Monk Martyr and Confessor Stephen the New

Saints commemorated

Saint of the day

Monk Martyr and Confessor Stephen the New

Stephen the New (c. 715–764) was the foremost martyr of the second period of iconoclasm and the great monastic witness against the emperor Constantine V Copronymus. An ascetic and abbot of Mount Saint Auxentius near Chalcedon, he became the acknowledged leader of the defenders of the holy icons after the iconoclast Council of Hieria (754), refusing every bribe and threat to make him subscribe to it. Imprisoned, exiled, and at last handed to a mob, he was dragged through the streets of Constantinople and beaten to death on 28 November 764. Because his confession joined the ascetic and the martyric crowns, the Church styles him "monastic-martyr and confessor," and his Life became one of the principal documents of the whole iconoclast controversy.
Irenarchus of Sebaste and the Seven Women

Irenarchus was a young man of Sebaste in Armenia who, during the persecution of Diocletian, served the imprisoned and tortured Christians and was moved to confess Christ himself when he saw seven women endure their torments without flinching. Baptised and made bold by grace, he passed through trials of fire and water and was beheaded together with the seven holy women about the year 303. He is commemorated on November 28 with the seven women who won him to the faith, and shares the day with the great iconodule Stephen the New.

British Isles and Ireland

St. Fionnchu, successor of St. Comgall (6th C)

Troparia & kontakia

Kontakion — Tone 4

Today the Church keeps a joyful feast in your memory, and faithfully extolling you cries aloud: O divine Stephen, boast of the venerable.

Troparion — Tone 4

Your martyr Irenarchus, O Lord, in his contest received the crown of incorruption from you, our God; for possessed of your strength, he cast down the tyrants and broke the feeble insolence of the demons. By his prayers save our souls.

Troparion — Tone 4

Having trained yourself beforehand in asceticism on the mountain, with the whole armour of the Cross you laid low the invisible battle-lines of the enemy, O all-blessed one; and again you stripped for the contest manfully, slaying Copronymus with the sword of faith. For both crowns you were crowned by God, O monastic-martyr Stephen of everlasting memory.

Readings

Epistle

1 Thessalonians 2.9-14

⁹For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail: for labouring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God. ¹⁰Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe: ¹¹As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children, ¹²That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory. ¹³For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. ¹⁴For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews:

Gospel

Luke 20.9-18

⁹Then began he to speak to the people this parable; A certain man planted a vineyard, and let it forth to husbandmen, and went into a far country for a long time. ¹⁰And at the season he sent a servant to the husbandmen, that they should give him of the fruit of the vineyard: but the husbandmen beat him, and sent him away empty. ¹¹And again he sent another servant: and they beat him also, and entreated him shamefully, and sent him away empty. ¹²And again he sent a third: and they wounded him also, and cast him out. ¹³Then said the lord of the vineyard, What shall I do? I will send my beloved son: it may be they will reverence him when they see him. ¹⁴But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, This is the heir: come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours. ¹⁵So they cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him. What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard do unto them? ¹⁶He shall come and destroy these husbandmen, and shall give the vineyard to others. And when they heard it, they said, God forbid. ¹⁷And he beheld them, and said, What is this then that is written, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner? ¹⁸Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.

Saints commemorated