Stephen of Chenolakkos
Our Venerable Father Stephen, Abbot of the Monastery of Chenolakkos
Venerable · d. 8th century
Commemorated 14 January — Repose; commemorated on the leavetaking of the Theophany
Stephen (eighth century) was the founder and abbot of the monastery of Chenolakkos (Greek Chēnolákkos, "the goose-pond") in Bithynia, near Chalcedon on the Asian shore opposite Constantinople. A Cappadocian by birth, he went in his youth to the monasteries of Palestine to be formed in the ascetic life, and returned to gather a community in Bithynia, governing it as a father of prayer and discernment. He is a saint of the synaxaria, remembered in a brief notice, and is commemorated on January 14, the leavetaking of the Theophany.
Of Stephen the surviving record is short. He was born in Cappadocia and drawn young to monasticism; the tradition sends him to the great monasteries of the Holy Land, where the disciplines of Palestinian cenobitic life — the inheritance of Euthymius, Sabbas, and Theodosius — were learned at their source. Returning to Asia Minor, he settled in Bithynia and founded there the monastery called Chenolakkos ("goose-pond," from a pool on the site), near Chalcedon, and became its abbot, forming his monks in the ascetic and liturgical tradition he had received. He reposed in peace in the eighth century and was numbered among the venerable fathers. Some notices style him "of Chalcedon" from the situation of his monastery, or simply "of Bithynia."
Because the sources give little beyond his origin, his Palestinian formation, his foundation of Chenolakkos, and his repose, the Church keeps his memory in the honest brevity of the synaxarion, without the embellishment a fuller record would have allowed.
Feast and commemoration
Stephen is commemorated on January 14 (church date; New Calendar civil January 14, Old Calendar civil January 27), on the leavetaking of the Theophany, among the several fathers of the day. The commemoration is kept in the Greek and Slavic synaxaria and on the OCA calendar; the festal hymns of the Theophany govern the day, and Stephen is commemorated with the common office of a venerable father.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 8
In thee, O father, was the image restored with exactness; for taking up thy cross thou didst follow Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to despise the flesh, for it passeth away, but to care for the soul, a thing immortal; wherefore thy spirit, O venerable Stephen, rejoiceth with the angels.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
No pre-modern icon proper to Stephen of Chenolakkos has been identified for storage. He would be depicted in the settled type of a venerable abbot — an aged monk in the analavos and koukoulion, holding a scroll or blessing — indistinguishable in type from the other desert fathers among whom the calendar sets him. A storable image is wanting.