Holy Protomartyr and Archdeacon Stephen

First among the seven men 'full of the Spirit and of wisdom' chosen to serve the Jerusalem church's daily distribution, Stephen was 'full of grace and power,' working wonders and confounding the synagogue debaters until false witnesses brought him before the Sanhedrin. His defense in Acts 7 — the longest speech in the book — retells Israel's whole story as a history of resisting the Spirit, and ends with the vision that sealed his death: 'I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.' Dragged outside the city and stoned, he died echoing his Master: 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them' — while a young man named Saul guarded the killers' cloaks. The Church honors him as protomartyr and archdeacon on the third day of the Nativity feast. The reported finding of his relics in 415 spread his veneration through the whole empire.