Saint Stephen Brâncoveanu

The Words of the Fathers No. II (XXII) / 2026 A panegyric on Stephen, the First Martyr of Christ The Saint Ștefan Brâncoveanu

The Panegyric to Saint Stephen Brâncoveanu, composed by Stephen, son of Constantin Brâncoveanu, and printed by Antim Ivireanul in Bucharest in 1701, extols the life, martyrdom and virtue of Saint Stephen the Archdeacon, the first martyr of Christ, highlighting his courage, his love for his enemies and his prayers for those who stoned him. This translation, revised from Katharevousa Greek, updates Constantin Erbiceanu’s earlier versions from 1888 and 1891, offering the contemporary reader an accessible text following 135 years of evolution in the Romanian language.

The Words of the Fathers No. I (XXI) / 2026 A panegyric on the Great Constantine, the Equal-to-the-Apostles The Saint Ștefan Brâncoveanu

The text presents a revised translation from Katharevousa Greek of the panegyric Λόγος Πανηγυρικός εἰς τὸν Ἰσαπόστολον Μέγαν Κωνσταντῖνον, composed by Saint Stephen Brâncoveanu and printed in Bucharest in 1701 by Antim Ivireanul, and fully retranslated by Andrei-Ion Popescu from Constantin Erbiceanu’s 1891 version. The panegyric argues that the holiness of the Great Constantine is all the more admirable given that he had to attain it under the most adverse circumstances: wealth, absolute imperial power and the absence of any Christian imperial model to follow.

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