The Life of Saint Xenia

The Life of
 SAINT XENIA
 Homeless Wanderer of the City of Peter1

___
1 Translated and condensed from Blessed Xenia of Petersburg, Blessed Xenia Memorial Fund, New York, 1973; and The Slave of God Blessed Xenia, Jordanville, N.Y., 1971.


 LITTLE IS KNOWN of the earthly life of this holy woman who was truly, as her name indicates, a "stranger" or "foreigner" on the earth, ever sighing and striving for the heavenly homeland.
 
 She lived, we do know, in the 18th century, during the reigns of the Empresses Elizabeth and Catherine II; but the date of her birth and death, as well as her family background, are not known to us. She spent almost all her life in Petersburg and bore the name Xenia Grigorievna Petrova, being the wife of the army officer and court singer Andrew Feodorovich Petrov.
 
 At the age of 26, Blessed Xenia became a widow under conditions which changed the whole course of her life. Her husband, who was leading the ordinary worldly life of that time, died suddenly at an evening party, without repentance or the reception of the Holy Mysteries. Out of grief, and especially out of concern for the eternal lot of her husband, Blessed Xenia undertook a strange way of life. She wore her husband's clothing and demanded that people call her "Andrew Feodorovich." Through the death of her beloved husband she came to see the inconstant and passing nature of earthly life. All her previous earthly interests lost all significance for her, and her earthly existence now became the means for attaining eternal life in God.
 
 Against the wishes of her relatives, who protested to the military authorities, she gave away her house and all her possessions to the poor and began to lead a homeless life as a wanderer in the poor quarter of Petersburg. Refusing all help from her friends and relatives, she rejoiced in her freedom from the things of this world. When her husband's clothes wore out, she dressed in rags, always in green and red, the colors of her husband's uniform; these she wore the year round, despite the severe northern frosts.
 
 After some time Blessed Xenia suddenly disappeared from Petersburg and did not come back for eight years. During this time she visited the holy elders and ascetics of that time, receiving from them instruction in true spiritual life and preparing herself for the difficult labor she was yet to undertake: foolishness for Christ's sake. One of the holy elders of this time, Blessed Theodore of Sanaxar (+1791), who was well known in Petersburg first as a military man close to the court and then as a monk and spiritual father, had himself changed his way of life after being present at the sudden death of a young officer at a drinking party. It is even possible that this young officer was Xenia's husband, and that this one sad event opened the path to sanctity for two Russian saints. Probably, in any case, Xenia knew of him, and perhaps received spiritual instruction from him.
 
 After her return to Petersburg, Blessed Xenia remained in the same poor quarter, known as the "Petersburg side." Here she lived as a homeless wanderer, enduring insults and mockery for her strange behavior, but always having before her the image of Christ, the great sufferer, who bore spitting and mockery and a shameful death without murmuring. She would take no money from people except for copper coins, which she would use to help the poor. Nights she spent outside the city in a field, without sleeping, in constant prayer. In her emaciated face there shone forth the Christian virtues of meekness, humility, and kindness. Soon higher spiritual gifts began also to be revealed in her. She became clairvoyant and would prophecy, by means of allegories and cryptic statements, future events not only of the ordinary inhabitants of Petersburg, but even of the royal family. Several incidents of her foreknowledge have come down to us.
 
 1. Once Blessed Xenia went to visit a certain Krapivina, a merchant's wife. After being warmly greeted and spending some time in conversation with her and other guests, she thanked the hostess and, preparing to leave, pointed to Krapivina and said: "See, the nettles (krapiva in Russian) are green, but soon, soon they will fade." No one paid any attention to the words of the blessed one then, but soon the young Krapivina, who had been in blossoming health, unexpectedly became sick and died. Then those who had been present remembered the saint's words and understood that by them she had prophesied the coming death of the merchant's wife.
 
 2. Another time Blessed Xenia came to her good friend, Parasceva Antonova; to whom she had given her own house after becoming a widow, and told her: "Here you are sitting and mending stockings, and you don't know that God has sent you a son! Go quickly to the Smolensk cemetery!"
 
 Antonova, who had known the blessed one from her youth, knew well that no lying word ever issued from her lips; and so, despite the strangeness of her words, she immediately believed that something extraordinary had indeed happened, and she hastened to the Smolensk cemetery. Approaching the cemetery, she saw a large group of people, and she discovered that a coachman had run over a pregnant woman, who had then given birth to a son right there on the street and then died herself.
 
 Having pity on the child, Parasceva Antonova immediately took him home. Neither the Petersburg police force nor Antonova herself could find out who the dead mother was, nor who was the father of the child, and so the child remained with her. She gave him a good upbringing and education, and in time he became an eminent official, being a most respectful and loving son to his stepmother and taking good care of her until her very death. He likewise showed the deepest respect for the memory of Blessed Xenia, who had done so much good for his stepmother and had participated directly in his own fate at the very moment of his birth as a total orphan.
 
 3. Among the friends whom Blessed Xenia sometimes visited was likewise the Golubev family — a mother and her 17-year-old daughter, who was very beautiful. Xenia greatly loved this girl for her meek and quiet manner and kind heart.
 
 Once Xenia came to visit them as they were sitting at table and preparing coffee. "Oh, my beauty," she said to the daughter, "here you are brewing coffee, while your husband is burying his wife at Ochta. Run there quickly!" To the girl's puzzled response, Xenia only replied with an angry: "Go!"
 
 Knowing that Xenia never said anything without a meaning, and revering her as a God-pleaser, the Golubevs instantly obeyed and set out for Ochta. Here they saw a funeral procession heading for the cemetery. They joined the procession and took part in the funeral and burial of a doctor's young wife who had died in childbirth. After the services the Golubevs were preparing to leave with the rest of the people, when unexpectedly they came upon the young widower, who, after weeping bitterly at the sight of the earth being heaped over the body of his beloved wife, fainted and fell right into their arms. The Golubevs brought him back to his senses, became acquainted with him, and a year later the daughter became his wife. They lived happily together to old age and gave as their testament to their children to take care of the grave and revere the memory of Blessed Xenia.
 
 4. Once Blessed Xenia met a pious woman friend on the street, stopped her and, giving her a copper five-cent piece with the image of a horseman, said: "Take the five-cent piece, here is the Tsar on a horse; it will be extinguished!" The woman took the coin, said goodbye to Xenia, and went home being in perplexity over what these strange words might mean. Hardly had she entered the street where she lived than she saw that her house had caught fire, but before she could even run up to the house, the flames were extinguished. Then she understood the blessed one's words.
 
 5. In 1764, the former Tsar John VI, who had been imprisoned for 23 years in the Schlusselburg fortress in Petersburg, was killed during an uprising intended to restore him to the throne. For three weeks before this sad event, Blessed Xenia began to weep bitterly, every day, sometimes for the whole day. People who met her felt sorry for her and, thinking someone had offended her, asked her: "Why are you weeping, Andrew Feodorovich? Has someone offended you?" The blessed one replied: "There is blood there, blood, blood! There the rivers are filled with blood, the canals are bloody, there is blood there, blood!" and started to weep yet more. No one could understand what had happened to the usually calm and good-natured Xenia, or could make sense of her strange words. Only after three weeks, when the news of the death of the former Tsar spread throughout Petersburg, did everyone understand that by her weeping and strange words the blessed one had prophesied his suffering and death.
 
 6. On the eve of the feast of Christ's Nativity, December 24, 1761, Blessed Xenia spent the whole day running through the streets of the Petersburg side and cried loudly everywhere: "Make pancakes, make pancakes! Soon the whole of Russia will be making pancakes!" Everyone was perplexed as to what her strange words and conduct might mean. But the next day all Petersburg heard the sad news: the Empress Elizabeth had died unexpectedly. Only then did everyone realize the meaning of the words of the blessed one: she had prophesied the Empress' death, when all of Russia would be serving funeral meals with the customary pancakes in memory of the dead.
 
 7. Once in a certain market place in Petersburg the merchants succeeded in obtaining from a wealthy estate a supply of several sorts of the best honey. There was honey from linden-blossoms, and from buckwheat, and also from other flowers and plants. Each one had its own special taste and fragrance. And when the merchants mixed all three kinds of honey together in one barrel, such a flavor and such a taste were produced as to be beyond one's wildest dreams. People bought this honey immediately, not sparing any sum of money. And suddenly Blessed Xenia appeared. "Don't take it, don't take it," she cried; "this honey can't be eaten: it stinks of a corpse." "You've gone out of your mind, Matushka! Don't bother us! You see what a profit we are making. And how can you prove that this honey shouldn't be eaten?" — "Here's how I'll prove it!" screamed the blessed one, leaned with all her might on the barrel, and . . . overturned it. While the honey was flowing on the sidewalk, people closely surrounded the barrel; but when all the honey had flowed out, everyone cried out in horror and revulsion; at the bottom of the barrel lay an immense dead rat. Even those who had bought this honey for a dear price and carried it away in jars, threw it out.
 
 Blessed Xenia became known and revered among the people as a God-pleaser. Her very presence in a house or shop was regarded as bringing prosperity and success. Mothers would bring their children to receive her blessing and kind words, convinced that this would bring health and happiness to them.
 
 When a stone church was being built in the Smolensk cemetery in 1794, the blessed one, now in old age, would bring bricks at night to the top of the church to ease the labors of the workmen the next day. God only knows what other similar labors she performed.
 
 Thus spending her life in constant readiness to help her neighbor, in ceaseless prayer and renunciation of all earthly goods, Blessed Xenia lived for 45 years after the death of her husband. When and how she died we do not know, but her death probably occurred in the last years of the 18th century. She was buried in the Smolensk cemetery.
 
 By the 1820's, great crowds of believers were gathering at the grave of Blessed Xenia to pray for the repose of her soul and ask her intercession before God. So many people would take earth from her grave that it had to be replaced every year; when a stone slab was placed over the grave, people would chip pieces of it as a remembrance of the saint. Later a chapel was built over her grave, and to this day, even though it has been closed for years, people go there to pray and gather a bit of earth or a piece of stone from the chapel wall. Miracles through the prayers of Blessed Xenia have not diminished over the years, but even increased in recent years as the day of her canonization drew near. The following is one of the many remarkable miracles of Blessed Xenia in our own days.
 
 Theodore G. Huene of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, is a living witness of Blessed Xenia's miraculous intervention in his life from beyond the grave. Through her prayers he was literally "pulled out" from the abyss of death both physical and spiritual; for he was among the dead and rose to witness the truth of the Orthodox Faith.
 
 T. Huene, a Lutheran from Russia, for many years suffered from an ulcer which no medical treatment helped. On July 19, 1952, he began to bleed internally, was taken to the hospital, and underwent an emergency operation, during which his heart stopped beating and he "died". However, after some minutes of heart massage, the heart began to beat again. His wife and children outside were informed that ten minutes is the longest that the heart can be without beating; "but we don't know exactly how long your husband's heart failed to beat," concluded the doctor. The interval of death was evidently longer than this, for oxygen had been cut off from the brain too long and as a result the process of brain decay had already set in, with symptoms of the death agony. Even if by some chance he were to survive, his brain would be permanently damaged. His wife, who was then an Orthodox Christian only in name, writes: "The next day he had convulsions; he was strapped to the bed, and the frightful agony began. He was unconscious for over a week. During this time a friend, Mrs. Barbara Girillovich, suggested that we have a panikhida served for Blessed Xenia, saying, 'You will see that in half an hour he will feel better.' She gave me a little bottle with a piece of cotton inside; the bottle had once contained oil from the lamp over Xenia's grave, and the cotton had once been soaked in it. She told me to make the sign of the cross on my husband's forehead and chest and then place the bottle under his pillow. We didn't know at all who this Xenia was, but I at once ordered a panikhida to be served in church, asking in addition on my own part that a moleben be served to the Kursk Icon of the Mother of God, since I had heard that many had received help through this Icon. This was done right away. Half an hour after the services had been sung, my husband opened his eyes for the first time, pronounced my name, and asked for 'oil.' I thought he was hungry ('oil' and 'butter' are the same word in Russian) and wanted to eat, but he said faintly, 'Now I feel better,' and then I understood and anointed him again, making the sign of the cross — and he quietly fell asleep. From that day on he started to get better."
 
 The first time his daughter saw him after he regained consciousness, he told her with radiant joy: "I saw angels; I will live now," and he kept asking that some "blue icon" be shown to him. When he had regained strength after some time he recounted the following: He felt he was somewhere in the midst of dark tunnels, struggling over pipes in deep ditches where it was terribly cold. He was about to sink into some dark pit when an old woman in men's clothing, in a short jacket and long boots, appeared on the surface above. She took him by the hand and tried several times to pull him out. Every time that he felt he was sinking down into the marsh she would pull him, until finally she pulled him out of the pit into the light. There he saw how she was dressed and that she was pulling a sled on which there was a blue icon of the Mother of God. The woman came to an unfinished church and began to haul bricks on her sled to the scaffolding. "I asked her if I could help, but she said that she had to do it herself," concluded Mr. Huene, who knew nothing at all about Xenia. Only after a visit by Archimandrite Anthony (now Archbishop of San Francisco), who brought him a booklet on the Life of Blessed Xenia with a picture of her, did he realize who she was, as he exclaimed with thanksgiving: "That's the woman I saw."
 
 His recovery proceeded with astonishing rapidity. Mrs. Huene writes: "When we were leaving the hospital the head nurse was moved to tears, since no one in the hospital thought that my husband would live. The doctor, when I thanked him, said: 'Do not thank me; it was someone above me.' And on August 26, the day of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk and the Apodosis of the Transfiguration, my husband was received into the Orthodox Church, and he now takes an active part in church life, being an assistant to the church warden."
 
 Relatively recently Mr. Huene was able to see for the first time the original Kursk Icon when it was visiting the Edmonton diocese. With awe he beheld and immediately recognized this splendid and truly wonderworking Icon, adorned with a glittering bright blue riza, just exactly as he had seen it in the other world, being carried by Blessed Xenia, who, with a "foolishness" above this world, opened to him the doors of eternal salvation — granting to us a glimpse of God's unfathomable mercy to mankind.
 
 Witnessed and verified by: Mr. and Mrs. T. Huene, Mrs. Eugenia Pafnutieff, Mr. and Mrs. Girillovich, Mr. and Mrs. D. Horvath
 
 Even up to the day of her canonization, those who have prayed for the soul of Blessed Xenia have received healing from afflictions, success in good undertakings, and deliverance from misfortunes.
 
The Port of Petersburg in Blessed Xenia's time

 
St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra in Petersburg, 18th century engraving

 
Petersburg the Nevsky Prospect in Blessed Xenia's time

 
The sealed chapel of Blessed Xenia

 
Bl. Xenia depiction by new martyr Nun Mariamna of Kiev

 
Elder Theodore of Sanaxar