The Iconography of the Deacon-Martyr

In the Orthodox icon Stephen is the archetype of the holy deacon: a youthful, beardless figure, vested in the deacon’s sticharion with the orarion (stole) over the shoulder, bearing a censer and a golden incense-box, and often a small model church; he is crowned, in name and in image, with the martyr’s crown, and may hold the palm of victory or the stones of his passion. This file sets out the developed iconographic type, its vestments and attributes, and the place of his image in the church — above all on the doors and walls of the sanctuary, where the protodeacon stands at the threshold of the holy place.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Protomartyr)

The Youthful Deacon

The settled iconographic type of Stephen shows him young and beardless — a deliberate choice, marking him as the firstfruits, cut down in the freshness of his witness, and distinguishing him at a glance from the bearded apostles and hierarchs. The youthfulness is not a historical datum (Acts tells us nothing of his age) but a theological and liturgical convention: the protomartyr is depicted as the young athlete of Christ, crowned at the outset of his course (the conventions of the holy image are set out in Icons and Iconoclasm). His face is serene, often turned slightly upward or framed against the opened heaven of his vision, recalling that he died “gazing into heaven” upon the glory of God (Acts 7:55).

The Vestments of the Diaconate

Stephen is vested as a deacon, and his image is in effect the icon of the diaconal order. He wears the sticharion — the long, often white or light tunic that is the deacon’s principal vestment — and over the left shoulder the orarion, the long narrow stole that is the deacon’s distinctive insignia, by which the deacon summons the people to prayer and signals the movements of the Liturgy. This vesting makes the icon a visual statement of the tradition that the Seven of Acts 6 are the origin of the diaconate and Stephen its first and chief member, the archdeacon (the tradition and its qualifications are weighed in The Origin of the Diaconate). The icon thus does iconographically what the title “archdeacon” does verbally: it makes Stephen the pattern of every deacon who serves at the altar.

The Attributes: Censer, Box, Church, Crown, Stones

The protomartyr’s standard attributes each carry meaning. He almost always holds a censer (thymiaton) and a small golden incense-box (katzion or pyx) — the deacon’s liturgical implements, the censing of the holy things being a proper diaconal office; the censer also signifies the prayer of the saint rising before God (cf. Rev 8:3–4) and his own self-offering as a sweet savor. He frequently bears a small model church (a naos held in the hand), the sign of one who served and built up the household of God — an attribute he shares with founders and builders, here marking the deacon’s service to the Church’s life. He is shown crowned, or with the martyr’s crown above or beside him — the stephanos his name proclaims (see The Feast and the Nativity Octave) — and may hold the palm of victory, the universal sign of the martyrs. In some images, especially of the martyrdom or in the West, he is shown with stones upon his head or in his garments or hands, the instruments of his passion, by which he is identified as the protomartyr stoned outside the city (Acts 7:58–59). The censer, box, and church mark the deacon; the crown, palm, and stones mark the martyr; together they make the single figure of the deacon-martyr.

The Martyrdom in Narrative Icons

Besides the standing portrait, the stoning itself is depicted in narrative icons and in the menologion images for the feast. These show Stephen kneeling beneath a hail of stones, his hands raised or crossed on his breast, his face lifted to the opened heaven in which the hand of God, or the figure of Christ standing, appears above — the iconographic rendering of “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56; and see The Vision of the Son of Man). The young man Saul, guarding the garments of the witnesses, is sometimes included at the edge of the scene (Acts 7:58), binding the image of the first martyrdom to the conversion it would seed. The narrative icon thus gathers the whole theology of the passion — the vision, the prayer, the conformity to Christ — into a single composition.

The Protodeacon at the Threshold

The place of Stephen’s image within the church building is itself significant. Because he is the archetype of the deacon, his icon (often paired with that of the deacon-martyr Lawrence of Rome, his Western counterpart) is frequently set on or beside the doors of the sanctuary — the deacon’s doors of the iconostasis, or on the lower walls flanking the holy place — where the figure of the protodeacon stands fittingly at the threshold of the altar he serves. In this position Stephen visually guards and serves the holy of holies, as the deacon does in the Liturgy: the first of the order keeping his station at the door of the sanctuary in every church that bears his image (the function of the image in the church is treated in Icons and Iconoclasm). The iconography, like the feast and the title, makes Stephen at once the deacon and the martyr — the young servant of the tables of Acts 6 who became the first to wear the crown his name foretold, kept now in the image of the Church as the pattern of diaconal service and of witness unto blood.

See Also

References

  • The Holy Bible — Acts 7:55–58; Rev 8:3–4. Cited by book chapter:verse.
  • Ouspensky, Leonid, and Vladimir Lossky. The Meaning of Icons. Crestwood: SVS Press, 1982. (The iconography of the saints; the conventions of vesting and attribute.)
  • The Menaion for December 27. (The protomartyr’s commemoration and its imagery.)
  • Ouspensky, Leonid. Theology of the Icon. 2 vols. Crestwood: SVS Press, 1992. (The doctrine and function of the image.)