Career
Stephen lived the ascetic life at the Lavra of Saint Sabas in Palestine. By his mid-twenties, he felt so drawn to a life of seclusion and contemplation, he asked the abbot of the community for permission to live as a hermit. Due to the great skill in giving spiritual direction he already showed at that young age, the abbot gave him limited permission.
The condition was that he make himself available to others on weekends.
These idiomela are stichera of which two were written for each weekday of Great Lent. One is chanted at the aposticha of Vespers and one at the aposticha of Matins, each being chanted twice.
The idiomela are "exceptionally rich in doctrinal content, summing up the whole theology of the Great Fast". His feast day is celebrated on October 28 on the Liturgical calendar of the Orthodox Church (for those Orthodox Churches which follow the traditional Julian Calendar, October 28 falls on November 10 of the modern Gregorian Calendar).