Protomartyr Stephen
Commemoration. A commemoration with its own hymns at Vespers.
Commemorated today
- Holy First Martyr and Archdeacon StephenMartyr life on this site
The life we have written
Holy Protomartyr and Archdeacon Stephen
Appointed to hand out food fairly, and killed for a sermon about a building — the first Christian to die for the Name, with Saul of Tarsus watching the coats.
- Era
- First century, died about AD 34–36
- Region
- Jerusalem
- Category
- Protomartyr and Archdeacon
- Principal feast for this profile
- December 27
- Our Righteous Father Theodore the Branded, brother of St Theophanes the HymnographerRighteous
What is known
The righteous are lay men and women commemorated for holiness in ordinary life rather than for martyrdom or monastic vows.
Beyond this, no life of them survives that could be checked — which is true of most of the saints kept on any given day. The commemoration is the record.
- Theodore, Patriarch of ConstantinopleHierarch
What is known
A hierarch is a bishop — including patriarchs, metropolitans and archbishops. The Church commemorates bishops in this rank whether they are remembered chiefly for teaching, for governing, or for holding a see through a difficult century.
The title places them at Constantinople.
Beyond this, no life of them survives that could be checked — which is true of most of the saints kept on any given day. The commemoration is the record.
Appointed readings
About this page. This is the Menaion date — the fixed calendar. Parishes on the New Calendar keep it on December 27 by the civil calendar. On the Julian calendar this same commemoration is kept on January 9 by the civil calendar. The movable cycle, which turns on the date of Pascha and changes every year, is on the calendar page. Where a life has been written on this site the name links to it; where it has not, only what the commemoration itself attests is shown, and nothing is added to it.