Stefan Grigoryevich Kostogryz

He was born on November 24, 1887, in the city of Berislav, Kherson Governorate.

For a long time, he was the choirmaster of a church choir. Since February 1915, he served as a psalmist at the Church of Archangel Michael in the village of Slobozia, Tiraspol Uyezd, Kherson Governorate (now the city of Slobozia, Transnistria).

It is likely that he was ordained a deacon in 1924, as he was transferred to a new place of service around that time.

He was arrested in the late 1920s or early 1930s and imprisoned. However, parishioners intervened on his behalf, and he was soon released.

Presumably, in 1933, he was ordained a priest and appointed rector of the Church of Archangel Michael in the village of Slobozia, which was closed in 1933 because the previous rector had moved to the Odessa region.

On August 28, 1935, he was arrested on charges of "attempting to cross the border near Romania and simultaneously conducting counter-revolutionary agitation."

On December 7 of that year, the Special Collegium of the Odessa Regional Court sentenced him to seven years of forced labor. On February 10, 1936, he was sent to the KarLag NKVD (Karaganda region, Kazakhstan).

In May 1937, he was arrested in the First Volkovskoye Division of KarLag on charges of "systematic agitation among prisoners, praising the tsarist regime." He was included in the group case of "the priests Father Alexander Aksenov and Father Stefan Kostogryz, KarLag, 1937."

From the indictment:

"While serving his sentence in KarLag, he systematically conducted counter-revolutionary religious agitation among prisoners, aimed at discrediting the policies of the party and Soviet power, praising the tsarist regime."

From the case materials:

"Kostogryz stated: 'Earlier, during the reign of Nicholas II, life was much better than under Soviet power, which drove everyone into collective farms and starved people. Those who remember 1932 and 1933 also remember that half of the Kherson Governorate died in these collective farms. Bolshevism is a temporary phenomenon and will not last long. If the communists get away with it for now, it is only because foreign countries do not want to make sacrifices. The main thing is that everyone must realize the wrongness of Soviet policy, which forcibly imposes collective farms and persecutes the Church, its clergy, and believers.'"

He did not plead guilty to the charges.

On September 20, 1937, the NKVD troika of the Karaganda region sentenced him to the highest measure of punishment.

He was executed on September 26, 1937, in KarLag.

On January 31, 1990, he was rehabilitated by the prosecutor of Karaganda city for the 1937 repressions.

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