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Born at Constantinople c. 715, and died there c. 765. When the Emperor Constantine V renewed the iconoclastic movement that banned the sacred images in the churches, Stephen was the one who defended at Constantinople the veneration of religious and sacred images. He was a hermit and monk on Mount St. Axentius and in 761 was exiled for his activities to the Proconessos in the Sea of Marmara. After three years he was brought before the emperor and questioned, and put in jail with some other monks where he stayed for 11 months before the second trial. At the second court, because his language provoked the emperor, Constantine V unwillingly ordered his death. |
