Holy New Martyrs Parfenii (Brianskih) was murdered today in 1937. Peter was born in 1881 in Irkutsk to the family of a top business executive at the leading Russian tea distributor, Nemchinoff and Sons. The fact that the future St. Parfenii’s sister Antonina became a nun, and subsequently also a new martyr, is sufficient to show that their family was very pious. Upon graduation from Kiev Theological Academy in 1907, Peter went for one semester to Berlin to take a class in biblical studies. The Old Testament was the area of his expertise, and he taught it upon his return to Russia. In 1911, Peter became a monk. In May 1921, Archimandrite Parfenii was consecrated Bishop of Novomirgorod, a vicar of Odessa Diocese. Bishop Parfenii aligned himself with the most intransigent bishops, such as Makaraii (Karmazin), later a bishop of the “Catacomb” Church. With him, at the end of 1923 and the beginning of 1924, Bishop Parfenii consecrated five new bishops in Kiev. In Moscow, Bishop Parfenii lived in Danilov Monastery, which was in opposition even to Patriarch St. Tikhon during the short period when the new calendar was adopted by the Russian Church, though the abbot of the monastery, St. Fedor of Volokolamsk, did receive those who served with New Calendarist clergy back into ecclesiastical communion through repentance. Bishop Parfenii was arrested at the end of 1925 in connection with the arrest of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens, Metropolitan Peter. Among other things, he was accused of defending the course of Russian ecclesiastical refugees and for being an adherent of Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitskii), who was still the ruling bishop of Kiev. When Metropolitan Sergii (Stragorodskii), Deputy Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, introduced his new ecclesiastical policies in 1927, Bishop Parfenii united with St. Cyrill of Kazan, who did not deny the validity of Metropolitan Sergii’s sacraments but refused to act against his conscience. In 1934, Bishop Parfenii was exiled to Arkhangelsk, where he was executed. He was initially canonized by the Russian Church Abroad in 1981. In the new millennium, the Russian Orthodox Church has added his name to the Synaxis of all New Martyrs of Russia and also to local synaxes of New Martyrs. | 
