Stephen (Gr. στέφανοζ, a crown), Saint, the first martyr of the Christian church. He was a Hellenist by birth, and one of the seven deacons in the Christian congregation of Jerusalem, who, upon the complaint of the Hellenists that their widows were neglected, had been chosen by order of the apostles to superintend everything connected with the relief of the poor. The Jews charged him with speaking against the law and the temple, against Moses, and against God, and by order of the sanhedrim he was stoned. (Acts vi. and vii.) His death is believed to have happened in the year 36 or 37. His feast has been celebrated in the eastern and western churches on Dec. 26 since the 4th century.

Stephen #1

Stephen, the name of ten popes, of whom the following are most important.

I. Stephen I., Saint

Saint Stephen I., born in Rome about 200, died there in 257 (according to some authorities in 260). He was elected in 253 (or 257). His pontificate is remarkable for his having deposed, at the instance of St. Cyprian, the Novatian Mar-cianus, bishop of Aries, for having reversed the sentence of a Spanish synod deposing two bishops accused of apostasy; and for a memorable controversy with St. Cyprian relating to the necessity of rebaptizing converted heretics. Only fragments of Stephen's epistles are extant. He was put to death during the persecution of Valerian.

II. Stephen III. (Called By French Historians Stephen II)

Stephen III. (Called By French Historians Stephen II), born in Rome about 690, died there in April, 757. He was educated in the school of St. John Lateran, and was a canon regular of that basilica when he was chosen pope, in March, 752, as successor of Stephen II., who died three days after his election, without having received episcopal consecration. Stephen III., immediately after his accession, opposed As-tolphus, king of the Lombards, who had possessed himself of Ravenna and its dependent provinces, and demanded the surrender of Rome and its territory. Having for a year vainly sought the armed .intervention of the Greek emperor Constantine V., the pope went fo Pavia in October, 753, to conciliate Astol-phus, and thence to Pontyon in Champagne, in January, 754, where he implored the protection of Pepin, king of the Franks. During Eastertide an assembly was held at Quercy-sur-Oise, at which Pepin and his nobles pledged themselves to defend the pope, and the latter gave a series of decisions relating to matrimony and church government. In July he consecrated the abbey church of St. Denis near Paris, and anointed and crowned Pepin and his sons Carloman and Charles (afterward Charlemagne), and returned to Italy with Pepin and a powerful army.

Astolphus was forced to give up the exarchate of Ravenna; but after the departure of Pepin in December he reoccupied these territories and besieged Stephen in Rome. Pepin recrossed the Alps early in 755, defeated Astolphus, and compelled him by treaty to make over the exarchate to the pope. This treaty, which was signed by Pepin, his sons, and the chief Frank-ish barons and prelates, assigned the reconquered provinces as a gift "to the blessed Peter, the holy church of God, and the Roman republic," and inaugurated the temporalities of the Roman see. In 756 Desiderius, the successor of Astolphus, ratified this treaty as a condition to his being recognized by Stephen and Pepin. The literary remains of Stephen III. consist of important letters contained in the Codex Carolina, and of his Responsa ad Gallos, in Labbe's Concilia. HI. Stephen X. (Frederick of Lorraine), born about 1000, died in Florence in 1058. He was brother to Godfrey of Lorraine, duke of Tuscany. Pope Leo IX. made him a cardinal, and in 1054 sent him as legate to Constantinople. On his return in 1055, his life being threatened by the emperor Henry III., he fled to Monte Casino, and became a Benedictine monk in that monastery, and in May, 1057, its abbot.

He was made cardinal priest by Pope Victor II., in whose place he was elected in August, 1057, by the influence of Cardinal Hildebrand (afterward Pope Gregory VII.). He held several councils in Rome for the enforcement of sacerdotal celibacy, and degraded all incontinent clerics who had violated the statutes of Pope Leo IX. He visited Monte Casino, caused an abbot to be elected in his own place, compelled the monks to reform all abuses incompatible with their vow of poverty, and created Pietro Damiani cardinal. He issued the most rigorous decrees against simony, but maintained the exemption of clergymen from trial by lay judges, and from being taxed without the authorization of the holy see.