Stefan Vasilyevich Kreidich

He was born in 1874 in the village of Vavulichi, Grodno Governorate, in the Bezdetskaya Volost, into a Belarusian peasant family.

He served in the Tsarist army from 1914 to 1918 as a clerk at the headquarters of the military district in the city of Smolensk.

From 1919 to 1923, he was a psalmist and singer in the church choir in the village of Rogovo (Ropovo), Bryansk Governorate. From 1923 to 1929, he served as a psalmist and choir singer in Smolensk, and then again in Rogovo until 1932.

After his ordination as a priest in 1932, he served for three years in the village of Robchik, Bryansk Governorate.

In 1936, he was arrested and convicted by a special panel of the Western Regional Court under Article 58-10, Part 1 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR to seven years in labor camps "for agitation against joining collective farms, gathering children aged 12 to 15 and indoctrinating them with religious fervor, and expressing counter-revolutionary insurgent sentiments." He was sent to the Karaganda labor camp (KarLag) of the NKVD in Kazakhstan.

In 1937, he was charged in the group case of Metropolitan Evgeny (Zernov) with "not only failing to change his convictions but also continuing his anti-Soviet activities while in detention, conducting religious propaganda among the camp prisoners and spreading provocative anti-Soviet fabrications."

During interrogation, he stated: "I do not plead guilty, and as for singing the Troparion of the Trinity, I believed I had the right to do so - it was not prohibited."

On September 20, 1937, the NKVD troika of the Karaganda region decided to execute Metropolitan Evgeny and other priests, including Father Stefan.

Priest Stefan Kreidich was canonized among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia at the Jubilee Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000 for general Church veneration.