Partenij Zografski, whose baptismal name and surname were Pavle Trizlovski, was born in 1818 in Galichnik, as the firstborn son of Dosta and Vasilko. He received his first education at the monastery “St. Jovan Bigorski”, and in 1836 in Ohrid he was a student of Dimitar Miladinov. He was tonsured a monk at the Zograf Monastery on Mount Athos in 1842, where he received the name Partenij, and after the monastery the surname Zografski. Zografski also went to the Theological Academy in Odessa, the Cyprian Monastery in Moldova, the Kiev Seminary, and from 1846 to 1850 he was a full-time student at the Theological Academy in Moscow.
His life path is inextricably linked – with love for God and for his own Macedonian people. Shortly after his graduation, he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite by the Patriarch of Constantinople, and then appointed bishop of the Polyana diocese, the first Macedonian to hold such a title and rank. The ordination was performed by Metropolitan Neophyte of Thessaloniki in the patriarchal church in Constantinople. The first thing the new bishop advocated was the introduction of the Church Slavonic language in the worship in the churches of Macedonian believers, thereby reducing the influence of the Greek church in the worship. He toured the villages in the diocese to introduce Slavic spiritual influence, opened folk schools, and this could not but cause reactions from the Kukush chorbadjis, who commented “What kind of bishop is he who does not practice chibuk chat, struggles daily with the priests with learning how to read the readings in the churches, he is never at home because he is constantly in the villages in the diocese where he opens and builds schools” who later complained to the Patriarch of Constantinople about his actions. He is the author of numerous works that created the foundations of the grammar of the Macedonian language. Before the appearance of Parthenius Zografski, only Greek and Old Slavonic grammar were taught in schools, and he went further – he embarked on writing the grammar of the Slavs in the Balkans under the Turks, in which he systematized the differences between the Bulgarian and Macedonian languages on a scientific basis. He was a polyglot – he knew Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Old Chaldean, French, Russian and Bulgarian. He worked as a teacher in the theological school of the Zograf Monastery, a professor of Church Slavonic at the theological school on the island of Halki near Constantinople. Parthenius was also a spiritual director of the Russian imperial court. The monastery complex in Star Dojran today bears the name “Saint Parthenius Zografski”, which immediately led the Macedonian Orthodox Church to accept Bishop Parthenius as a saint in the Orthodox Church.