Xenia the Blessed (circa 1731 - circa 1803)

Categories / Religion. Church/Personalia
Xenia the Blessed, Xenia of St. Petersburg (lay name Xenia Grigorievna Petrova) (c. 1731 - c. 1803), resident of St. Petersburg, became famous for her pious life and ascetics (in 1988, she was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church). At the age of 22 she married court singer Col. A. F. Petrov. She lived in the house on the corner of Bolshoy Avenue of Petrogradskaya Side and Lakhtinskaya Street. Widowed at 26, she gave away her property, put on her husband’s clothes, called herself by his name and became a fool. At first, she wandered around the parish of St. Matthew’s Church, then around all St. Petersburg. She would only take copecks as alms, and gave that money to the poor. At night Xenia prayed in deserted places and carried bricks onto the scaffolding of the stone church in Smolenskoe Cemetery during its construction. According to her contemporaries, she had a gift of prophecy: she predicted the death of Empress Elizaveta Petrovna and the murder of Emperor Ivan VI Antonovich. She was especially respected in families of merchants, bourgeoisie, people of craft and trade. Xenia was buried in Smolenskoe Orthodox Cemetery. There is a stone chapel above her tombstone (1901-02, architect A. A. Vseslavin), which became a place of pilgrimage (in 1940-46 and in 1960-87), it was closed off at the end of the 1980s. In 2001-02 the chapel was restored to its original form. Her memory is celebrated on 24 January (6 February).

References: Горбачева Н. Б. Ксения Петербургская. М., 1998; Книга о святой блаженной Ксении Петербургской: Рассказы о жизни. М., 2000.

V. V. Antonov. Elizaveta Petrovna, Empress
Ivan VI Antonovich, Emperor
Petrov Andrey Fedorovich
Vseslavin Alexander Alexandrovich
Xenia Blazhennaya (real name Petrova Xenia Grigorievna)
Горбачева Н. Б. Ксения Петербургская. М., 1998
Книга о святой блаженной Ксении Петербургской: Рассказы о жизни. М., 2000 St. Matthew’s Church