St. Stephen the Protomartyr

One of the seven men chosen by the Apostles to serve the tables so that they could give themselves to prayer and the word, the first deacons, and the first to die for Christ. Accused before the Sanhedrin, he answered with a speech that runs from Abraham to the Temple and ends by accusing his judges, saw the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God, and was stoned outside the city, praying Lord, do not hold this sin against them. The young man holding the coats was Saul. The Church calls him archdeacon and keeps him the day after the Nativity, so that the feast of the birth is followed at once by the first birth into heaven. His relics were found in 415. Feast: December 27.