The Finding of St. Stephen’s Lost Relics and the Miracles That Followed

In 415, the lost tomb of St. Stephen—the first Christian martyr—was discovered near Jerusalem. According to the ancient accounts, the discovery was followed by extraordinary reports of healings, exorcisms, and miracles connected to his relics. In this episode, we walk through the story of how Stephen’s burial place was found, what the earliest sources actually claim, and how his relics spread throughout the Christian world. We’ll also look at Augustine’s testimony concerning the miracles attributed to St. Stephen’s relics in North Africa and ask what this tells us about how early Christians understood the bodies and relics of the saints. Was relic veneration a later medieval development, or do the sources tell a very different story?