Hieromartyr Stephen, Pope of Rome, and Those with Him (+257)

The Hieromartyr Stephen, Pope of Rome, suffered in 257, in the reign of the Emperor Valerian (253–259). The holy father governed the Church of Rome in 253–257 and fought tirelessly against the heresy of the Novatians. During the persecution of the faithful he lived in hiding, but continued to preach Christianity and converted many pagans to the true faith. Among them was the military tribune Nemesius, who acknowledged Christ as Saviour after the hierarch miraculously healed his daughter Lucilla. Nemesius, ordained deacon, died a martyr together with his daughter: they were cut down with the sword. The steward Symphronius, who was brought to the temple of Mars to be tortured, melted the golden idol by the power of prayer. The tribune who witnessed this miracle believed in Christ together with his wife Exuperia and his son Theodulus, and was baptised. The godless burned them all in fire. Pope Stephen committed the martyrs’ holy relics to the earth. At the same time twelve pious men were beheaded: Bonus, Faustus, Maurus, Primitivus, Calumniosus, John, Exuperantius, Cyril, Theodore, Basil, Castellus, Honoratus and Tertullinus, who had been brought by the blessed hierarch to the light of the true faith. At last the pope himself was brought to the Emperor Valerian. The lawless autocrat sentenced the saint to be beheaded in the temple of Mars, but through the prayer of the blessed father a large part of the temple collapsed, and the frightened soldiers scattered. The head of the Church went to the catacombs and took refuge in the tomb of Saint Lucilla. The soldiers found him while he was preaching among the Christians, and put him to death.