Stephen the Wonderworker
Our Venerable Father Stephen the Wonderworker, Abbot of Triglia
Venerable · Confessor · Wonderworker · d. 9th century
Commemorated 28 March — Commemoration of the abbot and confessor
Stephen was a monk and abbot of the monastery of Triglia (or, in some notices, of the Chenolakkos community), a wonderworker who confessed the veneration of the holy icons during the Iconoclast persecution and reposed in peace after much affliction. He is honoured among the venerable confessors of the day of Hilarion of Pelekete.
The surviving notice of Stephen is brief. Formed in the monastic discipline from youth, he was granted the gift of wonderworking — the healing of the sick and the casting-out of demons — by which many were drawn to the faith. In the years of the war on the holy images he held fast to the Orthodox confession, that the honour of the icon passes to its prototype, and for this he suffered the loss of his peace, enduring hardship and perhaps exile at the hands of the Iconoclasts. Persevering to the end, he fell asleep in the Lord and was numbered among the confessors.
Feast and commemoration
March 28 (church date; Old Calendar civil April 10), within Great Lent, kept with Hilarion the New of Pelekete.
Not to be confused with Stephen of Mar Sabbas (†794, July 13), the nephew of John of Damascus, who bears the identical epithet the Wonderworker in the Palestinian tradition, nor with Stephen the Hymnographer (October 28) of the same Lavra.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable confessor)
In thee, O Father, was preserved unimpaired that which is according to God's image; for taking up the Cross thou didst follow after 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, O venerable Stephen, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Stephen is shown as a monk in the schema, holding a scroll. No pre-1900 icon of him alone has been identified for this collection.