Venerable
Venerable Stephen the Sabaite, the Hymnographer
IX век (по словарю 1913 г. — † ок. 840)
Also known as: Прп. Стефан Савваит, творец канонов, Stephen the Hymnographer of St Sabbas Monastery
A monk of the Lavra of St Sabbas the Sanctified in Palestine (9th century) and church hymnographer, author of canons and stichera used in Orthodox worship.
St Stephen the Sabaite, the Hymnographer, lived as a monk in the 9th century at the Lavra of St Sabbas the Sanctified near Jerusalem, one of the main spiritual and literary centres of the Christian East, where St Andrew of Crete, St John of Damascus and St Cosmas of Maiuma had also laboured.
No detailed life of him survives; he is venerated chiefly as a hymnographer. The Russian Full Orthodox Theological Encyclopedic Dictionary (1913) names among his works the canon for the Circumcision of the Lord and the canon to St Cyriacus the Anchorite and dates his death to about 840. According to the Orthodox Church in America, he and Andrew the Blind were among the first to compose idiomela for the Lenten Triodion, from the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee to Palm Sunday. He should not be confused with St Stephen the Sabaite the Wonderworker (725–794), nephew of St John of Damascus, commemorated on 13 July. Feast: 28 October (10 November).