April: Day 26: Saint Stephen, Bishop of Perm

April: Day 26:
Saint Stephen, Bishop of Perm
 
(How Christians Can Participate in the Spread of the Christian Faith Among Pagans)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Saint Stephen, the enlightener of the pagans in Perm, whose memory is celebrated today, lived in the second half of the 14th century. As a young clerk of the Ustyug Cathedral, by the grace of God he conceived the desire to devote his life to the enlightenment of the Zyryans, the wild sons of the northern forests. In the Rostov Theophany Monastery, under the guidance of Arseny, the Rostov bishop and former prince, he studied the dogmas of faith from Slavic books: “Desiring greater understanding,” says his biographer Epiphanius, “he also studied Greek literature.” The Zyryan language was familiar to him even in his homeland in Ustyug; and now he studied it in order to be able to translate ecclesiastical books into it. What needed to be translated for the first acquaintance of the Zyryans with the faith, Stephen translated from Slavic with the help of the Greek language. Having thus prepared himself for the title of preacher of the faith, he asked for a blessing for his work from the then overseer of the Moscow Metropolis, Gerasim, Bishop of Kolomna; and the Grand Duke secured him with his charter. With these aids he arrived at the mouth of the Vychegda River to the rude but simple-minded people, and began to preach the true God.

The simple-hearted listened with emotion and were then baptized; the stubborn and especially the priest-magicians stirred up the people against him. "How can we listen," they said, "to one who came from Moscow, which oppresses us with taxes? And whom can we listen to? A young, inexperienced, unknown preacher, when our elders and teachers say something else!" Stephen, with hope in the Lord, continued to preach the true faith along the right bank of the Vychegda. Having reached the mouth of the Vym River, where the main settlement of the Zyryans was then, he increased the number of Christians to a thousand and built a church in the name of the Annunciation of the Theotokos. In order to demonstrate in practice the emptiness of idols, he turned one of the most famous idol-shrines into ashes. The people were horrified.

Stephen demonstrated the truth through experience. The chief sorcerer Pama, the father and mentor of the Zyryans, volunteered to walk through fire and water, demanding the same from Stephen. "I do not command the elements," answered the humble Stephen, "but the Christian God is great, so I will go with you." Pama trembled and the triumph of faith over superstition and deception was completed. The people were baptized in crowds and threw idols into the fire. Having built two more churches, Saint Stephen founded schools near them. "Teach the Permians to read and write, commanding them to learn the Book of Hours, the Book of Eight Tones and the Psalms of David;" and he selected the students according to their abilities in order to “ordain some as priests, others as deacons, and teach them to write Perm books.” In 1383, he asked Moscow to ordain a Bishop for the Zyryans, and he himself was ordained. Then he ordained native Zyryans as clergy, deacons, and priests. “And his priests,” says a contemporary, “served the liturgy, matins, and vespers in the Perm language, and his canonarchs sang according to Perm books, and the singers proclaimed all the singing in Perm.”

60 miles from Ust-Sysolsk, on the Sysola River, the Saint founded the Stefanov Monastery of the Holy Trinity in Perm, and 165 miles away he founded the Stefanov Monastery of the Holy Trinity in Ulyanovsk. In the first three centuries after Stephen, church services were sung in the Zyryan language. The Saint cared with all his love for the external peace of the new children of the Christian faith. During the famine he got them bread from Vologda; he went to Novgorod and Moscow to intercede for their protection from injustice and robbery; the people called him their father. In 1396, Saint Stephen died in Moscow, having spent 18 years in apostolic labors. (See "The History of the Russian Church" by Philaret Gumilevsky).

II. Can we also imitate Saint Stephen in his holy feat of spreading the Christian faith among the pagans and those who do not know the true God? Without a doubt, we can and should imitate him in this, if not by our personal labors of evangelism, to which not everyone is called, then by prayers and material donations.

a) Every work should begin and be accompanied by prayer. The success of every work depends on prayer, especially such a great and holy work as the spread of faith among people who do not know the true God. And if the Holy Apostles themselves, overshadowed by a special grace-filled power from above, preachers of the word of God, needed prayerful assistance in their work from other believers (Col. 4:3; 1 Thess. 5:2-4; 2 Thess. 3:1; Heb. 13:18), then even more so do ordinary preachers of the word of God need it. Many great difficulties lie ahead for preachers of the faith in their service. They have to endure many dangers. They need much skill, strength, patience, selflessness in order to worthily carry out their great feat. And finally, with all human efforts, with all skill, with all ardent zeal for the work of evangelism, such a great work as the conversion of superstitious, rude, unenlightened people to the true faith cannot be accomplished otherwise than by the special action of God's grace. "No one can come to Me unless My Father draws him," said the Lord Jesus Christ (John 6:44). Let us ask the Heavenly Father to take under His almighty protection the good news of the name of Christ among the unbelievers of our fatherland, to give the preachers of the faith the strength to worthily carry out their ministry, to help them overcome the difficulties encountered in it, to deliver them from all slander and dangers, not to allow them to fall into despondency and weaken in their feat, to warm their souls with ardent love and zeal for Him, and by His grace to guide them in the paths of evangelism.

b) With fervent prayer for the success of the holy gospel, with sincere sympathy and goodwill for this great work, each of us, according to our strength, can help it with some material aid, donations - money, materials, handicrafts, etc. In the early Christian Church, zealous Christians also helped the Apostles with their offerings. And the Holy Apostles accepted such offerings with joy and love; because they saw in them an expression of the love of Christians and their zeal for the work of God. Thus, the Holy Apostle Paul, being in chains in Rome, joyfully accepted the offerings sent to him from the Philippian Christians, "as fragrant incense, as an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to the Lord," not because, he said, he personally sought any donation, but because he saw in this offering the fruit of faith and love for the work of God (Phil. 4:10-19).

In our times, when preaching Christianity in the remote areas of our fatherland, material aids are necessary for the work of preaching. For lack of material means, in some cases the work of preaching stops or is unsuccessful. Funds are needed to give preachers the opportunity to make their distant journeys from one place to another to evangelize Christianity; funds are needed to build at least a small church for newly enlightened Christians; funds are needed to start a school at the church to strengthen the newly enlightened and their children in Christian concepts; finally, it often turns out to be necessary to provide various benefits to the newly enlightened, because many of them, upon receiving baptism, must sever all ties with their family, with their clan, and lose all previous means of livelihood. They must be given shelter, they must be encouraged and caressed, they must be accustomed to some new activities that would give them the means of livelihood. Benefits are needed for all this. If each Orthodox Christian would make it his duty to use even the smallest share of his wealth for the work of God, the greatest means could be made up of this. And each of us, no matter how little wealth he has, can always give something of it to a good work. And the smallest share of wealth, set aside for the work of God, will not be lost in vain, but will attract God's blessing upon us, giving success to every work of ours. "He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet receives a prophet's reward, and he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man receives a righteous man's reward," said the Lord Jesus Christ (Matt. 10:41). In the same way, one can say that he who provides assistance to the apostolic work of the holy gospel receives a share in the reward prepared for the holy evangelists. "And whoever shall give to one of these little ones a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward," said the Savior again (Matt. 10:42). In the same way, whoever shall give even the smallest share of his property to a holy work, shall not be left without a reward from the Lord. Let no one be embarrassed by the smallness of the offering. Therefore, let no one be embarrassed to bring his penny where others bring tens, hundreds and thousands of rubles; let no one be embarrassed to bring a piece of linen for a shirt for a newly baptized where others bring rich vestments and decorations for churches built among the newly baptized: every offering, no matter how small, will find its place, will bring its share of benefit in the great work of spreading Christianity.

III. May the Lord bless every good disposition and every good deed for the glory of His holy name. 

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.