Blessed Xenia of Petersburg (c. 1720–1803), a young widow, chose the feat of foolishness for Christ's sake to pray for the soul of her husband, who had suddenly died. Having given away her property, she wore his clothes, claiming that "Xenia had died." She lived in poverty, praying at night in the fields, refusing alms (except for kopecks—"a tsar on horseback"). She became renowned for her clairvoyance, miracles (predictions, healings), and secret assistance in the construction of the Smolensk Church (she carried bricks at night). She carried out this feat for 45 years. She is buried in the Smolensk Cemetery, where her chapel is a place of veneration and healing. She was canonized in 1988.
Saint Blessed Xenia was born between 1719 and 1731. Nothing is known about the saint's parents, childhood, or adolescence. It is only known that the blessed one's father was named Gregory.
Upon reaching adulthood, Ksenia Grigoryevna married a court chorister, Colonel Andrei Feodorovich Petrov, and lived with her husband in St. Petersburg. But God did not destined the young couple to walk life's path together for long: Andrei Feodorovich died suddenly, leaving his wife a widow at the age of twenty-six.
This tragic event changed the young woman's life. She was deeply shocked that her husband had died without proper Christian preparation and without the opportunity to repent. Ksenia decided that through her life's struggle, she would implore God to forgive the sins of God's servant Andrei.
On the day of her husband's funeral, Ksenia Grigoryevna donned his clothes and told everyone who offered her condolences that it was not Andrei Fyodorovich who had died, but his wife, Ksenia Grigoryevna. From that moment on, she truly died to the world, taking upon herself the most difficult feat—the feat of foolishness for Christ's sake.
She immediately seemed to forget everything earthly and human, all joys and comforts, and as a result, many thought her mad, as if she had lost her mind. Even her family and friends began to view her this way, especially after Xenia gave away absolutely all her property to the poor and gifted her house to her good friend, Paraskeva Antonova. Xenia's relatives, believing the young widow had lost her mind due to the grief she had suffered, even petitioned the deceased Andrei Feodorovich's superiors, asking them not to allow Xenia to give away her property in a frenzy. The deceased Petrov's superiors summoned Xenia, but after speaking with her, they were fully convinced that Xenia was completely healthy and therefore had the right to dispose of her property as she saw fit.
Freed from all earthly cares, Saint Xenia walked the difficult path of foolishness for Christ's sake. Dressed in her husband's clothes—that is, wearing his underwear, caftan, and waistcoat—she continued to assure people that Andrei Feodorovich was alive and that his wife, Xenia, had died. She never responded when called Xenia Grigoryevna, but always readily answered when called Andrei Feodorovich.
Xenia had no fixed abode. She spent most of her days wandering around the Petersburg Side, particularly in the area around the parish church of St. Matthias the Apostle (now 35 Bolshaya Pushkarskaya Street), where, at that time, poor people lived in small wooden houses. The strange attire of the poor, barely shod woman, with no place to lay her head, her allegorical conversations, her utter meekness, and her lack of malice often gave ill-tempered people, especially street urchins, the opportunity and courage to mock the blessed one. The blessed one, however, bore all this abuse without complaint. Only once, when Xenia had already begun to be revered as a saint of God, did the residents of the Petersburg Side see her in a state of great anger. The urchins' taunts on that occasion exceeded all human patience; they cursed her and threw stones and dirt at her. Since then, local residents have put an end to her street harassment.
Little by little, people grew accustomed to the blessed one's eccentricities. When Andrei Fyodorovich's suit rotted and fell apart, the saint donned rags. People began offering her warm clothes and money, but Xenia refused to exchange her rags for anything and spent her entire life in a red blouse and a green skirt, or vice versa—a green blouse and a red skirt. This was likely in memory of the colors of her husband's uniform. She also refused alms, accepting only "tsar on horseback" (kopeck coins with the image of a horseman [1] ) from kind people and immediately giving these "tsar on horseback" to the same poor as herself.
Wandering the streets of St. Petersburg all day, Xenia would occasionally visit her acquaintances, dine with them, chat, and then set off again on her travels. For a long time, her whereabouts remained unknown. This aroused the interest of not only the residents of the Petersburg Side but also the local police, who even found the blessed one's nocturnal whereabouts suspicious. They decided to find out where this strange woman spent her nights and what she did. It turned out that Xenia, regardless of the season or weather, retired to the fields at night and stood there kneeling in prayer until dawn, alternately prostrating herself to the ground in all four directions.
Between 1786 and 1790, under the direction of priest Georgy Petrov and to the designs of architect Alexei Ivanov, the stone Smolensk Church was built at the Smolenskoye Cemetery in St. Petersburg. Workers working on the church noticed strange things. During their absence, someone was carrying bricks at night to the church's scaffolding. Finally, they decided to find out who this tireless, unpaid laborer was, hauling bricks for them every night. It turned out to be the servant of God, Blessed Xenia.
For her great deeds and patience, the Lord glorified His chosen one even during her lifetime. The servant of God, Xenia, was granted the gift of foresight into hearts and the future. She predicted the deaths of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna (1762) and the young Emperor Ivan Antonovich (1764), and helped a young woman avoid marriage to an escaped convict who claimed to be the colonel he had murdered.
Teaching people truthfulness, Blessed Xenia often revealed the secrets of those she visited. She cryptically predicted the death of the merchant Krapivnina, saying, "The nettle is green, but will soon wither," and she predicted marriage to one poor girl.
One day, she told her old friend Paraskeva Antonova, the very same one to whom she had given the house, to go immediately to the Smolensk Cemetery: "Here you are, sitting here darning stockings, and don't you know that God has given you a son!" Paraskeva, perplexed, walked toward the cemetery and suddenly saw a crowd of people. It turned out that a carriage had crushed to death a pregnant woman, who had given birth to a boy before her death. Paraskeva took him in, and since she couldn't find the baby's father anywhere, she adopted him. The adopted son she raised revered her as a mother and, in his old age, cherished Paraskeva's peace, who thanked the blessed one for her great joy.
Residents of the Petersburg side noted that if the blessed one took a sick child in her arms or blessed it, it would certainly recover. If she took some small item from a merchant's shop, trade would be successful. If she entered a house, peace and harmony would reign there.
Blessed Xenia endured the feat of voluntary insanity for 45 years and died around 1803. Her body was buried in the Smolensk Cemetery. Many signs of God's mercy began to occur at her grave. After a memorial service was held at her grave, the suffering were healed, broken peace was restored to families, and those in need received what they needed.
Venerators of Blessed Xenia removed earth from her burial mound, so that the mound was piled up several times. Later, a stone slab was placed on the site of the mound, which was also dismantled stone by stone. In the third quarter of the 19th century, a small chapel was built on this site, and in 1902, a large stone chapel was erected according to the designs of the architect Alexander Vseslavin. During the Soviet years, the chapel was closed, but no amount of atheist efforts could erase the memory of the blessed one and the people's faith in her prayerful intercession before the throne of God.
Another memorial site associated with Saint Xenia is located on the Petrograd Side—Lakhtinskaya Street, where Xenia lived with her husband. Their house was either at the beginning of the street later named after her husband, "Andrei Petrov" (Lakhtinskaya Street since 1877), near Bolshoy Prospekt, or between buildings 15 and 19 on Lakhtinskaya Street (in 2019, the Church of Saint Xenia of Petersburg was built here).
After many years of popular veneration, Blessed Xenia of Petersburg, Fool-for-Christ, was canonized on June 6, 1988, at the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church. Even earlier, on September 24, 1978, Xenia of Petersburg was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. Churches dedicated to St. Xenia are located in many countries around the world, and her image can even be seen on New Zealand coins.
Source: https://azbyka.ru/days/sv-ksenija-peterburgskaja