How did Stephen see the High Priest (Christ); was He sitting or standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:56)?

Why did the psalmist say (one thousand years before the incarnation of the Word): “The Lord said to my Lord sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool … the Lord has sworn and will not relent, you are priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (Ps. 110:1, 4), while it was said that Stephen, when he was being stoned, “saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56)?

What the psalmist said was a declaration that the Levitical priesthood has been cancelled after it achieved its goal in Christ’s priesthood in the heavenly holies, for He is one with the Father and sits at His right hand to intercede on behalf of humanity, not by supplications, but by His unity with Him so that the Father sees the Church concealed in the Son’s body who

926 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies On Hebrews 8.2 (NPNF I/14:403).

sits at His right hand. So when Stephen was being persecuted by the high priest, leaders and the people, who were concerned with keeping the law in its literal interpretation to the extent that they were cut to the heart and gnashed at him with their teeth, he looked up to heaven, being full of the Holy Spirit, and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:55).

Jesus’ standing here does not signify a physical position, for the heavens cannot be confined by some physical movements, so He is not standing to ask the Father to save His Church that is being persecuted in the person of Stephen, the disciples or Apostles, but to announce that He is attaching her to Himself like an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil (Heb. 6:19). He declares that His Church is united to Him, being His body and heavenly bride, which the waves of persecutions and hardships that Satan rages against her, can never shake the believers’ hearts or hope. He is at the right hand of the Father, working like someone who is standing up, and being glorified like someone who is seated, so the struggling Church appears as a queen sitting at the right hand of the King of kings.

Just as the devil was able to cause non-believers to persecute the Church, the Savior, who sits at the right hand of the Father, was stopping Saul of Tarsus from going to Damascus to persecute the believers, was causing the believers in Jerusalem to spread all over the lands of Judea and Samaria to preach the word (Acts 8:4), and was sending His angel to guide Philip to meet the eunuch under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians in order to bring him to the faith and baptize him (Acts 8:26–39). And Philip did not stop his ministry in all cities till he came to Caesarea.

Christ’s standing in the heavenly holies was to speak to Saul (who persecutes the Church) and ask him to go to His disciple Ananias (Acts 9) and to preach in the synagogues that Christ is the Son of God, instead of persecuting the believers in Damascus. At the same time that the high priest and those with him in Jerusalem were extremely angry, it was said that “the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied” (Acts 9:31). This is the work of the Heavenly High Priest, Our Lord Jesus, who sits and stands at the right hand of the Father, in whom the Father sees the unceasing growth of the Church, especially when the persecutions and wars against her intensify.