Laurence of Canterbury

Laurence of Canterbury, known in Latin as Laurentius, was the second Archbishop of Canterbury, holding the see from about 604 until his death in 619. He was one of the Roman monks whom Pope Gregory the Great sent in 597 to evangelize the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, the enterprise later called the Gregorian mission. Surviving sources say nothing certain about his birth, family, or early career; he is known only as a companion of Augustine of Canterbury and as a monk associated with Gregory's monastery of Saint Andrew on the Caelian Hill in Rome. After King Æthelberht of Kent accepted baptism and a bishop's see was established at Canterbury, Augustine sent Laurence back to Rome to report on the mission and to seek further guidance and helpers. Laurence returned with additional clergy, among them Mellitus, and with letters from Gregory that organized the new English church.

Augustine consecrated Laurence as bishop during his own lifetime so that the Roman mission would not be left without a leader at his death. When Augustine died, traditionally in 604, Laurence succeeded him as archbishop. His episcopate was spent consolidating Christianity in Kent and attempting to bring the older British and Irish churches of western and northern Britain into liturgical unity with Rome. Together with Mellitus and Justus he addressed letters, known through Bede's summaries, to the bishops and abbots of the Irish and of the Britons, urging them to adopt the Roman dating of Easter and other Roman customs. Those appeals failed. Laurence remained in correspondence with the papacy, though the exact scope of his metropolitan rights is not fully documented in the sources that survive.

A grave crisis followed the death of Æthelberht in 616. The new Kentish king, Eadbald, at first refused Christianity and contracted a marriage contrary to church law, while in Essex the sons of King Sæberht expelled Bishop Mellitus and restored pagan worship. Mellitus and Justus withdrew to Gaul, and Laurence himself prepared to abandon Canterbury. Bede records that Saint Peter appeared to Laurence by night, rebuked him for deserting the flock committed to him, and scourged him; the next day Laurence showed the wounds to Eadbald, who then accepted baptism, put away his unlawful wife, and recalled the exiled bishops. Whatever the historical kernel of that story, Eadbald did become a Christian king and the Kentish church survived.

Laurence died on 2 February 619 and was buried in the monastic church of Saints Peter and Paul outside the walls of Canterbury, the house later known as Saint Augustine's Abbey, near the tomb of Augustine. Mellitus succeeded him as archbishop. Veneration of Laurence as a saint began early in England; his feast is kept on 3 February in the Roman Martyrology and in Anglican calendars. The principal account of his life is Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in the early eighth century and based on Canterbury tradition and papal correspondence. No writings by Laurence himself survive, and the year and place of his birth remain unknown.