Stepan Alexandrovich Yaroshevich

Hieromartyr Stepan was born in 1883 in the village of Ostashkovo, Proskurovsky Uyezd, Podolsk Governorate, into the family of a psalmist. Stepan Alexandrovich received a secondary education and became a priest. It is known that from 1930 to 1935 he served in the village of Goryachevka, Vinnytsia region.

On November 7, 1935, Father Stepan was arrested and sentenced to six years in a labor camp. He served his sentence in the Koktun-Kul department of the Karaganda NKVD labor camp (Karaganda region, Kazakhstan), where he worked as a builder at the 6th section. In August 1937, several arrests were made in the Karaganda labor camp, and Father Stepan was among those arrested. All those involved in the group case "The Case of Priest Vasily Zelensky and others" were charged. Father Stepan was accused of "being part of a counter-revolutionary group that held illegal prayers on the hills, where they erected a cross, anti-Soviet agitation, organizing a memorial service for executed enemies of the people, and refusing to participate in hay stacking work." The indictment explained: "...after the execution of enemies of the people, Tukhachevsky and others, together with Zelensky, he organized a memorial service for the executed, calling them his people."

Father Stepan did not plead guilty, giving short answers during interrogations: "I did not say anything, I do not know anything. I only know Zelensky."

On September 10, 1937, the NKVD troika of the Karaganda region sentenced Priest Stepan Yaroshevich to the highest measure of punishment.

On September 15 of the same year, he was executed along with Bishop Damaskin (Tsedrik) and other clergymen.

He was canonized by the Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000.