Parthenius Bryanskikh

Saint Parthenius Bryanskikh, hieromartyr (born Pyotr Arsenievich Bryanskikh, 30 October 1881 to 22 November 1937), was bishop of Ananiev, vicar of the diocese of Odessa, shot at Arkhangelsk in 1937. He was numbered among the new martyrs and confessors of Russia by decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church of 20 April 2005. He is commemorated on 9 November (Old Style). On 21 August 2007 his sister, the martyr Antonina Bryanskikh, was also canonized.

Youth and studies

He was born at Irkutsk, the eldest of four children of the second-⁠guild merchant Arseny Petrovich Bryanskikh, manager of the firm "Nemchinov and Son", and of Anna. The family was generous, pious, loving God and the Church. With his younger sister Antonina, the future martyr, ten years younger, he had a particularly warm relationship. He studied at the gymnasium at Irkutsk, then moved to the church seminary at Irkutsk, which he finished in 1902. From youth he dreamed of the revival of Holy Rus'. He went to Kyiv, to the Theological Academy, where he graduated in 1907 with the title of candidate of theology, then followed for eight months courses in biblical sciences at the University of Berlin. In 1908 to 1909 he taught the Old Testament at Krasnoyarsk, and from 1909 to 1911 at the seminary at Ryazan.

Monk and bishop

In 1911 he was tonsured a monk, made hieromonk and archimandrite, and appointed teacher of the Old Testament and assistant head of the pastoral school at Zhytomyr. From 1916 he was assistant head of the missionary seminary at the Byziukov monastery in Kherson. After the seminary was closed he moved to Kherson, where he lived in the bishop's house, as secretary of Bishop Procopius (Titov), until 1921. On 16 May 1921 he was consecrated bishop of Novomyrhorod, vicar of Odessa, and from 1922 bishop of Ananiev. In the same year his closest friend, Macarius (Karmazin), was consecrated bishop, vicar of Kyiv. The two bishops firmly opposed the renovationist schism and were a support of the Patriarchal Church in Ukraine, gathering around them those who held with Patriarch Tikhon and forming a network of secret communities, unconnected with the secular power.

He was arrested at Kyiv, sent to Kharkiv and then to Moscow, where from 1924 he lived at the monastery of Saint Daniel, a gathering of conservative hierarchs who fought uncompromisingly against the renovationists; after the arrest of the abbot, Archbishop Theodore (Pozdeevsky), he led the brotherhood. He was one of the closest helpers of the locum tenens of the patriarch, Metropolitan Peter (Polyansky). In 1925 he was sentenced to three years of exile in the Komi region. On his return he lived again at Danilov, took a stand against Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) after the latter's "Declaration" and was one of the leaders of the "Danilov" movement, corresponding with the hieromartyr Metropolitan Cyril (Smirnov) and serving in secret, with many spiritual children. In 1929 he was arrested, accused of having urged believers to resist the transformation of one of the churches of the Danilov monastery into a food store, and exiled for three years in Kazakhstan. He was arrested again in 1931 and in November 1934, accused of anti-⁠Soviet agitation and secret services in his apartment; imprisoned at Butyrka, he was sentenced in 1935 to five years of exile at Arkhangelsk, where he served in secret in homes and preached.

The last arrest

On 31 July 1937 he was arrested again and held at Arkhangelsk. On 17 August he was charged with organizing illegal counter-⁠revolutionary gatherings, defeatist agitation and propaganda of fascism. On 15 October the troika of the NKVD for the Northern Region sentenced him to death, and on 22 November 1937 the sentence was carried out; he was buried in an unknown common grave. His name had been put on a working list of new martyrs in the preparation of the canonization of the Russian Church Outside Russia in 1981, which was not by name. On 20 April 2005 the Holy Synod entered his name in the Synaxis of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia of the twentieth century.