Widowed in 1944, when his wife Olga died during the Soviet-German fights for the village of Jaczno in the Białystok region.
[2] On December 9, 1952, the metropolitan of Warsaw and all of Poland, Makary, presented to the council of bishops of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church three candidates for clergy to accept bishop chirotony and take over the cathedral in Wrocław and Szczecin: Mikołaj Niesłuchowski, Jan Lewiarz and Archimandrite Stefan (Rudyk).
However, he only obtained permission to build a new Orthodox temple on a plot of land near the church of St. Mary Magdalene in Białystok.
He refused to accept it, claiming that the existence of two sacred buildings in close proximity was pointless.
[7] He carried out a major renovation of the Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Białystok,[7] and in 1979 he consecrated the new Orthodox Church of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Białystok-Starosielce[8] He personally conducted catechesis for children in the building of the All Saints parish in Białystok, where he also lived, he also initiated separate Holy Liturgies addressed in a special way to children.