Paphnutius

Holy Venerable Paphnutius was a hieromonk and the founder of the Monastery of the Protection of the Mother of God in Balakhna, in the Nizhny Novgorod province, in the sixteenth century. He is honoured as a local saint.

His name was entered in the list of all the saints of the Russian land in the Service Menaion (May, part three), which is taken as a recognition of his veneration, although he has no day of his own in the synaxis of Nizhny Novgorod. The menologion of Dimitry Sambikin says that his life is not known, but that his memory lives among the people: local people serve memorial services at his grave near Balakhna, and on 1 May many pilgrims come to the church of the Protection. The same source adds that he was not officially canonized.