Stephen of Moscow

Holy Venerable Stephen of Moscow was the elder brother of Saint Sergius of Radonezh, a monk of the Epiphany Monastery in Moscow and confessor of Grand Prince Simeon the Proud, and he fell asleep around the middle or the second half of the 1390s.

Childhood and Makovets

Stephen was the eldest of the sons of the venerable Cyril and Maria of Radonezh. At seven he was sent to learn his letters together with his younger brothers, Bartholomew and Peter, and learned well. Between 1333 and 1340 he married at Radonezh a devout maiden and they had two children, Clement and John, but the young wife soon died, and Stephen resolved to become a monk and withdrew to the Protection Monastery at Khotkovo, where he laboured with great zeal in fasting and prayer. After the burial of their parents, Bartholomew asked him to go together to look for a desert place for prayer. They found it in the thicket of the forest, on Mount Makovets. After fervent prayer and calling on God's blessing, they made a hut, a cell and a little church beside it. When the time for the consecration came, Bartholomew asked Stephen, as an elder brother in flesh and spirit, in the name of which saint the church should be consecrated, and he answered that their parents had said many times that the Lord had chosen Bartholomew from his mother's womb, sending the sign of the three cries during the Liturgy, and that the priests and elders had interpreted that the child would be a disciple of the Holy Trinity. Therefore the church was consecrated in the name of the Holy Trinity, with the blessing of Metropolitan Theognostus.

In Moscow

Stephen stayed a while with his brother on Makovets, but the austere hermit's life began to weigh on him and he left for Moscow. As Epiphanius the Wise wrote, "though one womb bore them, they had different leanings: one wished to live so, another otherwise; one decided to labour in a monastery in the city, the other made the desert into a city". In Moscow Stephen became a monk of the Epiphany Monastery, which was protected by the families of the grand prince and of the tysyatsky Protasius, and there he led a severe life of fasting, worked zealously and advanced in virtue. About 1319 the future Metropolitan Alexis (Byakont) was tonsured in the same monastery, and with him he shared one spiritual life: at the services they sang at the choir together with the wondrous elder Gerontius. Grand Prince Simeon the Proud drew him near the court and chose him as his confessor, and after him many boyars became his spiritual children.

Return to Makovets

His position grew difficult after in 1353, in the time of the plague, the grand prince Simeon and Metropolitan Theognostus died; the new ruler, John II, wished to lessen the influence of the Protasievich boyars. Stephen returned to Makovets, taking with him his son John, twelve years old, whom Sergius, who had meanwhile become hegumen, tonsured a monk with the name Theodore; he later became the founder of the Simonov Monastery in Moscow. After Stephen's coming, disquiet arose in the monastery: he claimed to be honoured above Sergius. The stumbling block was the rule: the elder brother held to the old tradition of separate living, the younger wished for community life. Once, at vespers, Stephen cried out in anger: "Who is hegumen here? Did not I first found this monastery?" The meek Sergius said nothing, to avoid strife, and after the service quietly left the monastery. After a time the brethren begged him to return, and Stephen withdrew to a monastery in Moscow, then stayed for some time at the Trinity; according to Archbishop Nikon, "it is clear that he repented of his momentary outburst and was reconciled with his holy brother, the hegumen." The year of his death is not known; since Epiphanius began gathering data on Sergius in 1393-1394, Stephen probably died after his brother, that is, in the middle or second half of the 1390s.

He is commemorated on 19 July in the Synaxis of the Saints of Radonezh and on 5 September, a movable date, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Moscow, in the new style.