New Hieromartyr Parthenius of Kiziltash

Parthenius (Parthenios) was a nineteenth-century Russian hieromonk and abbot who restored the Kiziltash Monastery in the Crimea and was killed by brigands while returning to it. By tradition he was born in 1815 at Elizavetgrad, in what was then southern Russia. He was tonsured a monk on December 23, 1845, and ordained hieromonk on April 8, 1846, beginning a monastic career that would combine pastoral service in wartime with the practical work of monastic renewal.

From July 1848 he served as dean of the Korsun Monastery near Kherson, and during the Crimean War (1853–1856) he ministered to soldiers under fire. The synaxarion relates that from late February to early March 1855, near Novorossiysk, he continually confessed and communed the wounded and buried the dead despite mortal danger. He was also noted for a practical engineering talent: in 1852 at the Tenginsky fortification he proposed an easier method of raising sunken cargo, for which he received the gratitude of the Black Sea Fleet's command.

In recognition of his courage and service he was awarded a pectoral cross on March 20, 1857, and was elevated to the rank of igumen (abbot) on April 7 of the same year. On August 20, 1858, he was appointed rector of the Kiziltash cenobitic monastery in the Taurida Diocese, which he found in great poverty and devastation and rebuilt into a flourishing community. He is commemorated on September 4 and is numbered among the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.