Hieromonk
Saint Stephen (in the world Stepan Ivanovich Kuskov) was born on December 10, 1870, in the city of Vyshny Volochok, Tver Province, in a family of a workshop owner. After finishing school, he entered a monastery, where he served as a chanter, and in 1898 he took monastic vows.
The civil turmoil that began after the 1917 revolution found him in the city of Petropavlovsk. Cut off from the Tver diocese, he settled in a church as a psalmist. After the departure of the White Army from Petropavlovsk, he moved to Kuban, and then returned to his homeland, in the Tver diocese, where he served in the church of the village of Nikolskoye in the Beloozersky district.
Over time, the authorities intensified their persecution of believers and the clergy. In 1934, after Pascha, Fr. Stephen, as usual, went from house to house of the faithful with molebens, but the village council threatened him with arrest if he continued to do so. In 1936, the Soviet government began a new campaign against the Orthodox Church, and many priests were deprived of registration.
Fr. Stephen was arrested on August 7, 1937. During the interrogation, he denied the accusations of counter-revolutionary activity, asserting that he went from house to house to perform religious rites, but did not engage in anti-Soviet agitation. Nevertheless, the investigation produced an indictment claiming that he was conducting anti-Soviet propaganda among the collective farmers.
On September 13, the NKVD Troika sentenced Hieromonk Stephen to death by shooting, which was carried out on September 17, 1937. He was canonized among the ranks of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia at the Jubilee Archpastoral Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in August 2000 for public veneration.
