The Holy Grief of St. Xenia

St. Xenia’s road to sainthood began in great tragedy. She was born around 1730 and died at about the age of 71, though her exact birth and death dates are not known. When she was 26, her husband died suddenly at a party. Her grief upended her life, and she didn’t care what people thought of the way her grief changed her. She began wearing her husband’s military uniform and going by his name, saying Xenia was the one who had died. Those who knew her thought her grief had driven her mad. She gave away all she had to the poor until she had nothing left. Her family attempted to get the authorities to intervene to stop her, but the authorities found her of sound mind and declared she was free to dispose of her own property as she wished. All she kept was her husband’s uniform that she wore continually until it was rags, and when it was too worn through to clothe her, even then she clothed herself in rags of the same red and green that his uniform had been. She found relief in her lack of possessions, and it is said that she would often declare “I am all here!” or “Here is all of me.” when arriving places. When she had given it all away, she left St. Petersburg and is believed to have gone to visit holy people and places to learn from them. 

After 8 years, she felt spiritually strong enough to return to St. Petersburg to be with the poor of the city, where she spent the rest of her life. Initially, she was mocked and derided and viewed with suspicion because of her homelessness and odd behavior. When followed to see if she was sleeping on the streets, it was found that she spent all her nights praying in a field. Over many years though, people began to notice her holiness and come to her for counsel and blessings. When a new church was being built, workers would arrive every morning to find bricks already hauled up to the building site. When a worker was stationed there overnight to see what was going on, it was found that St. Xenia was secretly moving the bricks there in the cover of darkness to help with the building efforts. Though she had no children of her own, she was known to have a deep care and affection for them, and mothers would bring their children to her often. She was buried in the cemetery of the church she’d helped build. 

St. Xenia belongs to a group of saints known as “holy fools” or “fools for Christ.” In 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul talks repeatedly in the first three chapters about the wisdom of God appearing as foolishness to man, and the wisdom of man being foolishness. These saints embody that true wisdom through their holiness and disregard for societal norms. 

I love the story of St. Xenia and have been thinking of it often. It’s so beautiful to me how she allowed her grief to transform her permanently by submitting it to God and allowing it to create in her a deep spiritual hunger. Having lost her earthly happiness, she strove after God with full abandon. I want to learn to translate tragedy in my own life in the way St. Xenia did. I struggle a lot with caring what people think, and I am so challenged by her simultaneous deep love for others and her complete lack of concern for their opinion of her. I also love how she had such deep humility and strong desire to serve others, especially the people most disregarded by society. Her story is so compelling and vivid. I can’t help but picture her as a young widow putting on her dead husband’s uniform and what that must have felt like for her, or imagine her as an older woman patiently carrying bricks up to the church building site night after night. Holy St. Xenia, pray to God for us. 

“In thee, O wandering stranger, Christ the Lord hath given us an ardent intercessor for our kind. For having received in thy life sufferings and grief and served God and men with love, thou didst acquire great boldness. Wherefore, we fervently hasten to thee in temptations and grief, crying out from the depths of our hearts: Put not our hope to shame, O Blessed Xenia.”