Lawrence was one of the seven deacons of Rome under Pope Sixtus II, responsible for the goods of the Church and the distribution of alms to the poor. In the persecution of Valerian (258), Pope Sixtus was seized and beheaded; he prophesied to Lawrence at the procession to martyrdom that the deacon would follow in three days.
The Roman prefect, hoping to seize the wealth of the Church, summoned Lawrence and demanded that he hand over its treasures. Lawrence asked three days. He gathered the poor, the sick, the orphans, the widows, the blind, the lepers — every dependent of the Church — and presented them to the prefect: 'These are the treasures of the Church.'
Enraged, the prefect condemned him to be roasted alive on a great gridiron. According to St. Ambrose, in the midst of his torment Lawrence said to the executioners: 'I am roasted enough on this side. Turn me over and eat.' He died on August 10, 258.
His feast on August 10 became one of the most universally observed in the Roman Church. The 'Tears of St. Lawrence' — the Perseid meteor shower, which peaks around his feast — was so named in the medieval period. His basilica on the Via Tiburtina is one of the seven pilgrim churches of Rome; St. Stephen the proto-martyr was buried in his tomb in 415.