On 26 June 1941, the NKVD arrested him. He was taken to Drohobych prison and never seen alive again. After the Soviets withdrew from the city his mutilated body was found in the prison with signs of torture, including cross-shaped knife slashes across his chest.[1]
Yasyf Lastoviak, in a testimony, recounted finding Stefan Baranyk's corpse:
Behind the prison I saw a big hole which has been covered up, filled with sand. When the Bolsheviks retreated, the Germans came and people rushed to the prison to find their relatives. The Germans allowed people into the area of the prison in small groups to claim their murdered relatives, but most people stood by the gates, so I went to the side and climbed a tree. There was a terrible stink […] I saw how the Germans sent people to uncover the hole which was filled with sand. The hole was new because the people uncovered it with their hands. They dragged out the murdered bodies. There was little covering near the hole, and under it I saw the body of Father Severian Baranyk. Basilian, with visible marks of his prison tortures; his body had unnaturally swelled black, his face terrible. Dad later said that on his chest the sign of the cross had been slashed.[1]
References
^ abcChurch of the Martyrs: The New Saints of Ukraine. Lviv, Ukraine: St John's Monastery. 2002. p. 14. ISBN966-561-345-6.