Lives of the Saints
1. VENERABLE MARTYR STEPHEN THE NEWER
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.
2. HOLY NEW-MARTYR CHRISTO
Christo was an Albanian Christian, settled in Constantinople, a gardener by occupation. While selling his vegetables he offended a certain Turk, who slandered him before the court, claiming that he had promised to become a Muslim but then denied it. After interrogation he was chained and thrown into prison. In prison someone offered him food, which Christo refused, saying: "Better that I appear hungry before my Christ." Then he drew out a bundle of money that he had under his belt and gave it to one of the prisoners, with the request that for this several memorial liturgies be served for him. He was beheaded by the Turks in 1748 and glorified forever in the kingdom of Christ God.
3. VENERABLE ANNA
Anna was a noblewoman who, after her husband's death, was tonsured into monasticism by Saint Stephen the Newer. Emperor Copronymus urged her to say that she had had forbidden bodily relations with Saint Stephen, that he might thus humiliate Stephen before the people. But this holy woman in no way wished to enter into this imperial intrigue against the saint, whom she honored as her spiritual father. For this she was flogged, and then thrown into prison, where she gave up her holy soul to God.
4. HOLY BLESSED EMPEROR MAURICE
Maurice was executed with five of his sons by Emperor Phocas in 602.
“Better that I appear hungry before my Christ.”
Hymn of Praise
Namesake of the first Stephen
Stephen the Newer gave his life in combat.
The proud heretic emperor, sheer crude force,
Armed to the teeth with outward weapons,
Stephen's weapon – non-bodily power,
Spiritual weapon, heavenly truth.
The emperor has soldiers, defenders of lies,
And Stephen is blessed with the invisible God.
Peaceful as heaven Stephen awaits torments,
Death, and eternal life after this age.
And the emperor rages and thunders, in his wrath
Prescribes death with torments for the righteous man.
Stephen is not troubled, both beaten and bound,
By spirit and prayer bound to heaven.
The emperor stronger than body, crushes the saint's body,
The saint stronger in spirit, finishes with victory.
O holy Stephen, spiritual knight,
Help us to avoid the enemy's snares,
And to honor holy icons holily,
To follow always thy wondrous example.
“The emperor stronger than body, crushes the saint's body; the saint stronger in spirit, finishes with victory.”
Reflection
Reading examples of the steadfastness in faith and magnanimity of God's saints, we too become steadfast in faith and magnanimous. When Copronymus's men urged Saint Stephen to renounce icon veneration and thereby please the iconoclast emperor, Stephen stretched out his hand, clenched his fist, and said: "If I had in me only one single fist of blood, I would shed it too for Christ's icon." Emperor Maurice had six sons, of whom the sixth and youngest was still a nursing infant. For this youngest son of his the emperor kept in the court a special wet nurse who fed him. A heavy fate befell Emperor Maurice: Phocas overthrew him from the throne and condemned him to death together with all six of his sons. Before Maurice's eyes his sons were killed one after another. When the wet nurse was to give the emperor's sixth son to be executed, she magnanimously took pity on the fate of the unfortunate emperor and his children, and in a moment resolved to preserve at least that one son of the emperor in life. Therefore when they demanded the emperor's son from her breast, she substituted her own little son, and he was beheaded. Finally Emperor Maurice was beheaded also. The youngest son of Emperor Maurice grew up considering his wet nurse to be his mother. But when the wet nurse revealed the whole secret to him, he became very serious, and resolutely left the world and withdrew to Mount Sinai, where he became a monk and dedicated himself to God, that by this deed of his he might sanctify that innocent youth who was cast into death in his place.
Contemplation
Contemplate the wondrous Paradise of God, namely:
1. How it was a kingdom of innocence, purity, and righteousness;
2. How there was not even a trace of illness and death, since there was not even a thought of sin.
Homily
on how the faithful should grow
But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ (Eph. 4:15)
Behold all that is required of us, brethren, on this earthly journey: that we hold to the truth and that we live in love. Truth was revealed by Christ the Lord, and the example of love was given in Christ the Lord. Neither can one come to the truth apart from Christ the Lord, nor can one find an example of true love apart from Him. Seeing this one true path to light and salvation in the tangle of many false paths, the Apostle Paul warns beforehand: that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine (4:14). Only God can reveal truth, only God can show true love. One man may know more than another man, but only God can reveal truth. Thoughts come to man like wind, and phantoms seem to him to be truth. Deceived by his own thoughts, one man deceives another man; deluded by phantoms, one man deludes another man. But truth is in God and from God. Christ is, brethren, all our truth and all our love. When we think Christ, we think truth; when we act according to Christ, we act well; when we love Christ, we love love. By Christ we live, by Christ we grow, by Christ we are immortalized and glorified. He is our head – not merely the chief of a society but the actual head of a living body, of which we are members. Holding to truth and love, we are counted worthy to dwell eternally in that body of Christ.
O Christ the Lord, wondrous truth and most dear love of ours, come into us and receive us into Thyself. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
“Only God can reveal truth, only God can show true love. Thoughts come to man like wind, and phantoms seem to him to be truth.”