Stephen of Surozh

Saint Stephen of Surozh (about 700 to after 787) was archbishop of Sugdea (in later Russian sources Surozh, today Sudak in Crimea), a confessor of the veneration of the holy icons in the time of iconoclasm. He is commemorated on 15 December. He is a Byzantine saint of the eighth century, venerated in the Orthodox Church.

The sources

His Life is one of the most discussed in the hagiography of Crimea. A short Greek Life, in the Synaxarion of Sugdea, under 15 December, was composed around 1318, probably by a George, from an earlier manuscript. The oldest surviving version of the Slavonic Life is manuscript no. 90 of the Moscow Theological Academy, and the Armenian one was published in translation in 1930, in Paris. The Greek prototype has not survived, and some episodes in the late redactions are so implausible that the work, especially in its Slavonic version, is regarded as more literary than historical. According to Vasily Vasilievsky, Stephen is a real historical person, one of the confessors of the veneration of icons in the time of Emperor Constantine Copronymus, who suffered prison and torments, then was sent to Sugdea, where he laboured much to spread Christianity and was made bishop, apparently the first in a line of its shepherds.

Life

Documents on his life are scanty. He is said to have been born at the end of the seventh century in the village of Morivas in Cappadocia, of Christian parents. At seven he was put to learn letters, and from fifteen he studied philosophy at Constantinople. News of the gifted pupil reached Patriarch Germanus, who kept him by him. After some years he withdrew secretly to a monastery, which he soon left to live in solitude. At that time the bishop of Sugdea died, and a delegation of citizens came to Constantinople to ask for a new shepherd. Patriarch Germanus could not find a worthy man. According to tradition, during prayer an angel of the Lord appeared to him and told him to send next day to the secret place to God's chosen one, Stephen, and to make him bishop.

Stephen was the third bishop of Sugdea; the names of the first two, ordained by Patriarch Germanus between 715 and 730, are not known. The Armenian Life says that he became bishop at thirty-⁠five, shepherded thirty-⁠five years and died at seventy, but these figures do not fit other dates in the Life. Because he supported the veneration of icons he was persecuted; shortly before his death, in 787, he was present at the Seventh Ecumenical Council. Before dying he appointed his cleric Philaret in his place, and on 15 December he passed to the Lord; the year of his death is not known. The Life mentions a raid of the Rus' on Crimea, under Prince Bravlin, soon after his death, during which a miracle took place at prayer to the saint and the prince was baptized; this belongs to the episodes thought legendary. From the tenth century Saint Stephen has been the patron and defender of Sugdea. In 2016 a monument to him was set up at Sudak, given to the town by the Sverdlovsk region.