By Fr. George Dorbarakis
Saint Stephen lived and flourished around the end of the eighth century AD and fought against heresies. He was also an ecclesiastical poet of asmatic troparia, as Saint Theophanes the Graptos tells us, in the Canon he composed for the Saint.
The hymnographer of the Service of our Venerable Father Stephen, Saint Theophanes the Graptos, one of the best-known and most important hymnographers of our Church, emphasizes the Saint’s double struggle. First, against the heresies that were ravaging the Orthodox faith. He was one of those who, having the grace of the Holy Spirit, correctly explained the teaching of our Church, resulting in the fragrance of the myrrh of its dogmas emerging: “The words of your dogmas, Venerable One, shining with the grace of the Holy Spirit, are fragrant like myrrh. For by honoring one Godhead in three hypostases, and by praising the incarnation of God the Word, you cause a fragrance in us, O all-blessed one." This is the characteristic of the truth that the Lord revealed and the Church lives by: it makes man fragrant like myrrh, because he embraces the spiritual myrrh, the Lord.
Secondly, against his false passions, against the impassioned movements of his soul and body, which threatened his spiritual essence, his very existence in Christ. For passions, distorted by egoism, alter man and make him worse than even the cruelest beasts. The holy hymnographer is literally “captured” by this second struggle of Saint Stephen. While he is concerned with the Saint’s anti-heretical struggle, along the way he seems to “forget” it. He “immerses” himself in his spiritual struggles and remains there. Theophanes himself, an ascetic, knowledgeable about the entire spiritual journey of a believer, has the ability to discern the signs of this journey in the existence of Saint Stephen. And he records these. He is not wrong: only one who has struggled “lawfully” and has been led to a purification of his heart, so as to live in the presence of God, has the ability to correctly diagnose error, deviation from the truth, and therefore to powerfully project the true faith of Christ. Thus the hymnographer constantly reminds: “God-bearing Stephen, you completely extinguished the urges of your passions, with the love of dispassion, and you illuminated the entire state of your soul with divine visions (theoriais) and ascetic deeds (praxeis)." The patristic saying “praxis is the stepping stone to theoria” is precisely applied to Saint Stephen by the Hymnographer.
Space will not suffice if we wish to develop the ascetic elements mentioned by Saint Theophanes. And rightly so: he considers Saint Stephen not only “a conqueror of passions and a model of correct living,” but also an “anointer of the unyoked (that is, a guide of monks), a model of monastics, an example of virtues”. But what we will extract from the treasure of the Saint's service is the hymn from the sixth ode of his canon, which the hymnographer has apparently borrowed from Basil the Great. Just as the Great Father Basil mentions in his discourse that "the mind of the faithful man, if it is not diffused in the world with the senses, comes within itself, and through itself finds God," in the same way Saint Stephen, according to Theophanes: "You have lived your life in a blessed way, for you have shut your senses outside of worldly confusion and have conversed with God, O Stephen." Indeed: it is not possible to find God, to have true communion with Him, if our heart is not completely in Him. A heart that is anchored in this world caressing the senses, all it receives is turmoil and confusion.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
