Venerable Stephen of Saint Savva Monastery

Life and Asceticism

Stephen entered the Lavra of Saint Sabbas while still a child and passed his entire monastic life within that community, the desert monastery founded by Saint Sabbas the Sanctified in the Judean wilderness. The synaxarion records that he would at times go out into the desert to live in solitude and devote himself to spiritual struggles.

He was introduced to the monastic life through his uncle, Saint John of Damascus, who belonged to the same community. By tradition he was granted, in his maturity, a measure of the eremitic life while remaining available to the brethren. He came to be regarded for the gifts of healing and discernment.

Hymnography

Stephen of Mar Saba is associated by tradition with the early composition of liturgical hymnody at the Lavra. He is counted, together with Andrew the Blind, among the first to compose idiomela for the Triodion — stichera for the weekdays of Great Lent. Attribution of particular hymns within the Sabaite tradition is not always firmly distinguished, as more than one monk named Stephen is connected with the monastery's hymnographic legacy.

Historical Context

Stephen lived during a period when Palestine was under Umayyad and then Abbasid rule. Toward the end of his life various cities, Gaza among them, were laid waste and depopulated in raids, and a number of monks of the Lavra of Saint Sabbas lost their lives in this turmoil.

Relics & Shrines

Stephen spent his entire life at the Lavra of Saint Sabbas (Mar Saba) in the Judean desert, which remained his monastic home until his repose. The dossier provides no separate account of the later disposition of his relics.

Miracles & Traditions

Historically Documented: The events of the era at the Lavra of Saint Sabbas are recorded in the writings of Leontius of Damascus in his work The Life of St. Stephen the Sabaite.

Traditional Accounts: The synaxarion relates that Stephen possessed the gifts of healing and discernment, and that he foretold in advance the day of his own repose.