St. Stephen asceticized on Mount St. Auxentius, in sight of Constantinople, on the other side, ten miles from Chalcedon. In vain did the iconoclasts try to break his steadfastness. He was a rock for the entire Constantinople monasticism. He advised the monks not to succumb to provocation, to hide and passively resist. He recommended emigration as the main means of salvation: 1) to the outskirts, to the northern shore of the Euxine Pontus, to the Crimea, to Chersonesos, to the Caucasian coast, 2) to the possessions of the Arabs, starting from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea (Cyprus, Lycia), and to the patriarchates of Antioch and Alexandria, where there was no persecution, 3) to Rome and Italy. And monasticism emigrated en masse on his advice.

Stephen did not sign the iconoclastic decrees and for this he was forcibly dragged out of his hermitage (from the cave) and locked up with other monks for six days without food. But he was released, because the emperor was distracted by the war with the Bulgarians. During this time, the patrician Callistus prepared two false witnesses to please the emperor. For bribery, one denounced Stephen's anathema against the emperor, the other about Stephen's criminal relationship with his spiritual daughter. False testimony failed. They came up with the idea of replacing them with a provocation. Since the emperor forbade new monastic tonsures, with the knowledge of the emperor, the young official of the court, George, came to Stephen and pretended to be thirsty for monasticism for some exceptional reasons. And he was tonsured.

Three days later, George fled to the emperor, and he raised the matter with a demagogic uproar. He himself made a speech in front of the crowd against the monks, who allegedly kidnapped the emperor's favorite servants, etc. Having aroused part of the crowd, the emperor appointed a public sacrilegious ceremony of the "tonsure" of George. The monastic clothes were taken off George and thrown to shreds by the mob to be torn to shreds. And George, dressed in an officer's attire and receiving a sword, shouted: "Today, Vladyka, I am dressed in the world!" — "Σημερον, Δεσποτα, το φως ενδεδυμαι."

Raising a crowd against the monks, the emperor sent an armed detachment to arrest Stephen. The monastery and the church were burned, Stephen's disciples were dispersed, and he himself was tortured. For 17 days he was kept in a monastery in Chrysopolis. Here the emperor sent the leaders of the heresy Theodosius of Ephesus, Constantine of Nicholas, Sisinius of Pisidia and Basil Tricocabus to persuade Stephen. But he answered them with the words of the prophet Elijah to King Ahab. The Life tells us that Stephen, brought to the emperor himself, took a coin out of his klobuk and asked: "What punishment will I be worthy of, if I throw this coin with the image of the emperor on the ground and begin to trample on it? From this you can see what punishment is deserved by those who insult Christ and His Holy Mother on icons." At the same time, Stephen threw a coin and stomped on it. Stephen was exiled to one of the islands of the Propontis. Here many monks and icon worshippers gathered around him. Two years later, Stephen was brought in chains to the capital and thrown into the prison of the praetorium, where 342 monks from various places were imprisoned, suffering for the icons. Many had their noses and ears cut off, others had their eyes gouged out and their hands cut off, and some had their beards and faces burned. Their prison turned into a monastery: they prayed, sang, thus attracting people and preaching the veneration of icons. Stephen converted even two imperial envoys to Orthodoxy. After that, his fate was decided. Stephen was given over to be torn to pieces by a specially stirred up crowd. On November 28, 767, soldiers came to the prison, seized St. Stephen, tied a rope to his leg and dragged him through the streets, subjecting him to beating and stoning. Even schoolchildren were exempted from lessons and released into the street to throw stones at some criminal. The body of the martyr thus killed was thrown into a common ditch, into which the corpses of executed criminals were thrown, without burial.

Stephen's indictment was silent about icons and motivated the execution by the fact that "he deceives many, teaching them to despise true glory, to neglect houses and relatives, to turn away from royal palaces and to enter the monastic life." In this way, monasticism was declared a crime!

Even earlier, on August 25, 766, 19 high-ranking officials were executed for one sympathy with Stephen. Constantine Copronymus tried to completely destroy monasticism, to ridicule it, to humiliate it before the people, and to wrest from the masses reverence and respect for asceticism. A blasphemous mockery was invented. The chronicler Theophanes reports about Copronymus: "August 21 (766) dishonored the monastic image, ordered each abba at the hippodrome to hold a woman by the hand (Nicephorus - "to lead a nun by the arm") and thus pass through the hippodrome, being subjected to spitting and mockery from all the people." After that, the monasteries in Constantinople were closed and confiscated in 768. The monastery of Dalmata, the first among the monasteries of Byzantium, was given to the soldiers for housing. And the so-called Kallistratova and the monastery of Dius and Maximinus, and other sacred houses of monastics and convents, he destroyed to the ground. Those who accepted monasticism, from among those who occupied prominent places in the army, or in the administration, and especially those close to it, were subjected to the death penalty. The ruler of the Thracian province, Michael Lahondracon (nicknamed simply "the Dragon"), distinguished himself with his frantic zeal in mocking the monastics. Lahondragon, in imitation of his teacher (i.e. the emperor), gathered all the monks and nuns who were in the Thracian Theme, gathered to Ephesus, and, coming out into the plain called Τςουκανηστήριν, said to them: "Whoever wishes to obey the king and us, let him put on bright clothes and marry immediately. And whoever does not do so will be blinded and exiled to Cyprus." And the chronicler ends: "... The word was completed in deed, και αμα τω λογω το εργον ετέλεσθη".

On that day, many became martyrs, and many, betraying their former vows, destroyed their souls. The Dragon brought these closer to himself." After that, the monasteries were selected with all the vessels, books, lands, live and dead inventory. All this was sold at auction, and the money, as a gift, was presented to the emperor.

The monks were flogged, maimed, killed. In 765, during the burning of the monastery of Pelekita, Lahondracon drove 38 of the brethren into the ruins of ancient baths and covered them alive with earth. In the entire Thracian province there was not a single monastic figure. The emperor was delighted, thanked Lahondracon, and held up an example to others. Having received a report on the exploits of Michael Lahondracon and the money he earned, Constantine issued a merciful rescript: "I have found in you a man after my heart, fulfilling all my desires."

After that, of course, there were imitators of Lahondrakon.

The episcopate followed Caesar in the question of icons, and especially in the "reduction" of a very independent monasticism. But the "work of the sword" was so crude and went so far beyond the convictions of the hierarchy, which did not reject monasticism in principle, that the reaction had to manifest itself. Patriarch Constantine himself, a protégé of the emperor, "lamented". Constantine Copronymus invented for Constantinople and its environs "a universal oath, καθολικον ορκον".

In the square in front of the cross, the Gospel and the Holy Eucharist, everyone had to swear that none of the subjects of the basileus would worship icons. It is not known whether such an oath was actually carried out outside the capital. But Patriarch Constantine had to take a personal part in this rude rite with a special humiliating promise on his patriarchal side. This led Patriarch Constantine into a state of spiritual breakdown and despair. After that moment, it temporarily seemed to roll down an inclined plane. Theophanes reports about the emperor: "He also compelled Constantine, the falsely named patriarch, to ascend to the ambo, to erect an honorable and life-giving tree and to swear that he did not belong to the number of the venerators of icons. Patriarch Constantine fulfilled all this." But the iconoclastic tsar was sadistically furious. According to the chronicler, he "induced the patriarch from a monk to turn into a feaster, decorated with a wreath, to eat meat and listen to the Kyphards at the royal dinner." However, the soul of the bishop could not endure such monasticism. The mockery of monks at the hippodrome and the execution of 19 archons caused him to groan and murmur. Informers still invented additions, and the emperor sent Constantine into exile. In his place was put an even more faceless and obedient man from the "barbarians" - Nikita (about από Σκλαβων - νash countryman?) "ευνούχος".

The barbarian patriarch mercilessly completed the destruction of icons and even mosaics in the patriarchal chambers. The Emperor Constantine continued to rage. The exiled Patriarch Constantine was again summoned to Constantinople on October 6, 767. Here is what the chronicler says: "And the tyrant Constantine tortured him so that he could not walk. The emperor ordered him to be carried on a stretcher and seated on the solea of the great church, and one of the secretaries was there, holding in his hand a scroll with accusations against the former patriarch. By order of the tsar, the charter was read to the assembled people, and after each point the secretary slapped Patriarch Constantine in the face, while the new Patriarch Nikita sat on the cathedra and watched. Then Nicetas, with the hands of other bishops, removed the omophorion from the condemned man, anathematized the Patriarch. Constantine, called him "gloomy" and ordered him to be pushed out of the church backwards. The next day, the unfortunate man was waiting for desecration at the hippodrome. In vain to the tsar's question, "What do you say about our faith and the council that we have assembled?" the unfortunate and contrite Patriarch Constantine said: "It is good that you believe, and you have gathered the council." To this the emperor said with cruelty: "This is what we wanted to hear from your foul lips. After that, the former patriarch was beheaded at the usual place of execution, on the "dog platform – κυνηγιον". The executed man's share was dragged into the pit.

The monastic Greek emigration was enormous. V. G. Vasilevsky gives the following figures for the entire period of iconoclasm. By the 10th century, 200 Greek monasteries had been formed in Calabria. Already in 733, up to a thousand Greek monks gathered near Bari. Dads greeted them affectionately. Pope Gregory III (d. 741) founded the monastery of St. Chrysogonus. Pope Zacharias (d. 752) gave one monastery to Greek nuns. Pope Paul I (d. 767) presented the Greek émigré monks with his own hereditary house and founded the monastery of St. Sylvester in it. Pope Paschal I (died in 824) also gave one monastery to the Greeks. In total, there were at least 50,000 Greek emigrant monks in Italy.

On September 14, 755, Constantine Copronymus died during a campaign against the Bulgarians εν πυρετω - β heat and inflammation. The chroniclers add details of this illness and, in general, characterize Constantine in complete contrast to the opinion of the army, which buried him as its leader and patriot. And the rite of the Sunday of Orthodoxy anathematizes Constantine Copronymus in the following way: "To this lion-named evil beast (i.e. Leo III) to the son, the second iconoclast, a tyrant filthy from his family, and not to the king, to the blasphemer against the Highest, to the scoffer of the Church, to the accursed man, to the word Constantine the Purulent, and to all his mysteries — anathema." In the same spirit are the reviews of the ancient chroniclers. Theophanes writes: "The emperor ended his life, staining himself with the blood of many Christians and the invocation of demons and sacrifices to them (these are allusions to blasphemous feasts) and the persecution of the holy churches and the right and immaculate Virgin, as well as the extermination of monks and the devastation of monasteries. In all malice he prospered no worse than Diocletian and the ancient tyrants." In Amartolus we read: "The king took up arms against the Bulgarians, but when he reached Arcadiopolis, he was struck by an excessively strong and burning fire, so that his legs were strangely charred, and he lay down in bed. Taken to Selymbria and then by water to the fortress of Strongill, the king dies both mentally and physically with these cries: "While still alive I am given over to the unquenchable fire because of the Virgin Mary. But from now on, may She be revered and glorified as the true Mother of God." And when he thus cried out and called upon the Mother of God Mary and, dogmatizing, commanded that She should be venerated as the true Mother of God, the Ever-Virgin, in the midst of such cries with terrible and heavy efforts he vomited out his accursed soul."