Talk:Saint Stephen

Untitled

This article has combined histories from moves made before the "Move this article" feature. The history may be a little mixed up around December 7, 2001 (as well as February 25, 2002, like many other articles), but every saved version is in the history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Toby Bartels (talk • contribs) 04:16, 3 March 2003 (UTC)

I have removed the junk edits from the page history. Graham87 06:20, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Votes for deletion

On June 11, 2005, an anonymous user nominated this page for deletion citing, "Christian equivalent of fan-cruft. Non-notable figure who is barely mentioned in the gospels." The VFD process was terminated due to the lack of substantial grounds for the nomination and chiefly because the nomination came from an anonymous source. The following comments were made on the now-defunct VFD page for Saint Stephen:

Keep. What? You are kidding are you not? There is more to Christian tradition than the gospels. gren 20:50, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9069601&query=St.%20Stephen&ct= -- just to show that Britannica has him. gren 20:54, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Keep. To consider deleting this article is ridiculous! --Gerald Farinas 20:55, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm terminating the nomination for votes for deletion because of the nominator's anonymity and the absence of substantial grounds for nomination. Such anonymous nominations should be taken as vandalism. --Gerald Farinas 20:58, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

keepBecause of this site I found out something a bit werid. My name is stephen and I was born on dec. 26. For the first time this year st. Stephen's day was on my calender. I now find out that this st. Stephen is the same Stephen I was named after. The Stephen from the Bible. Just thought i'd share. I thought it was pretty werid. I feel a little special. =)

What's so weird about this? Did your parents name you Stephen, because you were born on Dec. 26? Or didn't they know that Dec. 26 is St. Stephen's day, but named you after the Stephen from the Bible nevertheless and that is the weird thing you're talking about?--BobaFett 01:04, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Problem

Why is the Acts account of Saint Stephen presented as if it is historical?

The section on St Stephen's Day is almost identical to the substantive article of that name, so I think it's unnecessary. Both that article and the section here do not mention that it's a Bank Holiday in the UK.

Is it known if St Stephen actually had a different name and was only called Stephen when he attained the crown of martyrdom?

The work of Eisenman suggests that Stephen was in fact James 'the Just'. In this case the NT tale is a bitter joke, using the name Stephen for 'crown' - James, the leader of the Essenes and therefore enemy of the Herodian Saul/Paul. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.29.82.139 (talk) 03:21, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

Cult of Saint Stephen

As a reader I found the 'Cult of Saint Stephen' section incredibly difficult to understand. In particular,

Gregory of Tours reports that the intercession of Stephen preserved an oratory dedicated to him at Metz, in which his relics were preserved, when the Huns burned the entire city, leaving only the oratory standing, Easter eve, 451. (Historia Francorum ii.6). and is celebrated amoung the Altar servering community

I'm not sure I understand this sentence well enough to
made any credible suggestions to improve its readability.
First off, however, I'd suggest breaking it into several
smaller sentences. It seems like the story line of the
sentence is bouncing between at least two different occasions.
Perhaps the order of events could be made more clear as well.

I reworded the first part of the section.

Many churches are named in honor of Saint Stephen but there was no official "Tomb of St Stephen" until 415. When Christian pilgrims were traveling in large numbers to Jerusalem a priest named Lucian said he had learned by hallucination that the tomb was in Caphar Gamala, some distance to the north of Jerusalem.

I made an effort to preserve the meaning
while improving readability. If I have misinterpreted
the intended meaning, my appologies.
The section was quite difficult to decipher for me.

- Rockthing 22:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't quite understand the title of this section. As far as I can tell, it does not talk about a cult at all. It just talks about finding his tomb (and some thing about an oral tradition of some sort that I could not understand.).67.158.47.104 (talk) 15:31, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Patronage

Under the "St. Stephen's Day" header, is the following patronage attribution: December 26 is also a holiday in Ligao City, Philippines, which celebrates fiesta in honor of St. Stephen Protomartyr, its patron saint.

In the sidebar on the right, it lists patronage as Acoma Indian Pueblo; casket makers; Cetona, Italy; deacons; headaches; horses; Kessel, Germany; masons; diocese of Owensboro, Kentucky; Passau, Germany; Prato, Italy [1]

These two are not in agreement. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thistledowne (talk • contribs) 22:05, 18 December 2006 (UTC).

If all that's missing is to add Ligao City, Philippines to the "patronage" list, then do it. --Alekjds 22:42, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Theophany

I propose that Stephen's theophany at the moment of his death in Acts 7:56 is significant enough to be added to this article. Rwf5 21:15, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you. I say go ahead and either add that to the section on "Martyrdom" or make a new subsection that you could label "Theophany". Alekjds 22:36, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I've added a subsection labeled "Theophany". If you feel there could be alterations, I am open to suggestions. Rwf5 20:22, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

great article probably needs more info!! sincerily yours an anonomious person

In popular culture

The Grateful Dead wrote a song titled Saint Stephen, more or less about the saint. I'll add a sentence to that effect if no one objects.165.127.8.254 (talk) 21:21, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

horrendous article

who writes an article about a saint and doesn't mention why he was killed?! 79.176.119.121 (talk) 04:36, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

There is a section in this revision about his trial. Any good reason for its removal, or just an accident when cleaning up vandalism? Geira (talk) 13:55, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Necessity of adding Semi-Double and Simple feasts

It was necessary to add that Traditional Roman Catholics continue to celebrate the feast day of "The Finding of the Body of St Stephen, The First Martyr" either as a Semi-Double or a Simple feast on August 3 in order to show that much of the liturgical richness of the Roman Catholic Church prior to 1969-1970 is still very much alive amongst a good portion of the world's Roman Catholics. Even Traditional Roman Catholics who use the General Roman Calendar of 1962 in accordance with Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum, observe this feast as well. This is a very strong preference by the world's Catholics who are attached to a Traditional, stable, Catholic ethos, as opposed to the roller-coaster, modernistic, de-sacralised, barely-Catholic variety found in most Western European and North American parishes. AMC0712 (talk) 02:48, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Christian Perspective

This article is written from a purely Christian perspective. It makes it seem as though Stephen was stoned barbarically for speaking out against Moses and G-d. Blasphemy at the time was a death penalty. The Sanhedrin is a court with 71 judges all learned in religious practice. This article villifies Jews in an unneccassary fashion, and its Vatican propoganda like this (and like Judas) that layed the foundations for many early anti-semetic feelings and actions from Christians. Colt .55 (talk) 18:05, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Allegations against Saint Paul

I have read allegations that the apostle Paul, while still a pharisaic Jew known as Saul, took part in the assault and martyrdon of Stephen. It would be very difficult to prove such an allegation, but it would nevertheless be noteworthy to include it in this entry if a sufficient number of sources could be found which recount this claim.[1][2][3][4][5] ADM (talk) 08:07, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

St Stephen's Birth

There's a painting: St Stephen is Born and Replaced by Another Child by Fra Filippo Lippi but this aspect of his life isn't memtioned. Anyone know anything about this?194.72.120.131 (talk) 09:44, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Saint in Lutheranism? Wait, what??

As far as I remember, Lutherans don't deal with saints at all.

What's for sure, that appointing saints is solely the Lord's right, and we don't deal about listing wonders and so on: practical Lutheranism is mostly dealing with the gospels, as the basis of the New Testament is that there's a direct link between the Holy Trinity and man, so anyone can call and talk to God her/himself, no need for messengers, like saints.

Therefore, even if Lutherans acknowledge that the story of Stephen is part of the Bible, even Apostels don't get the name "Saint" to them in everyday practice; we say Apostel Paul, or Paulus, but never "St. Paul" - such concept does not exist, it's treated as like someone having a decision and statement on matters outside man's permissions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.115.9.27 (talk) 19:10, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

There are many liturgical Lutheran churches that venerate saints. I'll add a cite. carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 17:21, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

The reference was malformed and did not seem to add much to the article other than address the ignorance of the above unsigned comment. Do we need to add a citation for each of the christian denominations? I removed the citation instead of trying to repair it. Happy St. Stephen's Day, 2011!MilpitasGraham (talk) 19:31, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I reversed the deletion of the reference to the Lutheran calendar and repaired it only because some people are so picky about references that it seems best to leave it. Daniel the Monk (talk) 23:18, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

St. Stephan

Would this be the same person as St. Stephan? I assume so, since it is from the Greek "Stephanos" -- Per WP:BOLD, I added: sometimes spelled "Stephan". If objections, feel free to revert. (That spelling happens to be family name related to me; and is also the name of a town in Switzerland, among other things.) ~Eric F 184.76.225.106 (talk) 15:05, 26 March 2012 (UTC) This spelling is usually used primarily as the Heartland continental European use as "STeFan with a ph" is the spellings official name tag, However it has also been used as a variant of Gender Proper "STEVen" as pronouncing the E-PH rib differently then that of the feminine form "Stephanie" Bearers of either spelling are oriented for the fact it's not spelled with a phonetical "V" are Hybridized or may reserve the right to go by a pronunciation.

I did not think the terrible articles I have seen on WP could get any worse until I saw this one

Wow, oh wow, what a disgrace this article is. And to think it got more than 20,000 viewers in the last 30 days!

First off, the article should make clear from the very beginning that nothing is known about St Stephen apart from what is stated in Acts.

At the end of the "martyrdom" section, we find the truly shocking statement and reference " After his own conversion to Christianity, Paul makes reference to witnessing Stephen's martyrdom in his writings.- which leads to a website which brings up Acts 22: 20!! Ummm - Paul did not write Acts.

I don't think a re-telling of the parts of the Golden Legend belong in this article and I am certain a long and absurd tale about a vision a priest supposedly had(section "Stephen's tomb revealed, AD 415") does not. What a load of rubbish, this yarn is referred to briefly in the section "tomb" near the end, which is quite enough. This article is not about a particular church,section "St Stephen at Bet Gemal" should not be in this article beyond the briefest of mentions, start a whole new article about it if someone want to, that all needs to come out. And this article is not about a holiday either, none of that stuff about Saint Stephen's Day in various countries and traditions should be in here, it should all be deleted. This article should be about what is known and believed about the person or possible person now known as "St Stephen" only and all that other stuff should be deleted.

The narrative from the Golden Legend has already gone at the time I write. If anything in that account was uncritically presented as truth, then that was certainly an abuse. Personally I'm an atheist, so I don't believe the literal truth of any of this material. However, I can't agree that any account of a saint should be limited to 'what is known and believed about the person'. The legends ('things that deserve to be read' in the eyes of those compiling them) are of often vital significance to art historians, cultural historians and social studies of all kinds. The same goes for the cultural phenomena surrounding the cult of the saint, be they antique or modern. Certainly this information needs to be in self-contained sections, so people like you who see it as extraneous can avoid it. But please don't just chuck it out wholesale. Fergus Wilde (talk) 17:43, 21 June 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fergus Wilde (talk • contribs) 15:03, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

I know WP:BRD says just go ahead and do what you think needs to be done and see if anyone objects but since what I am proposing would remove a lot of this (total rubbish) content, I will wait a couple of days.Smeat75 (talk) 01:37, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Smeat - I completely agree. There is alot of garbage here. However, I do disagree with your stance that this is one of the worst - just checkout John the Baptist. I've had a request in Talk for concurrence on a major haircut and, similar to you, would rather not perform the hack job and people raise major objections, but it appears that that is what's going to happen. Ckruschke (talk) 17:22, 2 April 2013 (UTC)Ckruschke

So I have re-written the article along the lines above, we'll see if anyone objects.I came across this [[6]] which seems to be from Princeton University, just the opening paragraphs of this article and a re-direct to the full one, and could not stand to think of the idea of people all over the internet, not just WP users, getting the information that Paul wrote Acts so I did not tarry in carrying out the changes I had indicated.Smeat75 (talk) 12:19, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

The Princeton site appears to take its information from Wikipedia. Mannanan51 (talk) 22:09, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Saint Stephen/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Redtigerxyz (talk · contribs) 19:42, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	St. Stephen's Day, Commemorative places has no inline citations.
	2c. it contains no original research.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	Historicity/Dating missing He is famously called Archdeacon. Term missing Catholic encyclopedia talks about his name being Kelil, his teacher being Gamaliel Details about his tomb and relics is missing Iconography is thoroughly discussed. Other texts like Golden Legend also mention his tale. Secondary sources of his life not covered.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	File:St-stephen.jpg: Does not correct date, creator. Should be artist and creation of the art File:St stephen.jpg: Same as above
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
	7. Overall assessment.	GA FAIL All views in "Views of Stephen's speech" should be attributed to the scholars with names in main text. Redtigerxyz Talk 05:38, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

References

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Saint Timothy which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 09:29, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

"Commemorative places" mostly redundant, we have two dedicated extra articles!

The whole paragraph/list is rather USELESS since REDUNDANT, see the two other pages mentioned in the hatnote! Jerusalem & Rome, maybe Beit Jimal, do have merit (martyrdom, burial), but not the other places. Suggest moving the additional information contained here to those pages and cutting the paragraph here to a minimum. Not every St Stephen's church or institution in the world deserves mention on this page. ArmindenArminden (talk) 20:15, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, and I would say the same about "St Stephen's Day", there is an article about that too. It wouldn't hurt imo to move all of that stuff to the relevant articles and just have a "See also" section about places and holidays, but I don't have time to do that right now, go ahead Arminden if you want to.Smeat75 (talk) 00:23, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Stoning section

Something weird is going on in the stoning section. For instance: "According to Orthodox belief, the "Jews shouted and covered their ears, and rushed at him. They dragged him out of the city and stoned him, but the holy martyr prayed for his murderers."" Is this different then general Christian belief? Why does it appear so early in the paragraph?

Also, this section looks like full on original research and WP:SYNTH:

"The people from the crowd, who threw the first stones, laid their coats down so as to be able to do this, at the feet of a "young man named Saul". However, according to the "Aramaic Bible in Plain English" and the "Weymouth New Testament" Acts 22:20, St. Paul, earlier known as Saul admits he was not only standing by, he was holding the garments of those stoning St. Stephen. This has significance. The possible reason for this may be that many of the members of the Sanhedrin were wealthy. (See Luke 18:9-14) Some, who may have been wearing expensive garments may have been hesitant to throw or place them on the ground. Saul's willingness to hold the garments of those stoning Stephen might signify that he considered it an honor to do so at the time. Having held the garments, rather than just watching over them, would have made Saul much more of an accomplice. This could have added greatly to St. Paul's sense of guilt later on and illuminate why he considered himself to be the worst sinner of all. "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst." 1 Timothy 1:15 (New International Version) Approving of, and assisting in, the killing of a disciple that Christ himself had chosen, was an unforgettable act, which St. Paul regretted for the rest of his life. "But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life." 1 Timothy 1:16 (New International Version)"

The section on the stoning should not be full of intepretations, and should definitely not be about Paul (beyond mentioning he was there).--Ermenrich (talk) 20:43, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

I think 'Orthodox' was likely meant to be with a lowercase o; that is, as a general description rather than the denomination. I will change that if it's still there. Also, the paragraph you quoted is OR/SYNTH of the most blatant kind .if i find that still in the article I shall axe it. Firejuggler86 (talk) 02:50, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

References

His holy work

He contributed so much to the Catholic Church in different ways. 41.113.225.197 (talk) 11:43, 18 June 2022 (UTC)