Laurence of Naples

Laurence of Naples was bishop of Naples from 701 to 717. Our sources call him a saint honoured in the Roman Catholic Church, do not say that he has any Orthodox canonization and give him no feast day in the menaion. Very little is known of him, chiefly from the chronicle of the bishops of Naples, written by an unknown author at the turn of the eighth and ninth centuries.

Bishop of Naples

The main source about him is the first part of the Deeds of the Bishops of Naples, written at the turn of the eighth and ninth centuries by an anonymous author. No information has been preserved about his origin and early years. He ascended the episcopal throne of Naples after the death, in 701, of Saint Julian. Almost nothing is known of his rule. The Liber Pontificalis says that under this bishop Pope Constantine visited Naples in October 710, where he met the new exarch of Ravenna, John III Rizocopus, then continued his journey to Constantinople, to the court of the Byzantine emperor Justinian II.

The Deeds of the Bishops of Naples also record that in the middle of the 710s a severe epidemic of bubonic plague raged in Campania, killing a man in three days. The dead were so many that in Naples there were not enough people to bury those who had just died. Many of the remaining Neapolitans fled the city to the nearby islands to escape the plague. Probably because of the plague, Bishop Laurence was unable, in 717, to bless the Neapolitan army setting out for Cumae, and this had to be done by the priest Sergius. In reward for this service, Duke John I promised Sergius to help him be named bishop of Naples.

Death and veneration

Laurence died at the end of 717, having headed the diocese of Naples for fifteen years, eight months and twenty-⁠six days. He was succeeded, at the request of Duke John I, by the priest Sergius. This election was the first known from the sources of interference by the secular rulers of Naples in the election of local bishops. Soon after his death Laurence began to be venerated as a saint by the Neapolitans. Today his relics are kept beneath the altar of the cathedral of Naples, together with the remains of the bishops Julian, Sergius I and Athanasius I.