Stephen and Peter of Kazan

Holy Martyrs Stephen and Peter of Kazan are regarded as the first Christian martyrs of the city of Kazan, put to death in the year 1552. Both were Tatars by birth and received baptism after the army of Ivan the Terrible took the city. They are commemorated on 6 April (24 March by the old calendar) and on 17 October (4 October old style), in the Synaxis of the Saints of Kazan. Our sources do not say when and by whom they were canonized; they show them commemorated within this local synaxis.

Stephen

Stephen was a Tatar by birth, born in the khanate of Kazan and at first a believer in Islam. His birthplace is not known: some say he was from Kazan itself, others from Arsk. According to his life, he suffered for more than 20 years (by other data, 30) from paralysis of the legs, which kept him from walking and confined him to bed for most of the time.

In October 1552, when the army of Ivan the Terrible took Kazan, Stephen turned to the Christian faith. He was baptized by Archpriest Timothy, a Moscow priest who had brought the army the blessing of Metropolitan Macarius. Immediately after the sacrament of baptism Stephen was healed in a wonderful way and began to walk. After the greater part of the army had left Kazan, the local people began to compel him to renounce Christ and return to Islam. Remaining unshaken despite persuasion and threats, he was attacked by an armed mob, cut to pieces, and his body was scattered; his house was plundered. The place of his burial is not known. He is regarded as patron of those with ailments of the legs and of the newly baptized.

Peter

Peter was a noble Tatar, a believer in Islam, who lived in Kazan; after the city's capture by Ivan the Terrible in 1552 he was at the court of the serving khan Shah Ali. At that time Orthodox priests began to preach in the city, and Peter, whose Muslim name history has not kept, sincerely accepted the new faith and was baptized. After the Russian army left, disturbances broke out, and his relatives, who remained Muslims, decided to bring him back to Islam. They took him from his house by force and held him captive. At first they tried gentleness and cunning, calling him by his old name and urging him to renounce Christ for the peace of the family.

His answer, preserved in the life, is the key part of the account: God, glorified in the Trinity, was his father and mother, and if they believed they would be his kin too; at baptism he had been given the name Peter, not the one they called him by. When persuasion failed, the relatives turned to torture. To all of it he answered only briefly: I am a Christian. In the end he was killed for his steadfastness in the faith. His body was buried in Kazan, on the place where the Grain Court of the Kremlin later stood, and a church of the Resurrection of Christ was raised there. His relics are not known today. Peter is regarded as patron of the newly baptized.

Veneration and inconsistencies in the sources

Their principal commemoration, on 6 April (24 March old style), is tied to the date of their death. The Russian source, however, says that Stephen was baptized in October 1552 and killed a month later, yet gives his death as 24 March 1552, which does not fit; the date of death remains unclear. On 17 October (4 October old style) they are commemorated together with all the saints of the land of Kazan, on the day appointed for the holy hierarchs Gurias and Barsanuphius. They are regarded as protectors of their region and of the Tatars.