Venerable Martyr Stephen the Newer

Life

Just as once Anna the mother of Samuel, so also Anna the mother of Stephen prayed to God that God would give her a son. Praying thus once in the church of Blachernae before the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, a light sleep overtook her, in which she saw the Most Holy Virgin, shining like the sun, and heard a voice from her: "Go, woman, in peace; according to thy prayer thou hast a son in thy womb." And indeed Anna conceived and bore a son, this holy Stephen. In his sixteenth year Stephen received the monastic tonsure on Mount Auxentius near Constantinople from the elder John, from whom he learned divine wisdom and asceticism. And when the elder John reposed in the Lord, Stephen remained on that mountain, struggling strictly and adding labor to labor. His holiness attracted many disciples to him. When Emperor Constantine Copronymus persecuted icons even more fiercely than his vile father Leo the Isaurian, Stephen showed himself as a zealous defender of the veneration of holy icons. The senseless emperor received various vile slanders against Stephen, and himself devised various intrigues, only that he might break Stephen and remove him from his path. Stephen was exiled to the island of Proconnesus, then brought to Constantinople, chained and thrown into prison, where 342 imprisoned monks met him, brought from various regions and cast into prison because of icon veneration. In prison they fulfilled all the church rule as in a monastery. The wicked emperor condemned Stephen to death. The saint foresaw his death forty days beforehand and said farewell to the brethren. The emperor's servants dragged him from prison and beating him and jerking him they dragged him through the streets of Constantinople, calling upon all who were with the emperor to strike with stones "the emperor's enemy." Someone among the heretics struck the saint on the head with a piece of wood, and the saint expired. Just as Saint Stephen the Protomartyr suffered from the Jews, so also this Stephen suffered from the iconoclast heretics. This glorious soldier of Christ suffered in 767 in the fifty-third year of his earthly life, and was crowned with unfading glory.

From the Hymn of Praise

Namesake of the first StephenStephen the Newer gave his life in combat.The proud heretic emperor, sheer crude force,Armed to the teeth with outward weapons,