Stephen Ponomarev

Holy Hieromartyr Stephen Ponomarev was an archpriest at Verny (today Almaty) in Kazakhstan and died in prison of typhus on 18 January 1933, together with the archpriests Philip Grigoriev and Alexander Skalsky.

The priest He was born on 14 December 1880 in the town of Verny. In 1895 he finished the parish school, in 1904 he was appointed psalm-⁠reader at the church in the village of Mikhailovskoe, Verny district, and teacher of singing at the parish school. He married Praskovya. After the wedding he told her: "Dear Praskovya Kuzminichna, do you want to enter paradise and be with the Lord?" "I do." "Then I am your brother and you are my sister." From that time they lived as monastics. In 1909 he was ordained deacon, then priest. From 1914 to 1917 he was a priest in a field military hospital, where, spending much time in the trenches, he fell gravely ill and barely survived. From then on he suffered from severe headaches, especially in winter, when frost and rime covered the metal liturgical vessels: "I have such pains," he said, "that I am forced to cover my head with a scarf; when my head is covered the pain eases a little." He was then sent to the church of Saint Nicholas in Verny and raised to archpriest. He served daily and lived as a strict monk, his soul always sunk in prayer: "God forbid," he would say, "that I should miss a service." His services were quiet, unhurried, full of devotion.

Seeing that Father Alexander found it hard to live alone, he urged him to move in with them, and they lived in the same house, each in a small room with a table, a stool and a bed covered with soldier's cloth. Praskovya Kuzminichna lived on the ground floor and eased their daily life with her care. In 1923 Nicholas (Fedotov) became bishop in Semirechye, who in the same year went over to the Renovationist schism, and Semirechye became almost wholly Renovationist. Father Stephen told Father Alexander, by the witness of parishioners, that he would not go into Renovationism and would serve as before in a side chapel, but would not let him go either. Father Alexander wavered, and the faithful wept; a woman, Luchagina, said to him: "Do you want to leave your flock?" He understood, repented, and Father Stephen barred him from the service until repentance; on the first feast day, before the Liturgy, Father Alexander repented before clergy and people and served again beside him. By 1929 the cathedral was given to a museum, and the Renovationists passed to the Trinity church; the church of Saint Nicholas remained the only Orthodox church in the city, and Archpriest Philip Grigoriev, who had refused to stay with the Renovationists, came to serve there.

Martyrdom On 10 December 1932 the OGPU arrested the archpriests Alexander, Stephen and Philip. In prison they fell ill with typhus; when their condition became hopeless they were moved to a barrack set up for typhus, but stayed there a short time. On 17 January 1933 Archpriest Philip Grigoriev died, on 18 January Stephen Ponomarev, on 20 January Alexander Skalsky. All three were buried in the cemetery where exiled peasants were then buried at Alma-⁠Ata.

He is commemorated on 17 January and, in the new style, on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church.