Panteleimon Arzhanykh

Saint Panteleimon Arzhanykh, an abbot and venerable martyr, was born on 29 June 1872 in the village of Zalipaevka in Oryol province, in the family of the peasant Timothy Arzhanykh, and at baptism was named Pavel. The family was poor, and from the age of twelve Pavel helped his father: he was a village shepherd and worked for a landowner and for peasants. Whenever he could, he went to pray at Optina. In 1894 he was called up for military service in the Kamchatka regiment, and after a year he was sent to medical orderly courses, then served as a company orderly.

In 1898 he was discharged, worked as an orderly in the provincial hospital in Zhitomir and studied at the Volhynian school for orderlies. He then returned home, spent half a year thinking, and, remembering his prayers at Optina, chose the monastery. He entered Optina in 1900 and was a novice for about seven years. Archimandrite Xenophon tonsured him into the mantle with the name Panteleimon, after the great martyr and healer, taking his earthly profession into account. On 15 March 1909 Bishop Benjamin of Kaluga ordained him hierodeacon, and in 1911 hieromonk. He worked as orderly in the monastery hospital, and in 1914 he was chosen treasurer, serving until the monastery was closed in 1918.

For a time he worked in the farm and museum set up by the authorities on the monastery's grounds, then served in churches in Likhvin, Meshchovsk and Odoev. In 1925 he came to Kozelsk and served at the church of Saint Nicholas. On 26 June 1926 he was raised to the rank of hegumen and named abbot of the Saint George Monastery in Meshchovsk, but the monastery was closed, so he returned to Kozelsk. About a hundred monks and nuns from the monasteries of Optina and Shamordino lived there then, like a monastery without walls scattered through the town.

On the feast of Pentecost in 1930, at the fair, peasants clashed with the militia and a peasant was killed. The authorities took advantage of this and on 18 August 1930 arrested forty monks and laypeople, among them Hegumen Panteleimon, accused of leading a monastic-⁠monarchist group. Held in Sukhinichi, he rejected the charge and said that in Kozelsk there was no hidden monastery, and that the monks had gathered there because of its nearness to Optina and Shamordino. On 27 November 1930 an OGPU troika sentenced him to ten years, later reduced to five. He passed through the Vishera camp and was then exiled to Yelets, where in 1935, after serving his term, he became a psalmist at the church of the Presentation.

There the persecution of 1937 found him. He was arrested on 16 September 1937 and held in Lipetsk. Witnesses said that at vespers on 14 May 1937 he had preached in memory of Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsy, killed in exile, urging the faithful to be as steadfast. Father Panteleimon did not admit guilt. On 15 November 1937 an NKVD troika sentenced him to death; he was shot on 29 November 1937 and buried in an unknown common grave.

He is commemorated on 29 November, on 7 February (a movable date) in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, on 31 July in the Synaxis of the Saints of Kaluga, on 23 September in the Synaxis of the Saints of Lipetsk and on 24 October in the Synaxis of all the Saints of Optina, in the new style.