Talk:Saint Stephen

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	Saint Stephen is part of the WikiProject Saints, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Saints on the Wikipedia. This includes but is not limited to saints as well as those not so affiliated, country and region-specific topics, and anything else related to saints. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
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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.

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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).

[edit] 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)