27-е

St. First Martyr and Archdeacon Stephen The apostles, wishing to have more time for prayers and teachings, six months after the Ascension of the Savior, elected seven approved (Acts 6:3) men and ordained them deacons. They were entrusted with the management and administration of the common estate and the care of widows and orphans, and at the altar they distributed the body and blood of the Lord (Ignatius last to the Trallians). The first of the seven deacons was Stephen, who is therefore called an archdeacon. He was distinguished by his special strength of faith and eloquence, zealously preached the word of God and pointed to the end of the law of Moses in Christ. He was accused before the Sanhedrin of blaspheming God and Moses. “We heard,” said the false witnesses, “how he said that Jesus of Nazareth would destroy this place and change the customs that Moses handed down to us” (Acts 6:14). And the high priest asked: Is this so? Stephen, in his justification, made a speech in which he outlined the history of God’s blessings to the people of Israel and exposed the people’s disloyalty to God. - “Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now become traitors and murderers - you who accepted the law through the ministry of angels and did not keep it.” Hearing this, those present in the Sanhedrin tore their hearts and gnashed their teeth at him. Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven, saw the glory of God and said: “Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” Then the crowd rushed at him, took him out of the city and began to stone him. Stephen prayed and said: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” And bending his knees, he exclaimed in a loud voice: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” And having said this, he rested. His body the very next night was taken by the Jewish teacher of the law Gamaliel and buried twenty miles from Jerusalem (see the transfer of his relics on August 2, January 4 in the cathedral of the 70). Holy Martyr and Confessor Theodore the Inscribed Brother of St. Theophan (whose memory is October 11), Theodore, who was also a monk in the Lavra of St. Savva the Sanctified, suffered with him, being a firm defender of the veneration of holy icons. When the eparch, who was entrusted with carrying out an unheard-of execution: so that shameful words would be inscribed on the faces of these brother confessors with a red-hot iron, offered them deliverance from execution if they “at least one day communed with the iconoclasts,” Theodore answered him: “This sentence is as if someone told me: I don’t demand anything from you, except that I will cut off your head one day, and then go wherever you want... Know that turning us away from orthodoxy is as difficult as moving heaven and earth from one place to another... And then he calmly submitted to torture.” The following verses in Greek were engraved on the faces of Theodore and Theophanes: “While everyone loves to visit the city, Where the pure feet of God the Word stood To restore the universe, - Appeared in an all-honorable place And these crafty vessels of superstitious delusion. Having done a lot of shameful things there They were driven out of there like apostates, But having run to the reigning city, They did not abandon their frantic violence; Therefore branded as villains on their faces They are condemned and expelled again”... 368. After languishing in prison in Constantinople, St. Theodore died in exile - in Apamea of ​​Syria c. 833 and received glorification from God shortly after his death. St. Theodore the Inscribed is also known as the writer of the Teachings. “Reflections on the Veneration of Icons” and the book “On the Orthodox Faith” are also attributed to him. Translation by Mr. Ternovsky. See Greco-Eastern Church, etc., p. 492.