Saint Stephen

First Martyr (Feast)

Feast Day

December 26

Life

d. 36

Born

uncertain (a Hellenistic Jewish background)

Stephen, called the Protomartyr (the first martyr) of the Church, is the chief subject of Acts 6 and 7. He was one of the seven men full of the Spirit and of wisdom whom the apostles, in response to a complaint from the Hellenist (Greek-speaking Jewish) Christians of Jerusalem that their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution, set apart by prayer and the laying on of hands - the action universally identified by Catholic tradition as the institution of the diaconate. Stephen worked great wonders and signs among the people and engaged in disputation with members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen, who, unable to refute him, suborned witnesses to accuse him of speaking against the Temple and the Law (Acts 6:11-14).

Brought before the Sanhedrin, Stephen delivered the speech that occupies all of Acts 7: a sweeping rehearsal of Israel's history showing that God's saving action consistently broke out beyond the bounds of land and Temple, climaxing in the indictment of his hearers as the betrayers and murderers of the Just One. As they raged, Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:55). They cast him out of the city and stoned him; the Pharisee Saul of Tarsus is named as consenting to his execution and guarding the cloaks of the executioners. Stephen's last words echo Christ's own from the cross: Lord, do not hold this sin against them (Acts 7:60). His martyrdom is dated traditionally to about AD 34-36. His placement on the day after Christmas is ancient: he is the first of the comites Christi (companions of Christ) of the Christmas Octave - the first martyr who follows the newborn King by the witness of his blood.