How St. Lawrence Became the Patron Saint of Short-Order Cooks and Comedians

"St. Lawrence distributing the treasures of the church to the poor," Bernardo Strozzi, circa 1625. Oil on canvas. Public Domain

Commentary

The Christian Church is proud of its saints. It assigns days of the year to their remembrance, adorns its buildings with their statues and paintings, and bids its followers name their children after them. Saints often become patrons of particular locations, sometimes because those were their places of origin or where they had carried out their mission. Sometimes they are chosen by a country or a city to manifest a set of virtues valued by that locale.