Venerable Martyr Stephen the New (+768)
The Venerable Martyr Stephen the New was born in 715 in Constantinople, into a family of pious Christians. His parents had two daughters and fervently besought the Lord to grant them a son. When their request was granted, the grateful mother brought the newborn Stephen to the Church of the Theotokos at Blachernae to be dedicated.
The Emperor Leo the Isaurian (717–741) began to persecute the holy icons and those who venerated them. With his support the partisans of the iconoclast heresy rose to power in the empire. Persecuted by the mighty of this world, Orthodoxy was preserved only far from the capital, in monasteries, in secluded cells, and in the hearts of its courageous and faithful followers. Heavy of soul at the growing lawlessness, Saint Stephen’s Orthodox parents left Constantinople and moved to Bithynia, and gave their sixteen-year-old son as a novice to the blessed John, who laboured in solitude on the Mount of Saint Auxentius. Stephen cut off his own will, entrusted the care of his soul entirely to his grace-filled teacher, and for fifteen years diligently learned the monastic life from him. Here the saint was told that his father had died, and that his mother and sisters had become nuns.
Some time later Stephen’s teacher, the blessed John, committed his soul to the Lord. The grieving saint reverently committed his precious body to the earth, and himself continued his labours in his teacher’s cave. Soon monks who wished to labour under his guidance came to the venerable father. So a monastery was founded, of which Saint Stephen became hegumen. At the age of forty-two Stephen left his monastery and shut himself up in a small cell in a secluded place, but in a short time a brotherhood gathered here too.
On the imperial throne Leo the Isaurian was succeeded by Constantine Copronymus (741–775), a still more furious persecutor of Orthodoxy. The lawless autocrat convened a council of iconoclasts, which was attended by three hundred and thirty-eight bishops from the eastern provinces. Apart from Constantine, Patriarch of Constantinople, who had been unlawfully enthroned on the chief shepherd’s throne through Copronymus’s efforts, all the heads of the Churches refused to take part in the unlawful proceedings of this council; but those gathered still called themselves an ecumenical council. The false council of the heretics declared icons to be idols and called the veneration of icons a heresy.
Meanwhile Saint Stephen’s monastery and its hegumen became known in the capital too. The emperor was especially enraged that the veneration of icons was openly upheld in the monastery. Archbishop Constantine realised that in the person of Hegumen Stephen his iconoclast designs had a strong and irreconcilable opponent.
By the autocrat’s order Saint Stephen was first thrown into prison, and then exiled to one of the islands of the Sea of Marmara. The venerable father settled in a cave, where his disciples soon gathered too. Some time later the blessed one left his brotherhood and took up the labour of a stylite. The report of Saint Stephen and of the miracles worked through his prayers spread throughout the empire, and this strengthened the spirit of the Orthodox faith among the people.
The emperor gave orders for Stephen to be transferred to the prison on the island of Pharos, and then brought before the tribunal. The saint boldly refuted the vain wisdom of the heretic judges, explained the dogmatic meaning of the veneration of icons, and proved to the iconoclasts that insulting the holy icons was blasphemy against the Saviour Himself and the Theotokos. He showed the judges a coin bearing the emperor’s image and asked them what they would do to a man who trampled it underfoot. They answered the saint that such a man would certainly be put to death for insulting the king’s image. Then the blessed Stephen said: a still greater punishment awaits him who insults the icons of the King of heaven and of His saints; and he threw the coin on the ground.
The lawless emperor ordered the saint to be taken back to prison, where three hundred and forty-two monks condemned for venerating icons were already shut up. The saint spent eighteen months in the prison. He comforted his fellow prisoners, prayed with them, and often sang the troparion of the Icon of the Saviour Not Made by Hands.
When the godless autocrat learned that the blessed father had made a monastery even in prison, he sent two of his favourite servants, twin brothers, to kill him. On entering the cell the brothers saw the face of the God-pleaser shining with an unearthly light; they fell at his feet and asked him for forgiveness of their sins and to remember them in his prayers. On their return they reported to the king that they had carried out the order, but the emperor learned the truth and resorted to yet another lie: he announced to his soldiers that Stephen wanted to overthrow him from his throne, and sent them to kill the saint. The blessed confessor himself came out to meet the soldiers, who fell upon him furiously and dragged him to the city square with merciless beating and abuse. One of the executioners struck the martyr on the head with a beam and killed him. Even so the lawless ones, beside themselves, did not calm down: they went on dragging the lifeless body of the Lord’s chosen one through the streets, throwing stones at it and insulting it. One Orthodox believer gathered the saint’s brain, spilt on the pavement, into a clean cloth and kept it with reverence. By the emperor’s order the blessed one’s body was thrown into a pit dug in the foundations of a ruined church, among the bodies of other Orthodox. This happened on 28 November 768. The next morning a fiery cloud stood over the Mount of Auxentius, and then darkness fell on the capital, a storm arose, hail came down, and many of the godless perished.
