medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Stephen the Younger (Stephen the New; d. perh. 764), perhaps the most prominent victim of Byzantine first iconoclasm, has a Bios of ca. 809 by a deacon of Constantinople who also was named Stephen (BHG 1666). A native of that city, he had been an hermit before entering the monastery of St. Auxentius on the homonymous mountain in Bithynia (now Kaish Dagh near Kadiköy in the Asiatic portion of Istanbul). Stephen was hegumen there when in 762 the emperor Constantine V requested that he observe the anti-iconophile canons of the council of Hieria of 753. Stephen's refusal brought him exile on Proconnesus but in 763 he was brought back to Constantinople, imprisoned, and later executed -- reportedly by clubbing after he had been dragged through the streets -- for organizing monastic resistance among his fellow prisoners.
Today (28. November) is Stephen's traditional _dies natalis_ (the chronicler Theophanes gives it as 20. November). In the tenth-century Metaphrastic Menologion Stephen is the saint of the day for 28. November; in the originally tenth-century Synaxary of Constantinople he has this day's first entry (shared with Andrew in Crisi and with Peter of Blachernae). Modern churches using the Byzantine Rite likewise celebrate him on 28. November and this is also his day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology.
Some period-pertinent images of St. Stephen the Younger:
a) as depicted (at center in foreground; martyrdom; the other two martyrs here are Andrew in Crisi and Peter of Blachernae [or of Constantinople]) in the late tenth- or very early eleventh-century so-called Menologion of Basil II (Città del Vaticano, BAV, cod. Vat. gr. 1613, p. 210):
http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1613/0232
http://tinyurl.com/htuu3l5
b) as depicted in the earlier eleventh-century mosaics (restored between 1953 and 1962) in the transept of the katholikon in the monastery of Hosios Loukas (St. Luke of Stiria) near Distomo in Phokis:
http://tinyurl.com/zjg9z3z
c) as depicted in the mid-eleventh-century mosaics of the katholikon of the Nea Moni on Chios:
http://tinyurl.com/24fzwtv
d) Stephen the Younger (at far right) as depicted in a late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century fresco in the Palaia Enkleistra ('Old Hermitage') in the St. Neophytus monastery at Tala (Paphos prefecture) in the Republic of Cyprus (for a clearer view, click on the image):
http://tinyurl.com/c4bzm6k
Another view (the saint at left is Paisius the Great):
http://tinyurl.com/d7r5f6k
e) as depicted in an originally early thirteenth-century fresco (1208 or 1209), carefully repainted in 1569, in the church of the Presentation of the Theotokos in the Studenica monastery near Kraljevo (Raška dist.) in Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/25zvj8g
f) as depicted (at left; at right, St. Cosmas the Melode) as depicted in the earlier thirteenth-century frescoes (1230s) in the narthex of the church of the Ascension in the Mileševa monastery near Prijepolje (Zlatibor dist.) in Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/2arb8f4
Detail view (Stephen):
http://tinyurl.com/2f2p3q4
g) as depicted (at left) in the later thirteenth-century frescoes (ca. 1263-1270) in the proskomede area of the monastery church of the Holy Trinity at Sopoćani (Raška dist.) in Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/339w2fw
h) as depicted (at right; at left, St. Chariton, abbot in Palestine) by Eutychios and Michael Astrapas in the late thirteenth-century frescoes (ca. 1295) in the church of the Peribleptos (now Sv. Kliment Ohridski) in Ohrid:
http://tinyurl.com/zw36kj5
Detail views:
http://tinyurl.com/jehy8uc
http://tinyurl.com/z7blj5m
i) as depicted (at far right, preceded by Sts. Sabas of Jerusalem and Theodore the Stoudite) by Michael Astrapas and Eutychios in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (ca. 1308-1320) in the church of St. Nicetas the Goth (Sv. Nikita) at Čučer in today's Čučer-Sandevo in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110067756467697073060/album/5245719451287580257/5245721132457294642
Detail views:
http://tinyurl.com/znu7898
https://plus.google.com/photos/110067756467697073060/album/5245719451287580257/5245721518969868498
j) as depicted (at right; at left, St. Theodore the Stoudite) in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (ca. 1312-1321) in the parecclesion of St. Nicholas in the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/ygactox
Detail view (Stephen):
http://tinyurl.com/c3o7v6a
k) as depicted (at left; at right, St. Theodore the Stoudite) by Michael Astrapas and Eutychios in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1313 and 1318; conservation work in 1968) in the church of St. George at Staro Nagoričane in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/zmhtsmv
Detail view (Stephen):
http://tinyurl.com/pu2hkta
l) as depicted (at right; at left, St. Sabas of Jerusalem) in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1317 and 1324) in the nave of the church of St. Demetrius in the Patriarchate of Peć at Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/23k2734
Detail views (Stephen the Younger):
http://tinyurl.com/yhgvgrg
http://tinyurl.com/3xyt9pt
m) as depicted (upper register in the panel at lower right; martyrdom) in an earlier fourteenth-century pictorial menologion from Thessaloniki (betw. 1322 and 1340; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Gr. th. f. 1, fol. 18v):
http://image.ox.ac.uk/images/bodleian/msgrthf1/18v.jpg
n) as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century fresco (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the south choir of the church of the Holy Ascension in the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/3clrwby
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/3nnj2y4
o) as depicted (lower register; martyrdom; upper register: other iconophile martyrs) as depicted in a November calendar composition in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the narthex of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/yaz9c64
p) as depicted in the later fourteenth-century frescoes (1365-1371) of the monastery church of St. Nicholas at Psaca (Kriva Palanka dist.) in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/2ejvgxq
q) as depicted (at left; at right, St. Theodore the Stoudite) in the late fourteenth-century frescoes (1389; restored in the early 1970s) in the monastery church of St. Andrew at Matka in Skopje's municipality of Karpoš:
http://tinyurl.com/gm552or
Best,
John Dillon
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