Saints who resisted heresy
St Stephen the New
Refused to subscribe to the iconoclast council of Hieria and was martyred under Constantine V.
- Period
- †764/767
- Witness
- Monk of Mt Auxentius, martyr
- Controversy
- Iconoclasm
Witness under persecution
What this saint faced
The teaching resisted
The imperial Iconoclast persecution under Constantine V.
How the saint stood firm
Refused the iconoclastic council's demands and strengthened monastics who upheld icons.
Persecution and suffering
Exile, imprisonment, violence and public killing according to his Life.
His Life describes one period of eleven months' imprisonment. The combined length of all his persecution is not securely established.
Chronology of the confession
- 8th centuryExile
Banished away from his monastery for resisting iconoclastic authorities.
As recorded in his Life.
- Eleven monthsImprisonment
His Life recounts almost a year among other prisoners persecuted for the icons.
- 8th centuryMartyrdom
His Life describes soldiers dragging and killing him in Constantinople.
Modern historians have also examined the political context of his death; the detailed torture narrative comes from hagiography.
Sources for this account
Words and testimony of the Holy Fathers
Only words with an identifiable attribution are displayed. Reported speech in a Life is not the same as a passage written by the saint.
No checked direct quotation is published yet. Quotations can be added when the work, edition and page are identified.