The Life
Stephen was the first Christian to give his life for the Lord Jesus Christ. He was about thirty years old, only a year or two after the Resurrection and Pentecost. He was one of the seven deacons that the Apostles had appointed to look after the practical needs of the growing Church in Jerusalem. He was also a great preacher, full of the Holy Spirit, and his preaching could not be answered by his opponents. They brought him before the Sanhedrin on false charges. He gave a great speech, looked up and saw the heavens opened with the Lord Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and was dragged out of the city and stoned to death. As he died, he prayed for his killers: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”
In the first year or two after Pentecost, the Church in Jerusalem grew so quickly that the Apostles could not keep up with everything. There were Hellenistic Jewish widows who were being neglected in the daily distribution of food. The Apostles called the disciples together and said: it is not right for us to leave the preaching of the word to wait on tables. Choose seven men, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, and we will appoint them for this work. The community chose seven. Stephen was named first — “a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 6:5). The Apostles laid hands on the seven and prayed. This was the beginning of the diaconate in the Church.
Stephen did not stay quietly behind the food tables. The Holy Spirit moved through him powerfully. He worked great signs and wonders among the people. When the Hellenistic Jews of the synagogue tried to debate him, they could not stand against the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke. They could not refute his arguments. They could not answer his Scripture. So they did what is done so often when arguments fail — they brought false witnesses against him and accused him of blasphemy.
They brought Stephen before the Sanhedrin — the same court that had condemned the Lord Jesus Christ a year or two earlier. The witnesses gave their false testimony. The high priest looked at Stephen and asked: “Are these things so?” Then Stephen stood up to answer. The whole council was looking at him — and they saw his face. Acts says it directly: his face was “as it had been the face of an angel” (Acts 6:15). His face was illumined with the light of grace, the same light that had shone from Moses’s face when he came down from Mount Sinai. He opened his mouth and gave the longest speech in the entire book of Acts — a sweeping tour through the whole history of Israel.
As he was speaking, Stephen looked up. He saw the heavens opened. He saw the glory of God. He saw the Lord Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father. He cried out: “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God!” At that, his accusers could not bear any more. They cried out with a loud voice, covered their ears, and rushed at him with one accord.
They dragged Stephen out of the city and began to throw stones at him. The witnesses, in keeping with Jewish law, threw the first stones. They had laid down their cloaks at the feet of a young Pharisee named Saul of Tarsus, who was approving of the killing. As the stones rained down on him, Stephen prayed. He cried out: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and called out with a loud voice: “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
These are the last words of Saint Stephen. He had been knocked down. The stones were still falling. He knelt and prayed two short prayers — one for himself, one for his killers. Then he fell asleep. The Church has loved these two prayers for two thousand years because they are the perfect pattern of how a Christian dies. The first prayer entrusts the soul to the Lord. The second prays for the killers. Both echo the Lord’s own words on the Cross. The first martyr died exactly the way his Master died.
After the stoning, Stephen’s body was left outside the city to be eaten by birds and beasts. But the Pharisee Gamaliel — the same Gamaliel who had been Saul’s teacher and who had spoken cautiously about the Christians at an earlier hearing — secretly came at night with his son Abibus, took up the body, and buried it on his estate at Caphargamala. The grave was forgotten for centuries. In the year 415, Gamaliel appeared three times in visions to a priest named Lucian and showed him the location. The relics were uncovered. They were translated first to Jerusalem, then to Constantinople, and have been venerated by the Church for over sixteen hundred years.
Stephen matters to every Orthodox Christian because he goes first. Every Christian who has ever died for the Lord follows in his footsteps. He showed us how it is done: faithful daily service in small things, fearless witness when the time comes, conscious entrusting of the soul to the Lord Jesus, and a real prayer for the killers. He is also the great patron of deacons, of preachers, of those whose faces shine in the moments of testing, and of every soul that has ever stood alone before a hostile council and not flinched. His feast on the third day of Christmas is one of the great gifts of the Orthodox liturgical year: “Yesterday the Master came to us in the flesh; today his servant departs in the flesh.”