17 Facts About Saint Stephen

The only source for information about Saint Stephen is the New Testament book of the Acts of the Apostles.

Saint Stephen is mentioned in Acts 6 as one of the Greek-speaking Hellenistic Jews selected to participate in a fairer distribution of welfare to the Greek-speaking widows.

Saint Stephen is often shown as a young, beardless man with a tonsure, wearing a deacon's vestments.

Saint Stephen is first mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles as one of seven deacons appointed by the Apostles to distribute food and charitable aid to poorer members of the community in the early church.

Saint Stephen is stated to have been full of faith and the Holy Spirit and to have performed miracles among the people.

Furious at this humiliation, they suborned false testimony that Saint Stephen had preached blasphemy against Moses and God.

Saint Stephen is said to have been unperturbed, his face looking like "that of an angel".

Saint Stephen faced two accusations: that he had declared that Jesus would destroy the Temple in Jerusalem and that he had changed the customs of Moses.

Pope Benedict XVI stated in 2012 that St Saint Stephen appealed to the Jewish scriptures to prove how the laws of Moses were not subverted by Jesus but, instead, were being fulfilled.

Saint Stephen denounces his listeners as "stiff-necked" people who, just as their ancestors had done, resist the Holy Spirit.

Saint Stephen prayed that the Lord would receive his spirit and his killers be forgiven, sank to his knees, and "fell asleep".

The exact site of Saint Stephen's stoning is not mentioned in Acts; instead there are two different traditions.

Acts 8:2 says "Godly men buried Saint Stephen and mourned deeply for him," but the location where he was buried is not specified.

In 415, a priest named Lucian purportedly had a dream that revealed the location of Saint Stephen's remains at Beit Jimal.

The Crusaders initially called the main northern gate of Jerusalem "Saint Stephen's Gate", highlighting its proximity to the site of martyrdom of Saint Stephen, marked by the church and monastery built by Empress Eudocia.

The Imperial Regalia of the Holy Roman Empire includes a relic known as St Saint Stephen's Purse which is an elaborate gold and jewel-encrusted box believed to contain soil soaked with the blood of St Saint Stephen.

Part of the right arm of Saint Stephen is enshrined at Trinity Lavra of St Sergius in Russia.