MARTYR STEPHEN THE YOUNGER

Saint Stephen the Younger (715-767) was a martyr of the iconoclastic persecution. It is known that in 754, Emperor Constantine V Copronymos (741-775) convened the episcopate of the Byzantine Empire for an Ecumenical Council. The icon veneration was condemned, and the defenders of icons, Saint John of Damascus (675-753) and others, were anathematized. Later, this council was recognized as false and called “robber” (latrocinium). But at that time, it formally acted on behalf of the Church, and therefore was a great scandal.

Among those who did not recognize the decree of the iconoclastic Council was Saint Stephen. The abbot of the monastery on Mount Auxentius, one of the four monastic republics of Byzantium, of which only Athos has survived to this day, Stephen openly spoke out against the emperor’s iconoclastic policy. For this, his monastery was destroyed, and Stephen himself was arrested. He was exiled to the islands of the Sea of ​​Marmara. But the fate of the confessor attracted disciples to him. So that in the prisons where the saint was, new monastic communities arose.

Eventually, the confessor was kidnapped by soldiers and died in agony, when his body, in a truly apocalyptic blindness, was dragged through the streets of the city (cf. Rev. 11:8). This happened on December 11 (November 28), 764, that is, exactly 1260 years ago. The saint was a spiritual leader, he possessed the gifts of grace. But he entered the memory of the Church with the name “Stephen the Younger”. In the tradition of venerating saints, such an addition to the name is made to immediately indicate which of the saints with the same name lived earlier in time, and to point out a very definite similarity in their image of holiness. Like the First Martyr Stephen, whose suffering is described in the Book of Apostolic Acts, Stephen the New innocently and cruelly suffered for the Lord Jesus from his brothers and fellow tribesmen.

Icons are given to orthodox christians at birth and baptism, they are also placed in the tomb. This is how a person is accompanied in anticipation of the “resurrection of the flesh”, as the Apostles’ Creed speaks of the general resurrection. On the day of remembrance of St. Stephen the Younger, we have a blessed opportunity to look at sacred images in a new way. We remember, or rather, learn anew, at what a high price the veneration of icons in churches was preserved. It turns out that Stephen can be called “Younger” not only in imitation of Stephen the First Martyr, but also for the grace of seeing icons, acquiring a “younger”, supernatural view.