The Feast and the Nativity Octave

The Orthodox Church commemorates the Holy Apostle, Archdeacon, and Protomartyr Stephen on December 27, the third day of the Nativity feast, and the uncovering of his relics on August 2. The placement of the first martyr’s feast within the octave of Christ’s birth is a deliberate theological juxtaposition: the day after the Lord is born on earth, the first of those born into heaven by martyrdom is honored. This file sets out the feast, its place among the Comites Christi, the August translation, and the hymnography that plays on his name, “Crown.”

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Protomartyr)

December 27 (and 26): The Feast Within the Octave

In the Byzantine calendar Stephen is commemorated on December 27 — two days after the Nativity of Christ (December 25), within the bright octave of the feast (the Nativity itself, with its forefeast and afterfeast, is set out among The Great Feasts). The Western (Roman and most Latin) calendars keep him a day earlier, on December 26 — the day after Christmas, “the feast of Stephen” of the carol. The difference of a day reflects the divergent early arrangements of the cluster of feasts that gathered around Christmas, but East and West agree in the essential thing: the protomartyr’s day stands immediately beside the Nativity, his witness deliberately joined to the birth of the Christ for whom it was given (the calendar and its commemorations are treated in The Church Calendar).

The juxtaposition is intentional and ancient, and the fathers preached it. Augustine, on the feast, drew the contrast and the bond together: “Yesterday we celebrated the temporal birth of our eternal King; today we celebrate the triumphal passion of his soldier. Yesterday our King, clothed in flesh, came forth from the womb of the Virgin to visit the world; today his soldier, leaving the tabernacle of the body, departed in triumph to heaven” (Augustine, Sermon on Stephen; the theme runs through Sermons 314–319; WSA III/9). The newborn Christ and the first martyr are set face to face: the King is born into the world that the soldier may be born out of it into glory. The martyr’s genethlia — his heavenly birthday, the day of his death — is honored beside the Lord’s earthly birthday, and the two births illumine one another.

The Comites Christi

In both the Eastern and the Western arrangements Stephen heads a small cluster of saints’ days packed into the days right after Christmas — the Comites Christi, the “companions” or “court” of the newborn Christ. In the traditional Western sequence these are Stephen (December 26), John the Evangelist (December 27), and the Holy Innocents (December 28) — a martyr in will and deed (Stephen), a martyr in will but not in death (John, who suffered for Christ but died in peace), and martyrs in deed but not in will (the Innocents, who died for Christ without knowing it). The Byzantine calendar likewise clusters the great witnesses of the Nativity season around the feast — the protomartyr on the 27th, with the synaxis of the Theotokos on the 26th and other commemorations following. The effect in both traditions is to surround the manger with the company of the martyrs and witnesses, so that the feast of the Incarnation is at once the feast of those who gave their lives for the One incarnate (cf. the festal hymnography in The Festal Menaion for the afterfeast of the Nativity).

The August 2 Uncovering of the Relics

Besides the December feast, the Orthodox Church keeps the uncovering (obretenie) of the relics of the Protomartyr Stephen on August 2 — the commemoration of the inventio of AD 415, when, according to the Epistola Luciani, his relics were discovered at Caphar Gamala and translated to Jerusalem (the discovery is set out in The Finding of 415). Some calendars add a further commemoration of the translation of his relics from Jerusalem to Constantinople (placed around September 15 in certain traditions). The August feast gives the relic-tradition its own day in the year’s round, distinct from the December feast of the martyrdom: December 27 honors how Stephen died; August 2 honors the recovery and veneration of what remained of him (and see The Cult and the Miracles).

The Hymnography and the Name “Crown”

The services of the protomartyr return again and again to the meaning of his name. Stephanos (Στέφανος) is the ordinary Greek word for a crown or wreath — the victor’s garland — and the hymnography makes the name a prophecy fulfilled: the one called “Crown” was the first to receive the unfading crown of martyrdom. The apolytikion (dismissal troparion) for the feast hails him as “a royal diadem” upon the Church and as the one who, “having contended the good contest,” was the first to be crowned; the kontakion and stichera dwell on the opened heaven, the vision of the Lord standing to receive him, and the prayer for his persecutors. The Scriptures the hymns invoke supply the play directly: “be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown (stephanos) of life” (Rev 2:10), and “blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for… he will receive the crown of life” (James 1:12). The protomartyr’s name is thus woven into the whole theology of his feast: he is at once the first witness and the first to be crowned, the Stephanos who won the stephanos (the hymnography is found in The Menaion for December 27).

The Feast as Confession

The keeping of Stephen’s feast within the Nativity octave is, finally, a confession of what the Incarnation is for. The Word was made flesh and born of the Virgin so that men might be made sons of God and heirs of heaven — and the first to enter that inheritance by the martyr’s road is honored on the very heels of the feast of the birth that opened it. The Church that sings of the manger on December 25 sings of the stoning on December 27, and finds the two feasts one: the King is born that the martyr may be crowned, and the crown the first martyr wins is the firstfruits of the salvation the newborn King came to give (Augustine, Sermons 314–319; and see The Protomartyr).

See Also

References

  • The Festal Menaion. Trans. Mother Mary and Kallistos Ware. London: Faber & Faber, 1969. (The afterfeast of the Nativity and the Comites Christi.)
  • The Menaion for December 27 and August 2. (The services of the protomartyr; the apolytikion and kontakion; the play on Stephanos.)
  • The Holy Bible — James 1:12; Rev 2:10. Cited by book chapter:verse.
  • Augustine of Hippo. Sermons 314–319. Trans. in The Works of Saint Augustine III/9. Hyde Park: New City Press, 1994. (The feast beside the Nativity; the King and the soldier.)