In this article we will look at useful information about Saint Xenia of Petersburg. In it we learn about the life and miracles for which the Saint is known.
For St. Petersburg and the residents of this city, the icon of Xenia is considered the most revered. As a rule, on the icon people depict Ksenia with a scarf, in a jacket and a skirt. These items are usually presented in red or green colors, like the military clothing worn by the Saint's spouse. Ksenia holds a staff with her right palm, but with her left palm she sends a blessing. Many depict the elderly Ksenia, and on some you can see the face of a young girl. There are also icons that depict the Saint from the waist up or in full height.
What is Ksenia of Petersburg famous for?
To this day, people do not know exactly when Ksenia of Petersburg was born. There are sources that say that she was born from 19 to 30 of the 18th century. The woman’s entire life was spent in the Leningrad region, and at the beginning of the 19th century, Ksenia died.
A difficult period in Ksenia of Petersburg’s life began when her husband died and she embarked on the path of foolishness. The woman said goodbye to her own property and precious things without regrets. She gave them to the Matthias Church and the poor. There is an opinion that the woman abandoned her name and began to introduce herself with the name of her late husband, namely Andrei Fedorovich. She claimed that her husband was still alive, but Ksenia had disappeared forever.
Holy
Ksenia Petersburgskaya spent all her free time near the grave of her beloved, which was located at the Kazan cemetery. The woman also secretly participated in the work during the construction of the temple. She rejoiced in her own poverty, and therefore refused to have people help her. Ksenia of Petersburg became famous after she renounced human benefits, began to help people free of charge and predicted the future.
Orthodox Life
February 6 is the day of remembrance of Saint Blessed Xenia of Petersburg, whose life path is an example of the highest manifestation of love and self-denial for the sake of serving God and people.
Once, back in my youth, on one Sunday, I accidentally found myself near the church on Solomenka. The service had ended by that time because the parishioners were already leaving. I sat down on one of the benches nearby and began to watch a cat wandering between the bushes, which suddenly, quite unexpectedly, jumped into the arms of a rather unusual-looking man sitting on the next bench. He was a man of indeterminate age with almost childish features, very small in stature, and clearly dressed inappropriately for the weather. It was quite hot in the yard, and he was wearing a tall, rather shabby, astrakhan hat, a warm sheepskin coat, and on his feet were winter felt boots with galoshes put on top.
People began to gather around this eccentric. Some woman approached him and handed him prosphora and money, which he did not take. Then a boy ran up. Laughing, the short man stroked him on the head. Then more parishioners approached, surrounding him. Then various shouts began to reach me, accompanied by quotations from the Holy Scriptures and very interesting comments. I became curious about what was going on there, and I approached this group of people. From the outside it seemed that the man was not behaving quite adequately. I asked an elderly woman standing nearby who this strange man was. She answered me that this is the holy fool Grishka. "Aching?" – I clarified. “No,” the old woman objected. “He’s the healthiest of them all.” He's just pretending." “Why does he need this!” – I was surprised. “He has such a cross, a feat - to appear to others for the sake of humility and belittling of his own soul,” the woman answered. In bewilderment, I stood and listened to Grishka’s teachings. And he, as if sensing my confusion, suddenly turned his face towards me, narrowed his eyes strangely, smiled and said at the top of his voice: “Blessed are the poor in spirit!” I felt somehow awkward, and I stepped aside.
At that time I had a very vague idea of who the holy fools and the blessed were. My knowledge about them was limited to my grandmother’s retellings of several life stories and scanty information extracted from the works of Russian classics, which, however, explained little to a person of the 20th century living in a country where any mention of God and saints was consistently erased from the consciousness of the people. Even less clear was the word “feat” in its new sound for me, which previously had always been associated exclusively with the heroic deeds of famous personalities. It is difficult to say whether the mentioned Gregory was really a genuine holy fool, but I had the opportunity to verify that many of his remarks actually contained a lot of common sense. I returned home with the same elderly parishioner who enlightened me about Grishka’s foolishness. We got to talking with her, she turned out to be a native of the city of St. Petersburg (then Leningrad). It was from her that I first heard a completely extraordinary and amazing story about Saint Blessed Xenia of Petersburg, which shocked me incredibly. Although Saint Xenia had not yet been canonized at that time, many Orthodox believers throughout the Union knew about this saint of God, who helped people in difficult circumstances.
The spiritual feat of Saint Xenia of Petersburg seems absolutely incomprehensible to modern man. And in fact: a young, absolutely healthy and wealthy woman, who could very well arrange her personal life in the future, suddenly - after the death of her husband, gives up everything, renouncing the benefits and conveniences of earthly life, deliberately takes on the image of an insane person and becomes the most difficult path of Christian piety is the foolishness of Christ. She begins literally, even to the point of renouncing her own name, to embody in her life the call of the Savior: “Deny yourself and take up your cross and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24). Foolishness is the path of voluntary suffering and deprivation, poverty, wandering, ridicule and contempt from others for the sake of gaining true dispassion and humility, without which it is impossible to join the love of God and sacrificial love for others. Saint Xenia is called blessed because her mind always remained in God, in the world of unceasing prayer.
Researchers of the righteous woman’s life find it difficult to name the exact date of her birth (some believe that it was 1731). It is only known that at the age of 26 she was widowed and immediately accepted the feat of foolishness, which lasted 45 years. Apparently, Ksenia’s marriage with her husband, the court singer, Colonel Andrei Fedorovich Petrov, was happy. Since 1755, epidemics of various infectious diseases (smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, etc.) raged in St. Petersburg one after another. Ksenia Grigorievna’s husband also became a victim of one of the epidemics. In the fourth year of marriage, Andrei Petrov fell ill and quickly died. The suddenness of his death suddenly clearly revealed to the young widow all the illusory nature and fragility of earthly happiness, the futility of earthly human aspirations. Everything changed overnight. She buried her husband as a different person. Having put on the clothes of her late husband, she began to call herself by his name. Many of the Petrovs’ relatives and acquaintances perceived such an instant transformation of the woman as a mental illness due to the strong shock from the death of her beloved husband. A commission was even convened at the initiative of her relatives, which, however, confirmed that Ksenia was mentally absolutely healthy and sane. There is no doubt that the decision to change his lifestyle had deep spiritual motives and reasons. This happens only through the gracious action of God’s Providence. Having distributed and donated her property, the blessed one set off to wander around the St. Petersburg side. Nobody knew where Ksenia lived, where she spent her nights. Only over time it became known that at night she went into the field to pray to God. There she knelt down and bowed to all four sides. Such prayers often ended only at sunrise, and the next morning the righteous woman went to help some poor tradesman cultivate his garden.
When construction of a church began at the Smolensk cemetery, the blessed one secretly helped the workers by moving bricks at night. Her husband's clothes quickly wore out on her, and the saint began to wear the simplest blouse and skirt, abandoning good things. In winter, even in the deepest frosts, she walked the streets in a tattered robe and worn-out boots, worn on her bare feet, swollen and reddened from the cold. When they gave her money, she only took one kopeck, and not for herself. At first, many people pitied Ksenia as an unfortunate sick woman, but over time they began to notice that if the blessed one visited someone’s house, then peace and mutual understanding would be established in it; if she took a pie or gingerbread from someone’s shop, then there would be successful trade. Mothers of small children also noticed that if a righteous woman caresses or rocks a sick child in a cradle, he will certainly recover. With her meek way of life, patience, kindness, non-covetousness, kindness and love for simple suffering people, the saint testified to everyone about the truth of Christ. And the Lord rewarded the blessed one with the wonderful gift of clairvoyance, thanks to which she, foreseeing the events revealed to her by God, prevented the troubles that threatened some people and directed them to the right path.
The blessed one had special care for children, pious virgins and widows; through her prayers their destinies were arranged. One day, blessed Ksenia sent her friend Paraskeva Antonova, to whom she had previously given a house, to Vasilyevsky Island with the words: “God sent you a son!” There at that time a misfortune happened. A cab driver hit a pregnant woman, who immediately gave birth to a boy on the street. The woman died, but neither her relatives nor friends could be found. Childless Antonova took the child and adopted her. So the boy got a mother, and the woman got a son. Among the saint’s acquaintances, whom she sometimes visited, was the widow Golubev and her wonderful 17-year-old beautiful daughter. Blessed Ksenia loved the girl for her meek disposition and kind heart. Once entering their house, she told the widow’s daughter that her husband was burying his wife on Okhta. Although the girl did not understand anything, she went to Okhta. And indeed, there at that time a funeral procession was heading to the cemetery. Knowing that the saint did not simply say anything, mother and daughter joined the procession. It turned out that they were burying the doctor's wife, who died in childbirth. At the end of the funeral, when everyone had already left, Golubev’s widow and her daughter saw that the doctor standing at the grave hill felt ill and fell unconscious. The women approached him and tried to help. That's how they met. A year later, young Golubeva became the wife of a doctor, with whom she lived a long and happy life. Even more remarkable is the story of Saint Xenia preventing one unfaithful marriage. It is noteworthy that this was the first of the saint’s posthumous miracles described in her life. It is connected with the widow general, for whose charitable donations a chapel was built at the grave of the blessed one. A young colonel met the widow’s daughter and soon proposed to her. The widow gave her consent, and the wedding day was set. On the eve of the wedding, the bride's mother and her daughter decided to go to the Smolensk cemetery and serve a memorial service for Blessed Ksenia, asking to arrange the happiness of the future young family. While they were praying, the groom went to the treasury to get a lot of money using forged (as it later turned out) documents. There the guard recognized him as an escaped convict who had stolen the documents of the officer he had killed. The criminal was immediately arrested, he was later tried and sentenced to death. Thus the blessed one answered the prayers of mother and daughter.
Since then, Saint Xenia has been especially revered as the guardian of pious virgins, turning away from unfaithful marriages. There were many cases when, through prayers to Saint Blessed Xenia, healings of seriously ill children took place. Here is one famous story. One three-year-old girl developed an abscess behind her eardrum; surgery was needed, otherwise the child could have died. But the outcome of the operation was unpredictable; the girl could remain deaf. The child’s nanny, seeing that the girl was getting worse and worse, went to the Smolensk cemetery to Blessed Ksenia, prayed there and brought sand and oil from the lamp. At home, with the permission of her parents, she dripped oil into the child’s ear. After some time, the abscess opened on its own and the contents flowed out. The girl recovered.
The veneration of Blessed Xenia began during her lifetime. For more than two hundred years, Orthodox Christians have turned to this saint of God for help in various situations: they ask for healing of loved ones, for deliverance from misfortunes, for marriage, for help in raising children. During the years of atheism, when Orthodox Christians did not have access to the chapel, could not perform prayerful commemoration and bow to the tomb, many believers left notes with their requests at the chapel and stuck them in the fence. And holy blessed Xenia responded to their requests and needs!
There is no doubt that it is unlikely that any of today's Christians could fully repeat such a feat of foolishness. But the life of Blessed Xenia of St. Petersburg shows us, first of all, how wrong we are living today. We strive for wealth, comfort, recognition, satisfaction of our ambitions, and achieving a certain position in society. We often avoid the poor and disadvantaged, seeking friendship with wealthy or powerful people. Caring for our daily bread consumes almost all of our time. Blessed Xenia lived like the birds of the air, acquiring through self-sacrifice in foolishness those gospel virtues, the totality of which constitutes human holiness.
Valentina Novikova
Ksenia of Petersburg: when does an icon help?
As a rule, people asked for a wide variety of petitions from the icon depicting Saint Xenia of Petersburg. Some asked Ksenia to find a way out of a difficult situation. Others asked for a stable and happy personal life.
Nowadays, people can also ask the Saint for help. You can pray near the face itself. Below we offer you a list of those needs that Ksenia Petersburgskaya can help with:
- Ksenia will definitely help in love and relationships . Often young girls claim that only after turning to the Saint they were able to meet their long-awaited loved one and get married.
- Many people say that after visiting the temple they were able to get rid of family troubles , their life became filled with joy and positive emotions.
- People ask Ksenia to help solve difficult situations, achieve success in this or that business, and attract success .
- There are also people who say that the Saint helped them very quickly cope with a complex disease , as a result of which even doctors were shocked by the result.
- The face of Xenia of St. Petersburg is visited by those people who want to cleanse their own souls and are burdened by a heavy burden of sin.
- Many women turn to Ksenia when they cannot get pregnant or if they want the pregnancy to be easy and childbirth to be without complications.
Helper of those asking
With every problem, people go to the temple. However, there is an opinion that the holy relics coming from the face are aimed solely at improving the moral side of a person. At the same time, Ksenia cannot improve the financial situation and bring a person winnings in the lottery.
Prayer to the Holy Blessed Mother Xenia
O holy all-blessed mother Ksenia! Having lived under the protection of the Most High, led and strengthened by the Mother of God, having endured hunger and thirst, cold and heat, reproach and persecution, you have received the gift of clairvoyance and miracles from God and are resting in the shadow of the Almighty. Now the Holy Church, like a fragrant flower, glorifies you. Standing at the place of your burial, before your holy image, as if you were alive and present with us, we pray to you: accept our petitions and bring them to the throne of the merciful Heavenly Father, as you have boldness towards Him, ask for eternal salvation for those who flow to you, for good deeds and our undertakings are a generous blessing, deliverance from all troubles and sorrows. Stand before our All-Merciful Savior with your holy prayers for us, unworthy and sinners. Help, holy blessed mother Xenia, to illuminate the infants with the light of holy baptism and seal the gift of the Holy Spirit, to educate boys and girls in faith, honesty, fear of God and grant them success in learning; heal the sick and ailing, send down love and harmony to families, honor monastics to strive for good deeds and protect them from reproach, strengthen pastors in the strength of the Holy Spirit, preserve our people and country in peace and serenity, pray for those deprived of communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ in the dying hour. You are our hope and hope, quick hearing and deliverance, we send thanks to you and with you we glorify the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.
Prayer to Blessed Xenia of St. Petersburg.
O holy all-blessed mother Ksenia! Having lived under the protection of the Most High, led and strengthened by the Mother of God, having endured hunger and thirst, cold and heat, reproach and persecution, you have received the gift of clairvoyance and miracles from God and are resting in the shadow of the Almighty. Now the Holy Church, like a fragrant flower, glorifies you. Standing at the place of your burial, before your holy image, as if you were alive and present with us, we pray to you: accept our petitions and bring them to the throne of the merciful Heavenly Father, as you have boldness towards Him, ask for eternal salvation for those who flow to you, for good deeds and our undertakings are a generous blessing, deliverance from all troubles and sorrows.
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How to correctly ask for help from Blessed Xenia of St. Petersburg: text of prayer
Today you can easily purchase an icon of St. Xenia of St. Petersburg. When you buy it, place it in your apartment and pray to it when you really need it. In addition, Ksenia will protect your home from various adversities and troubles.
- The ideal option to ask for help from the Saint is to go to the cemetery where Ksenia is buried.
- In that place, write a note on a small piece of paper. On it, describe your own problems and write a request.
- Once you've done this, walk around the chapel 3 times, going clockwise.
- Near the chapel you will notice a small box. It is designed for people to put their notes in. It is in this box that you must put your own note on which the request is indicated.
- Then go up to the face and lean your forehead against the icon. After this, say your own request in your head mentally.
- Place a candle near your face.
- Also read the prayer in the picture below.
Text of the prayer
If you wish, you can go to the chapel after the procedure and pray there, as well as order a prayer service. Many parishioners claim that this place has some special power, and therefore do not leave it until you receive a special sign. You must receive this sign from the priest. He will describe to you what this action means. In some situations, people stand for a very long time, even until the chapel closes.
Even war can't stop the saint
Before the start of hostilities, specifically in 1940, the chapel of Xenia of St. Petersburg was closed, but no war could reduce the flow of pilgrims coming to the Saint for help. Parishioners came in droves to the temple gates, occupying a huge queue.
During the merciless war, the tombstone of Xenia was destroyed, and the chapel building and icons were barbarically destroyed by fire. In 1946, a year after the end of the war, the chapel was restored and filled with new images, and the appearance was restored. The chapel did not stand for long, as it was closed already in 1960, and a workshop for sculptural compositions arose in its place. Saint Xenia's name day is celebrated on June 6th. This day was recognized as a holiday of Christian faith in 1988. The icon of the Blessed Xenia has special power. The photo and prayer of the petition will be presented below.
Where is the icon and chapel of St. Xenia of St. Petersburg located?
About 1 century ago, a chapel dedicated to the Saint was built at the Smolensk cemetery in St. Petersburg. The opening of the chapel took place at the beginning of the last century. It is in this place that the relics of Xenia are located. Once upon a time, on the site of the temple there was a woman’s grave, but the hill disappeared over time, as people wanted to take at least some part of the land for their home.
During the war, the temple was closed, but in 60 of the last century it was restored again. The temple still exists today. It is included in the list of famous Orthodox places in the Russian Federation.
Chapel
You can easily find the chapel if you go to the following address: st. Kamskaya, 24 . Believers visit this place every day. The chapel opens at 10.00 and closes at 16.00. On Saturday and Sunday the temple is open until 17.00.
Several services are held in the chapel throughout the day. The interval between them is approximately 10 minutes. If you want to get to the chapel, take the Vasileostrovskaya metro station and take line 8. Move towards increasing house numbers. You must go to Kamskaya Street, where the temple is located.
Burial place of Saint Xenia
Beginning in 1902, the burial place of Xenia herself was regularly visited by convinced Christians who took the miraculous land in order to experience a miracle of healing. This continues to happen today, which is why the burial site is regularly updated. In 1830, a chapel was erected over Xenia’s gravestone, the consecration of which took place already in 1902. The burial place with the relics of the saint, as well as the icon of Blessed Xenia of St. Petersburg, were made from the best materials. The walls of the chapel were hung with many different icons, among which the main one was the face of the “mistress” of the temple. During times of repression and thriving atheism, political figures signed an agreement giving the right to rent the chapel building. As it became known later, among the landlords was a clergyman named Alexei Zapadalov, who died a few years later like a martyr. This event took place in a place called Svirlag.
Xenia the Blessed of St. Petersburg: where to place the icon at home?
The icon of St. Xenia of St. Petersburg will help you save your family and friends from any disease, even from alcoholism and smoking. But remember that your requests must be sincere, and therefore be honest and open-hearted before the icon.
If you decide to purchase the face of Xenia, proceed as follows:
- Place the icon in the most spacious room.
- Place the icon at the top, in the corner, so that the front door is opposite it.
- Do not allow other faces, objects or decorative elements of the room to be near the icon.
Place the icon in a spacious room.
Also, make sure that the icon is always clean. For most believers, the face of Xenia of St. Petersburg is of great importance. Not only every resident of St. Petersburg, but also every Orthodox Christian knows what exactly an icon helps with.
Old-timers of Smolenka remember
“There is a proverb: “They don’t go to an empty well for water,” notes Archpriest Alexander Lesuis , a cleric of the Smolensk Church, who has been at the Chapel of Xenia the Blessed almost since the time of its last opening, when he himself was an altar boy. – This means that people receive this “water” - the water of salvation, healing. Many come knowing that “Ksenia helps.”
I can share my observation of what the difference is, for example, between St. Petersburg residents going to Ksenia and visitors. As a rule, visitors are pilgrims, churchgoers, but many St. Petersburg residents come knowing absolutely nothing about where they actually came. But when a person came, asked, and then realized that he was heard and helped - he naturally wants to thank, and he begins to be interested.
People still write notes to Ksenia with various requests. The notes remain for some time in the chapel for the blessed one to read.
There was a curious case back in Soviet times - one zealot wrote a complaint that he saw a note: “Ksenia, please help me pass the exam on the history of the CPSU.”
He wrote that this was a disgrace and that because of this the chapel should under no circumstances be opened.
Someone who comes asks how many candles need to be lit, how many times to walk around the chapel. Yes, people who ask such questions know and understand little about faith, they think naively and magically. But it’s very good that they came!
We try to explain that the candle, the anointing with oil, and requests to Ksenia are especially beneficial when behind this there is an awareness of one’s sinfulness and repentance. In the holy troparion we sing: “Blessed Xenia, pray to Christ God to deliver us from all evil through repentance.” After all, how the blessed one herself prayed and repented so that the Lord would accept the soul of her husband, who died and did not have time to repent! What a hard life she led, how much she endured. That’s why our requests to Ksenia, when accompanied by repentance, are more audible and reach the Lord faster.
Of course, repentance depends not only and not so much on our desire - although our desire is necessary - but also on God’s help, which we receive when we confess our sins, when we resort to the Lord in communion.
We don’t know how many people will accept our words, but I think Saint Xenia helps the human heart to open and respond here too.
My husband is back
“My husband left the family. For a year I read akathists (and conciliarly) to various saints, but there was no result. I accidentally read the life of Xenia of Petersburg and began to pray to her. And on June 6 (on the day of remembrance of our blessed mother Ksenia), my husband returned - right before the Holy Trinity! Julia, St. Petersburg (From the parish newspaper “Smolensk Temple”)
Blessed Ksenia of Petersburg: a love story
Celebration
It is known that the Immaculate Saint is considered a saint due to the fact that during her own life she was able to receive God’s grace in the form of miraculous, healing power and a certain insight.
The celebration of the icon of Xenia of St. Petersburg takes place several times a year, namely on **January 24 and May 24**.
About 30 years ago, this immaculate saint was canonized, as a result of which every year a service or liturgy is held in the temple, church and monastery near the icon of Xenia of St. Petersburg, thus the clergy thank her on behalf of all parishioners and believers.
