Parthenius of Karoulia

Parthenius of Karoulia was a Russian hieroschemamonk, renowned on Athos for his noble origins and for the hidden life he led in the desert of Karoulia. Neither the years of his birth nor of his repose are known. He is venerated by the faithful, without a synodal canonization.

According to the Karoulia tradition he belonged to the Romanov family. The monk Macarius writes in the Russian Pilgrim that he was a mysterious figure of princely family, who rarely received anyone in his little house with its chapel, often celebrated the Liturgy and admitted to the service only the schemamonk Zosima, who sang and read in the choir. He was a practitioner of the prayer of the mind, with gathered senses and estranged from the world. Archimandrite Cherubim Karambelas calls him a symbol of victory over worldly glory: an aristocratic figure in a torn cassock, of whom some said that he gave off a wonderful fragrance; he told Cherubim that as a child in St Petersburg he had played with the future King George II of Greece. Elder Gabriel of Dionysiou says that he lived first in the cell of St Nicholas (Belozerka) at Karyes, then for nearly thirty years on Karoulia, sleeping on the floor of the cave, his torn cassock giving off a fragrance, and that he had the gift of foresight.