Feast Day
2 saints in our library are celebrated on December 26.
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Saint Stephen was the first to shed his blood for Christ — chosen as one of the seven original deacons, full of grace and power, until his courageous defense of the faith before the Sanhedrin so enraged his accusers that they dragged him out and stoned him. He died gazing upward into open heaven, asking forgiveness for his executioners — witnessed by a young man named Saul, who would become Saint Paul.
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A pope of the late third century who rebuilt the Roman Church after the Valerian persecution. He reorganized the city's parishes, ransomed Christian captives from Cappadocia at his own expense, and intervened in a theological dispute with Dionysius of Alexandria, insisting that the three divine persons must not be so sharply distinguished as to collapse into tritheism.