Thanks to the intervention of the International Red Cross, he was allowed to live in Berlin, and after two years, he arrived in occupied Łódź.

He was born in Majdan Lipowiecki in the Yavoriv Raion to a Ukrainian peasant family of Greek Catholic faith,[1] the son of Piotr Rudyk and Anna Troper.

[2] In 1911, Stepan Rudyk graduated from high school in Lviv, after which he went to Russia, where he began his studies at the Orthodox Volhynian Theological Seminary in Zhytomyr.

[3][5] On 8 January 1924, he was confirmed in the rank of chaplain of the reserve in the military chaplaincy of the Orthodox faith and remained in active service.

[8] After the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, as a result of a bombing raid on a military hospital in Warsaw, his wife was killed.

Thanks to the intervention of Father Rudyk's orphaned sons, supported by the International Red Cross, he was granted permission in February 1942 to leave the camp and was allowed to reside in Berlin as a vicar of the parish at the Resurrection of Christ Cathedral, belonging to the Diocese of Berlin and Germany [pl] of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

[11] According to preserved records, on 27 October 1948, he signed an agreement to cooperate with the Security Office as a secret collaborator under the code name Fidelis.

[2] The consecration was performed by Metropolitan Makary of Warsaw and All Poland, Archbishop of Białystok and Gdańsk Timothy Szretter, and Bishop of Łódź and Poznań George Korenistov.

[14] Assessing the state of the diocese he was to lead in the same year, the bishop described the situation as difficult, primarily due to the lack of a sufficient number of clergy.

[15] In 1958, Bishop Stefan took the lead of the Missionary Committee established by the Polish Orthodox Church, aimed at converting the Ukrainian population of Greek Catholic faith to Orthodoxy.

[3] According to preserved documents, in 1963, the Security Office considered the possibility of sending him to the Soviet Union to surveil individuals of interest to the KGB.

They prevented Archbishop George Korenistov, who had been serving as locum tenens of the Warsaw metropolis from 1962 to 1965, from assuming leadership of the Polish Orthodox Church due to his anti-communist views.

Stefan Rudyk was seen as the only acceptable candidate for the communists, as he had experience in church work and showed complete loyalty to the authorities.

The Orthodox hierarchy, under the clear influence of the Office for Religious Affairs, together with state authorities, criticized a letter from the Polish episcopate to German bishops.

[25] As metropolitan, he established a social fund for the clergy and initiated work on a new internal statute for the Polish Orthodox Church (completed after his death in 1970).

These actions, in addition to providing pastoral care for the Orthodox population, were also a continuation of his previous efforts to convert Greek Catholics to Orthodoxy.

In 1966, as part of personnel reorganization, Metropolitan Stefan removed Father Jan Lewiarz, who had been directing the local parish of the Holy Trinity for eight years, accusing him of organizational and personal misconduct.

During the preparations for the surgery, he suffered a heart attack and despite immediate medical assistance, he passed away at the hospital on Brzeska Street [pl] in Warsaw.