Stephen of Perm
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Saint Stephen on his way to Moscow, a medieval Russian illumination. |
Saint Stephen of Perm (
1340-
96)
[Janet Martin, Medieval Russia, 980-1584, (Cambridge, 1995), p. 225] was a
fourteenth century missionary credited with the conversion of the
Permian Finns to
Christianity and the establishment of the Bishopric of
Perm'. Stephen also created the
Old Permic script, which makes him the founding-father of Permian written tradition. "The Enlightener of Perm" or the "Apostle of the Permians", as he is sometimes called, is commemorated by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches on
April 26.
Stephen was probably from the town of
Ustiug.
[op. cit., p. 226] According to a church tradition, his mother was a
Komi woman. Stephen took his monastic vows in
Rostov, where he learned
Greek and learned his trade as a copyist.
[loc. cit.] In the year
1376, he voyaged to lands along the Vychegda and Vym' rivers, and it was then that he engaged in the conversion of the
Zyriane (
Komi).
[loc. cit.] Rather than imposing the
Latin or
Church Slavonic on the indigenous pagan populace, as all the contemporary missionaries did, Stephen learnt their language and traditions and worked out a distinct writing system for their use. Although his destruction of pagan idols (e.g., holy
birches) earned him the wrath of some Permians,
Pimen, the Metropolitan of All Rus', created him as the first
bishop of Perm'.
[loc. cit.] The effect of the new bishopric and the conversion of the
Vychegda Perm' threatened the control that
Novgorod had been enjoying over the region's tribute.
[loc. cit.] In
1385, the
Archbishop of Novgorod sent a Novgorodian army to oust the new establishment, but the new bishopric, with the help of the city of Ustiug, was able to defeat it.
[loc. cit.] In
1386, Stephan visited Novgorod, and the city formally acknowledged the new situation.
[loc. cit.] Subsequently, the region's tribute became the luxury of Moscow. These events had immense repercussions for the future of northern Russia, and formed but one part of a larger trend which saw more and more of the
Finnic North and its precious
pelts passing from the control of Novgorod to
Moscow.
[loc. cit.]The historian Serge Zenkovsky wrote that St. Stephen of Perm, along with
Epiphanius the Wise,
St. Sergius of Radonezh, and the great painter
Andrei Rublev signified "the Russian spiritual and cultural revival of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century."
[Serge A. Zenkovsky, Medieval Russia's Epics, Chronicles, and Tales, Revised Edition, (New York, 1974), p. 259] Indeed, Stephen's life encapsulates both the political and religious expansion of "Muscovite" Russia. Stephen's life was in fact commemorated in the writings of the aforementioned Epiphanius, who famously wrote the
Panegyric to Saint Stephen of Perm, a text with praises Stephen for his evangelical activities, and styles him the "creator of Permian letters".
[op. cit., p. 261]
* Martin, Janet,
Medieval Russia, 980-1584, (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 225-6
* Zenkovsky, Serge A. (ed.),
Medieval Russia's Epics, Chronicles, and Tales, Revised Edition, (New York, 1974), pp. 259-62
*
Medieval "Life" of Saint Stephen*
A chapter from "The Saints of Ancient Rus", by Georgy Fedotov*
Life of Saint Stephen, with illustrations
