Saint Stephen the First Christian Martyr

 

 

Saint Stephen’s Day, or the feast of Saint Stephen, is a Christian saint’s day commemorating Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr celebrated on 26 December in the Latin Church and 27 December in Eastern Christianity.

Saint Stephen was born in AD 5 and died AD 34 aged twenty nine, in Jerusalem, Judaea, Roman Empire.

Stephen, (the name in Greek means wreath or crown), thought to have been born an Hellenistic Jew, one of seven deacons appointed by the Apostles to hand out food and help the poor and needy, first mentioned in Acts, the fifth book of the New Testament, is said to have had great faith and performed miracles.

According to the book of Acts, the Synagogue of the Libertines or Synagogue of the Freedmen, a group of Hellenistic Jews, challenged the works, teachings and ‘miracles’ of Saint Stephen accusing him of blasphemy against God and Moses.

Stephen was ordered to appear before the Sanhedrin (Greek: Συνέδριον, synedrion, ‘sitting together’), an assembly or council of  twenty-three or seventy-one elders (rabbis), selected to sit as a tribunal in every city in the ancient Land of Israel.

 

Speech to the Sanhedrin

 

 

In a long and heated speech before the Sanhedrin, Stephen aired his views on the history of Israel, the Israelite’s defiance against God and their worship of other gods.

this resulted in the Sanhedrin accusing Stephen of declaring that Jesus would destroy the Temple in Jerusalem and that he had distorted the customs of Moses.

Stephen retaliated by calling his accusers close minded men, whose ancestors resisted the Holy Spirit and killed prophets who foresaw the coming of Jesus, whom they had now betrayed and killed.

 

The Stoning of Stephen

 

After hearing Stephen’s so-called blasphemous rant, the crowd went wild, and as Stephen raised his eyes towards heaven and cried out ‘Look! I see heaven open and the recently executed Son of Man standing on the right hand of God!’, the first stone was cast.

 

 

As stones rained down on him, with his last dying breath, Stephen prayed to God, asking Him to receive his spirit and to forgive his murderers.

One man amongst the crowd, who agreed with the stoning to death of Stephen, was Saul of Tarsus, (later known as the Apostle Paul).

The precise location of Stephen’s stoning is not mentioned in Acts but there are two suggestions claimed by noted French archaeologists, Louis-Hugues Vincent (1872–1960) and Félix-Marie Abel (1878–1953), one places the event at Jerusalem’s northern gate, while another one locates it at the eastern gate.

 

Tomb and relics of Stephen

 

In 415 AD, a priest named Lucian, said he saw in a dream, that Stephen’s remains were to be found at Beit Jimal, a Catholic monastery near Beit Shemesh, Israel, where, in a cave is the tomb of St. Stephen.

 

 

These remains were reportedly recovered  on 26 December  415 AD (making it the date for the feast of Saint Stephen) and  were removed, at the orders of John, Bishop of Jerusalem and taken to the Church of Hagia Sion on Mount Zion; the site of today’s Abbey of the Dormition.

After excavations carried out by Andrzej Strus it is accepted, that in Byzantine times this was considered to be the burial site of St Stephen.

In 439 the relics were transported to a new church north of the Damascus Gate, built by Empress Aelia Eudocia, in honor of Saint Stephen. (This church was destroyed in the 12th century.)

 A 20th-century French Catholic church; Saint-Étienne, was built in its place and the Greek Orthodox Church of St Stephen was built outside the eastern gate of the city.

It is said that this is the site of Stephen’s martyrdom, not the northern location outside Damascus Gate.

 

 

 

The Crusaders originally named the main northern gate of Jerusalem ‘Saint Stephen’s Gate’ but when Christian pilgrims were prohibited from drawing close to the northern city wall, the name ‘Saint Stephen’s Gate’, also The Lion’s Gate, was given to the accessible eastern gate, which bears this name until this day.

 

 

The right arm of Saint Stephen is said to be housed at the Holy Trinity of St. Sergius Lavra, founded by St. Sergius of Radonezh in 1345, at Sergiyev Posad, Russia.

 

 

 

Saint Stephen’s Purse is a rectangular, gold 9th century reliquary, studded with gem stones that is part of the Imperial Regalia of the Holy Roman Empire.

 It consists of a purse containing soil soaked with the blood of St. Stephen.

 It is kept in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Austria.

 

 

A Christmas Carol for Saint Stephen’s day

 

 

“Good King Wenceslas” is a Christmas carol which tells a story of a Bohemian king going on a journey and braving harsh winter weather to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen.

During the journey, his page is about to give up the struggle against the cold weather but is enabled to continue by following the king’s footprints, step for step, through the deep snow.

The legend is based on the life of the historical Saint Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia  (907–935).

In 1853, English hymn writer John Mason Neale wrote the “Wenceslas” lyrics, in collaboration with his music editor Thomas Helmore, and it first appeared in Carols for Christmas-Tide, published by Novello & Co in 1853.

 

Related links:

Saints and Celebrations of the Greek Orthodox Church