Life of Charity
Little is recorded of Stephen beyond the outline preserved in the synaxarion. He had held a place at the court of the emperor Mauricius, but he left that station to take up a life of mercy. At Armatia, a quarter of Constantinople, he established a hospice for the elderly and gave himself wholly to receiving and caring for strangers.
The sources do not preserve the details of his upbringing or of his labors at the hospice; they record only his charitable work and that he died peacefully about the year 614. He is honored among the righteous for having exchanged the honors of the court for the service of the poor and the aged.