Stephen of Perm
Stephen of Perm
(more properly, Stepan of the Land of the Perm’ People). Born circa 1345, in Velikii Ustiug; died Apr. 26, 1396, in Moscow. Figure of the Russian Orthodox Church of the second half of the 14th century; ecclesiastical writer.
Stephen took his monastic vows at the Grigorii Bogoslov Monastery in Velikii Rostov, where he was educated. From 1379 he conducted missionary work among the Komi people, and in the winter of 1383–84 he became the first bishop of the newly established eparchy of Perm. His political activities facilitated the inclusion of the Komi lands into the Grand Principality of Moscow. Stephen of Perm devised a special alphabet for the Komi language, the Old Permian alphabet. He also translated liturgical texts into Komi and founded a school to train local clergy. Of his writings, a sermon against the Strigol’niki (a Russian heretical sect) has been preserved.