Venerable Stephen, Bishop of Vladimir

Life

A disciple of Saint Theodosius of the Kiev Caves. Stephen was for a time abbot of the Kiev Caves Lavra and labored greatly for the well-ordered governance of the monastic life and for the adornment of the churches. But the enemy inflamed malice among the monks against him, so that they not only deposed him from the abbacy but also expelled him from the monastery. But God, Who does not leave the righteous long under humiliation by the unrighteous, directed the life of Venerable Stephen so that he was elected Bishop of Vladimir. As a hierarch of God, Stephen governed the Church until his old age and peacefully reposed in the Lord in the year 1094.