVII · part 1

Laurentius was a priest associated with Augustine’s mission. Around 582, Augustine sent him with Peter to Rome to inform Gregory that the English nation had received Christ’s faith and that Augustine had become its bishop. After Augustine’s death, Laurentius consecrated the monastery church, though Augustine had ordained him as his successor in the bishopric during his own lifetime.

Around 605, Laurentius joined Mellitus and Justus in urging the Scots and Britons to maintain Catholic unity and observance. He also received letters from Boniface concerning decrees for the English clergy, Ethelbert, and the English nation. In 616, when Mellitus came to Kent for counsel, Laurentius and Justus agreed with him that they should return to their homeland.

Soon afterward, Laurentius went to Eadbald after being scourged by the Apostle Peter, showing him the scars of the stripes. “And when he heard that for the sake of his salvation the bishop had suffered these cruel blows at the hands of the Apostle of Christ, he was greatly afraid”; Eadbald then renounced idols and his unlawful marriage, received the faith of Christ, and was baptized. Laurentius ruled the church for five years before dying on 24 April 624 and being buried in the monastery and church of the chief of the Apostles, near his predecessor Augustine.