Holy Martyrs Peter and Stephen of Kazan

Saints Peter and Stephen of Kazan

On the twenty-fourth of March, the Holy Orthodox Church commemorates two martyrs for Christ who suffered in the middle of the sixteenth century. These men were both Tatars of Kazan, who converted from Sunnî Islâm to the Russian Orthodox Church prior to their martyrdom. They converted after the conquest of Kazan by Tsar Ivan IV ‘the Fearsome’ and his installation of the Tatar Khan Şahğäli, and were put to death after the Tatars temporarily reconquered the city. The Orthodox Christians of Kazan began to venerate these martyrs very soon after their victory.

Saint Stephen [or Stefan] was born in Arsk, a small town sixty-five kilometres northeast of the main Tatar stronghold of Kazan. He was a devout Muslim, but he suffered from a debilitating and painful deformity in his legs from his youth, one which kept him bedridden for many years – some sources say twenty, others thirty. He heard from his compatriots that the men of Kazan were fighting against the Russian Tsar, and also that they did not expect to hold out long against him. His curiosity began to be provoked about what sort of God the Russians worshipped, that allowed them to fight so tenaciously as to overcome the mighty Tatars, and so he began to study Christianity in secret. When at last he made the resolution to embrace the Resurrected Christ, on that very day the pains and the deformities in his legs left him, and he found himself able to walk.

The Russians under Ivan IV mounted a series of campaigns against Kazan beginning in 1545, and built a fortification at Sviyazhsk in 1551, at the strategic confluence of the Volga and the Sviyaga Rivers. Among them came a certain archpriest named Timofei. He was carrying a message from Metropolitan Saint Makarii in Moscow to the troops of Tsar Ivan, who were stationed at Sviyazhsk. Once the healed lame man heard of this, he got up and went out, and journeyed to Sviyazhsk to visit Fr Timofei. He met with the priest and asked to be baptised.

The bemused Russian cleric, looking him over, asked him sternly: ‘Take careful thought – is it not out of your poverty, or out of your fear, that you wish to be baptised?’ Stephen answered the priest that neither was true of him.

Instead, he replied: ‘For thirty years my legs would not work, and I was an invalid who could not stand upright on them. Now the Tsar of Moscow is in the ascendant, and his power looms in our direction. With him became known to us the word of Christ, and I began to think: great is the God in whom the Christians believe. If He can give victories to the Russians, then he can give strength back to my legs and feet. I swore then to believe in Christ and to be baptised; and from that moment I was able to walk. I am here now to keep my word. Please give me baptism.’

Timofei answered him again: ‘See here – your fellow Tatars will try to turn you away from the Faith.’

‘They shall not turn me.’ The elderly man then began tearing out his beard in great handfuls and casting it onto the floor before him. ‘Even if they tear me limb from limb, even as I have now torn out my beard, they shall not make me to forsake Christ!’

The archpriest from Moscow, seeing that this elderly Tatar’s faith was sincere, gave the Tatar what he asked for, and baptised him in the name of the Holy Trinity, with the baptismal name of Stephen. It should be noted here that even nowadays in the Middle East, it is highly common for Muslims to visit Christian shrines to receive healing, with Saint George (who is called by the Muslims al-Khidr الخضر or ‘the Green One’) being a particular favourite. It is a common practice and the Muslims of the Levant see no contradiction or hypocrisy in venerating a Christian saint or even making offerings of money or livestock at Christian altars. Saint Stephen, however, truly did seem to have had a conversion experience and wished to stand before Christ in singleness of spirit.

Saint Peter [or Pyotr] had a similar story, though he was much younger and able of body. After the conquest of Kazan by the Russians, he made his way to the court of Şahğäli to serve him. He spent some time with the Russian boyars who supported him and lived in his courtyard. We may imagine that the young Tatar made some fast friendships there, and conversation may have turned to religious matters. Eventually he became convinced of the truths of Christianity, and sought to be baptised in the faith under the name of Peter.

The new converts that had been made by the Russians were subjected to particularly harsh persecution after they withdrew for Moscow early in 1552. The Kazan Tatars revolted against Şahğäli, who was forced to flee Kazan for the Russian fort at Sviyazhsk. During this revolt they conducted a pogrom against Orthodox Christians in which about 3,000 believers were killed, and turned with a particular ferocity against their own who had converted. Saint Stephen was given the opportunity to flee, but he refused. He also refused to hide the fact that he was Orthodox. And then his pronouncement of the sincerity of his faith at his baptism turned out to be prophetic, for when his countrymen found him they indeed tore him limb from limb, scattered the remains of his body so that it could not be recovered, and plundered his home.

Peter, the young Tatar soldier of Şahğäli, was forcibly sent home to his family. They called him by his birth name, but he insisted instead on being called Peter, for so he had been baptised in Christ. His family attempted to persuade him, at first with kind and soothing and reasonable words, to return to Islâm, but he would not be moved. Nor would he be moved by threats or by torture. And then his family turned him over to a jeering angry crowd, which proceeded to beat him to death. But in all that time he never once pleaded for mercy, but instead continued to proclaim his faith in Christ. Peter’s body was taken and buried at the Zhitny Torg, but not before the local Christians had observed where he was lain. In later years an Orthodox church would be built on that site and dedicated to the Resurrection of Christ.

The Christians of Kazan, both Tatar and Russian, commemorated Saints Peter and Stephen locally for about forty years. On the ninth of January, 1592, the Metropolitan of Kazan, Saint Germogen, asked permission from the Metropolitan of Moscow, Saint Iov, to commemorate these local Tatar martyrs for Christ throughout the nation. This permission was swiftly granted, and the martyrs were inscribed in the Synodikon for the entire Russian Church. Their commemoration was to be held on the day before the Feast of the Annunciation: that is to say, the twenty-fourth of March. Holy martyrs Peter and Stephen, confessors of Christ among the Tatar nation, pray unto Christ our God that he grant us great mercy!

Apolytikion to the Martyrs Peter and Stephen, Tone 4:

Мучеников двоица единонравная,
Стефане и Петре славнии,
Неверие соплеменников обличивше,
Христу последовали есте,
Во Святую Троицу веровати всех научающе,
Еяже ради великия страдания приемше,
Молитеся о нас ко Господу,
Да, избавившеся тьмы греховныя,
Света явимся общницы невечерняго.

Translation:

Two martyrs of a single mind,
Glorious Stephen and Peter,
You exposed the unbelief of your compatriots
And followed Christ,
Teaching all to believe in the Holy Trinity.
For His sake you underwent great torments.
Pray for us unto the Lord,
So that in casting off the darkness of sin
We might become partakers in the unfading light.

Church of the Resurrection, Kazan, Tatarstan