Saint Parthenius, Bishop of Lampsacus on the Hellespont

Parthenius was born in Melitopolis on the Hellespont, the son of a deacon named Christopher. He never went to school, but learned much of Scripture by listening in church; as a youth he fished in a nearby lake and gave what he earned to the poor. His Life says that by eighteen he was already healing the sick. Bishop Philip of Melitopolis had him taught to read and ordained him priest.

Achillius, metropolitan of Cyzicus, then made him bishop of Lampsacus, a city still almost wholly pagan. With a charter from Constantine the Great, who also gave him gold for building, he pulled down the temples and built a church. He died in old age on 7 February, in the 4th century, and bishops of the neighbouring cities came to bury him.