Venerable Paphnutius the Abbot of Borovsk

Paphnutius, baptized Parthenius, was born about 1395 near Borovsk, the grandson of a Tatar tax official who had been baptized as Martin. At twenty he became a monk in the Pokrov monastery at Vysokoe, near Borovsk, under the elder Nikita, a disciple of St Sergius of Radonezh, and later served there as abbot for thirteen years.

About 1440 he withdrew to a wooded height between two rivers near Borovsk, and the community that gathered round him grew into a large monastery. Among those he tonsured was Joseph, the future founder of the Volokolamsk monastery. His disciple Innocent recorded his last days: Paphnutius foretold that he would die on a Thursday, and he died on Thursday, 1 May 1477.