Stephen Kreydich

Holy Hieromartyr Stephen Kreydich was a priest and was shot on 20 September 1937 (7 September in the old style) at Karaganda, on the same day as Metropolitan Eugene of Nizhny Novgorod.

Of the life of Stephen Kreydich the sources consulted say no more than his name, entered among those shot with Metropolitan Eugene. To make the setting of his suffering understood, we briefly tell the story of the latter. Eugene (Zernov) was born on 18 January 1877 in the Moscow region, in the family of a deacon; he finished the Moscow Seminary in 1898, then the Academy, was tonsured a monk in 1900, in 1913 was ordained bishop of Kirensk, vicar of Irkutsk, and in 1914 named bishop in Amur and Blagoveshchensk. In 1923 he was arrested at night, after the vigil on the eve of the Dormition; the whole city defended him and people gathered to feed him, and he fed all the prisoners. Patriarch Tikhon raised him to archbishop, then to member of the Holy Synod. He was held at Solovki (1924-1927), where he was recognized as senior bishop and took part in 1926 in the "Solovki Epistle", then was exiled to the Zyryan land; after 1929 he lived at Kotelnich, in 1930 was archbishop of Kotelnich, in 1934 moved to Nizhny Novgorod. In 1935, after the Paschal service, he went home through the streets in his klobuk, saying: "Why should we fear? We must fear God." He was soon arrested and, in September 1937, the NKVD troika of the Karaganda region sentenced him to death. He was shot on 7 (20) September 1937, together with the priest Stephen Kreydich, the hegumens Eugene (Vyzhva) and Nicholas (Ashchepyev) and the hieromonk Pachomius (Ionov). All were numbered among the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church at the Jubilee Council of Bishops in August 2000.

Stephen is commemorated on 20 September and, in the new style, on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors, on 8 August (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Smolensk and on 8 December in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Smolensk Land.