Igoumen Parthenios of Kiziltash Monastery
The future Igoumen Parthenios was born in 1815 in Elizavetgrad. On December 23, 1845, he was tonsured as a monk, and on April 8, 1846, he was ordained as a Heromonk. From July 1848, Father Parthenios was the Dean of the Korsun Monastery at Kherson; later he was the steward in the Kherson Bishop's House. In 1852, at the Tenginsky fortification of the Black Sea Coast Guard, Father Parthenios distinguished himself with his engineering talents by suggesting an easier way to lift sunken cargo. A special commission approved his invention, and there was a directive to acquire such machines for the port. For his new invention to raise sunken ships Father Parthenios received gratitude from the Rear Admiral of the Black Sea Fleet. During the Crimean War 1853–1856 during the shelling of Novorossiysk by enemy ships from February 28 to March 4, 1855 Father Parthenios, in the face of mortal danger, constantly confessed and communed the wounded soldiers, and buried the dead.
Because of his personal courage and outstanding inventions, the Holy Synod awarded Hieromonk Parthenios a pectoral cross on March 20, 1857. On April 7 he was elevated to the rank of Igoumen. Father Parthenios also had a bronze cross in remembrance of the Crimean War, as well as a medal and a cross for those who served in the Caucasian Army.
On August 20, 1858, Igoumen Parthenios was appointed rector of the Kiziltash cenobitic Monastery of the Taurida Diocese. In the VIII century, the summer residence of the Holy Confessor Archbishop Stephen of Sourozh was located there, but over time that holy place fell into disrepair. With his inherent energy, talent, and zeal for the glory of God, Father Parthenios began to build and transform the ancient Monastery. His contemporaries noticed his amazing and diverse abilities, his organizational, economic, and administrative talent, and his inexhaustible creative energy, thanks to which he managed to do what no one else in the entire history of the Monastery had been able to do. From absolute devastation and poverty, without any outside help (or even sympathy), and with the actual illiteracy of the brethren of the coenobium, he was able to achieve results which made the Igoumen appreciated, respected, and loved throughout the district. People listened to his advice, and sought his company. Courageous and cheerful, living in constant prayer, he was not overwhelmed by the unsightly atmosphere of complete disorder, but he conquered it. Where a mediocre or weak-willed person might give up prematurely or languish, Igoumen Parthenios put everything in order.
An ascetic and struggler, he influenced his flock by his own example. With resolute persistence, not only in the Monastery, but also in the district, Igoumen Parthenios lifted everyone up to himself, and he did not put up with any immorality or baseness. Everyone loved him, unselfish, caring like a father. The spiritual authority of the Igoumen steadily grew and strengthened, becoming a spiritual and moral guide for those around him. The slightest event in the life of his flock found a response in his pastoral heart, thus they were sanctified by his prayer and warmed by his love.
In the words of the Apostle, he "became all things to all people" (I Corinthians 9: 22). With a prayer on his lips, the Igoumen worked from dawn to dawn, and a handful of monks emulated him. Since he was unmercenary, he forbade the brethren to beg for alms, and there was nothing with which to hire laborers. In the Kiziltash cenobium, before Igoumen Parthenios, there was only a cave with a healing spring, and two or three wicker mud huts. Through his efforts, roads were laid, orchards and vineyards were planted. From just a cave in the rock, an entire hermitage emerged with two guest houses and a stone church. Many pilgrims flocked the Kiziltash cenobium.
But there were also sorrows. In 1863, the first fatal clashes began with the local Tatars, who shamelessly cut down the forest and grazed their cattle on the Monastery's land. Father Parthenios could not explain himself to them, and was unsuccessful at a household or an administrative level. Possessing a direct and integral character, the Igoumen spoke and acted only from a Christian conscience, not covered by the niceties of the so-called and universally revered common sense. Not having the strength to break the mutual cover-up and bureaucratic formalism where he was, he appealed to the head of Taurida province, but to no avail. Seeing no obstacles for themselves, and making sure of impunity, the Tatars continued their raids and thievery. Once they brutally beat a priest who caught them in the act of stealing.
Igoumen Parthenios did not lose hope of reasoning and reassuring the Tatars. But one crime often gives rise to the next. Not wishing to tolerate any longer the witness and denouncer of their crimes, four Tatars, one of them was Softa (who was preparing to become a mullah), they decided to kill the Saint. Setting up an ambush near the road, they waited for him for several days. The crime was committed when the Igoumen on September 4, the eve of the Leave-taking of the Dormition, he returned on horseback from Sudak to the Monastery, hurrying to the Service. With three shots, the villains killed Father Parthenios and, in order to hide the traces of the crime, they burned him, and his horse, after he was slaughtered, they buried him in the forest. Breaking his bones with wood, the Tatars burnt the body of Igoumen Parthenios from five in the evening until two in the morning. The crime would have remained unsolved if not for witnesses who accidentally appeared at the scene of the crime. The Tatars wanted to kill them as well, but they were Muslims, and villains did not dare to raise a hand against their coreligionists. Convicted by their conscience, and not wanting to be among the suspects, the eyewitnesses spoke of a terrible crime, at the site where the ashes and the relics of Igoumen Parthenios were found. The relics were carefully collected and solemnly buried with the blessing of Bishop Alexei of Taurida by a Spiritual Council of clergy, on December 2, 1866, not far from the Monastery.
In August 2000, the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church canonized Igoumen Parthenios, and thereby called him to a new service as a heavenly man. The Venerable Martyr is commemorated on September 4/17.
Hieromartyr Parthenios, pray to God for us!