Lives of the Saints
1. THE HOLY PROTOMARTYR STEPHEN THE ARCHDEACON
Stephen was a kinsman of the Apostle Paul, and a Jew of those Jews who lived in Hellenic regions. Stephen was the first of the seven deacons whom the holy apostles ordained and appointed to the ministry of helping the poor in Jerusalem. Therefore Stephen is called archdeacon. By the power of his faith Stephen performed great miracles among the people. The malicious Jews disputed with Stephen, but they were always defeated by his wisdom and the power of the Spirit who worked through Stephen. Then the shamed Jews, accustomed to slanders and calumnies, stirred up both the people and the elders of the people against innocent Stephen, slandering Stephen as though he had blasphemed against God and against Moses. They quickly found false witnesses who confirmed this. Then Stephen stood before the people, and all saw his face "as it had been the face of an angel" (Acts 6:15), that is, his face was illumined with gracious light as once Moses' was when Moses spoke with God. And Stephen opened his mouth and recounted many good works and miracles of God which God had done in the past for the people of Israel, as well as many crimes and opposition to God on the part of that people. Especially Stephen denounced them for the murder of Christ the Lord, calling them "betrayers and murderers" (Acts 7:52). And while they gnashed their teeth, Stephen looked and saw heaven opened and the glory of God. And what Stephen saw, Stephen announced to the Jews: "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God" (Acts 7:56). Then the evildoers led Stephen outside the city and killed him with stones. Among his torturers was his kinsman Saul, later the Apostle Paul. At that time the Most Holy Theotokos with Saint John the Theologian stood in the distance on a certain stone and watched the martyrdom of this first martyr for the truth of her Son and God, praying to God for Stephen. This happened one year after the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles. The body of Saint Stephen was secretly taken and buried on his estate by Gamaliel, a Jewish prince and secret Christian. Thus gloriously died this firstfruits among Christian martyrs and passed into the Kingdom of Christ God.
2. VENERABLE MARTYRS THEODORE AND THEOPHANES THE BRANDED
Theodore and Theophanes were blood brothers, natives of Palestine, very educated in worldly wisdom and in spiritual wisdom. Theodore and Theophanes were monks in the community of Saint Sabbas the Sanctified, then presbyters. They suffered cruelly for icons in the time of three emperors: Leo the Armenian, Michael Balbus and Theophilus. The mindless Theophilus beat them with his own hands, and commanded that with iron mocking verses be inscribed upon their faces, because of which they are called the Branded. They were cast into prison in the city of Apamea in Bithynia. Theodore died there from torments and wounds. Theophanes was freed in the time of Theodora and Michael, and appointed by Patriarch Methodius as Metropolitan of Nicaea. Saint Theodore died in the year 833. These wondrous brothers suffered for Christ and received a wondrous reward from Christ in the immortal kingdom of light.
“All saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.”
Hymn of Praise
Upon Stephen illumined by the Spirit
Attacked the Jews, the murderers.
Bloodied Stephen on his knees did kneel
And cried out to heaven with all his voice:
"O Lord, who from the Cross didst forgive
The greatest sin that shook the earth,
The greatest sin that heaven did see,
Who didst forgive Thy murderers,
Now also mine forgive, O Most Gracious!
What is this crime compared to that one!
And what am I compared to my Lord!"
This he spoke, and gave his spirit to God.
The angry elders, vile cowards,
When they had killed him, then they scattered.
Then angels from heaven descended
Around the body of the protomartyr,
In chorus to him a hymn they sang,
His soul to paradise they bore.
Reflection
A story about the divine Child Christ. Both great prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah, foretold that the Lord would come to Egypt, and that from His presence the idolatrous temples and idols would be shattered. Isaiah wrote: Behold, the Lord will come to Egypt and the idols of Egypt shall tremble at His presence (Isa. 19:1; Jer. 43:12). When the divine refugees arrived in the city of Hermopolis (Cairo), and there approached a certain idolatrous temple, suddenly all the idols in that temple fell and shattered. About this Saint Palladius also writes (in the Lausiac History): "We saw," he says, "there an idolatrous temple in which from the approach of the Savior all the carved (idols) fell to the earth." In a certain place called Cyrene there were 365 idols. When the Most Holy Virgin entered that temple with the divine Child in her arms, all those idols fell and shattered. Likewise idols fell everywhere throughout all Egypt. Saint Prophet Jeremiah, dwelling in his old age in Egypt, foretold to the Egyptian priests that all idols would fall and all handmade images be crushed at that time when to Egypt would come the Virgin Mother with the Child born in a manger. This prophecy the priests remembered well, and according to it they depicted on their temples the Virgin resting on a bed, and near her in a manger her Child swaddled in cloths. And they bowed down to that depiction. King Ptolemy asked the priests what that depiction signified, and they answered him that it was the fulfillment of that mystery. And that mystery truly was fulfilled and revealed not only to Egypt but to the whole world.
“Like calls forth like. The Lord Jesus, the immortal spring of living water, by His presence called forth a spring of living water from the earth.”
Contemplation
Contemplate the wisdom of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, namely:
1. How she wisely conversed with God's angel (Luke 1:28-38);
2. How she pondered all that happened concerning the birth of the Lord Jesus and all that was said about Him, and kept all these things in her heart.
3. How she in Cana wisely said to the servants to do all that He tells them.
Homily
on the Most Holy Virgin Theotokos
My soul doth magnify the Lord (Luke 1:46)
We have, brethren, only a few words recorded in the Gospel which the Most Holy Theotokos spoke. All these her words relate to the magnifying of God. She was silent toward people, but her soul unceasingly conversed with God. Every day and hour she found new reason and occasion to magnify God. If all her magnifyings of God through her whole life could be known and recorded, how many great books that would make! But even from that one magnification which she expressed before her kinswoman Elizabeth, the mother of the great prophet and Forerunner John, every Christian can appreciate what a fragrant and God-pleasing flower her most holy soul was. This is only one wondrous psalm of the soul of the Theotokos which has come down to us through the Gospel. But such psalms were many and many during the life of the Most Blessed One. Even before she heard the Gospel from the mouth of her Son, she knew how to speak to God and glorify God in a gospel manner. That knowledge came to her from the Holy Spirit of God, whose grace unceasingly poured into her as clear water into a pure vessel. She magnified God with the psalms of her soul through her whole life, therefore God also magnified her above the cherubim and seraphim. And us, small and sinful ones, the same Lord who also magnified her will magnify in His kingdom, if we also labor that this short time of our life we fill with magnifying God by deeds, words, thoughts and prayers.
O Most Holy, Most Pure and Most Blessed Theotokos, shelter us with Thy prayers. To Thee and to Thy Son and our Lord be glory and praise forever. Amen.
“She magnified God with the psalms of her soul through her whole life, therefore God also magnified her above the cherubim and seraphim.”