On June 6, when the Orthodox Church commemorates the canonization of Blessed Xenia of St. Petersburg by the Moscow Patriarchate in 1988, we offer our readers an excerpt from the book, Miracles of Saints in the Twenty-First Century, published by the Moscow Sretensky Monastery in 2015.
My husband didn’t even want to set foot in church
Anastasia Ovansova:
My integration into Church life began ten years ago, when my three-year-old son became disabled. My husband didn’t approve of our going to church, but he tolerated it sullenly. Soon we had another son, and then a daughter. As long as our children were small, I took them to church on weekdays, as we spent weekends with my husband and his family in the country. I have a wonderful, loving and reliable husband who is a caring father to our children, but it’s better not to talk about God and the Church with him. I could only dream of a Sunday school for our children. As they grew up, it was becoming clear that new knowledge and communication with their Orthodox peers were vital for strengthening their faith, which they so lacked. And I had such a spiritual thirst that after talking with my husband, I enrolled our children in a Sunday school and began to attend adult classes in it twice a week in the evenings.
At first everything was fine—we enthusiastically plunged into a new life, and couldn’t imagine living otherwise. Only our poor father was getting angrier and angrier. Though he still took the children to their classes, he often vented his anger on me. After giving up attending one class and then the other, I prayed that at least the children could finish their studies by the summer, and then, God willing, he would calm down. But even in summer, Communion once a month caused a storm of emotions in my spouse.
By the new school year, I no longer thought about myself—if only the children could continue studying. After a couple of months, the atmosphere at home became very tense and I decided to go to the grave of Blessed Xenia of St. Petersburg. With tears, I asked the saint for one thing: for my husband to relent and not to be so nervous, because, among other things, it affected his health very much, and heart issues appeared.
After a while, I started talking of going back to church singing classes if only once a week, and my husband didn’t object! I started singing and taking other classes too—and my husband didn’t object or get angry either! I went to Blessed Xenia again, thanking her wholeheartedly and begging her not to abandon us in her prayers in the future.
And then, during Lent, my husband took Unction, attended a prayer service before his upcoming operation, and prayed, although before that he hadn’t even wanted to set foot in church. But the miracles didn’t end there! Our youngest son started singing in the Sunday school children’s choir, and during Bright Week I was supposed to go to Moscow with my son and the choir for the Paschal festival, but I came down with bad flu on Holy Week. I did not attend the Paschal service, lying with a fever, but my husband took the children to the service! How joyful they were when they returned! And then he went to Moscow instead of me. He accompanied children everywhere, visited the monasteries and venerated the shrines! He returned happy, calm and affectionate.
Now not only his children love him. In the summer, our whole family went to an Orthodox camp; my husband led the student team, I was the tutor in the junior group, and our children were with us.
My husband has not become a regular churchgoer yet, as we would like, but I believe that the Lord will not forsake us, and Blessed Mother Xenia will always help us. What a great ascetic labor she took upon herself for the salvation of the soul of her own husband! And she does not abandon us sinners in her intercessions! Glory to God for everything! Holy Blessed Mother Xenia, pray to God for us!
I was baptized soon afterwards
Anna Gavrilova:
I live in the suburbs of St. Petersburg. In the fall of 2011, my second cousin was diagnosed with cancer and had to undergo a major operation. I also had to have an operation, which was not so complicated and urgent, so I couldn’t decide and kept dragging my heels.
Monument to Blessed Xenia at the Smolensk Cemetery of St. Petersburg I was not yet baptized at the time and didn’t think about Baptism, but in order to support my second cousin I invited her to go to the grave of Blessed Xenia of St. Petersburg. I was rather skeptical about the benefits of such a pilgrimage, but what else could I offer my seriously ill relative in her situation? Besides, I had never been there before. When we arrived, I was struck by the huge queue on a typical Saturday morning. I even viewed “such a manifestation of fanaticism” with some apprehension. “I’ll also ask for a successful operation for myself—maybe it will help,” I said to myself.
At some point, when I was venerating the icon or the cross there (I don’t remember exactly), I suddenly realized that because of my pride I had driven myself to need surgery and had done many other bad things. And, before anything else, I—unexpectedly for myself—asked the saint to help me get rid of my pride.
After the pilgrimage, “ordinary miracles” began. “By coincidence” both my second cousin and I were operated on by the best specialists for free. I felt great as soon as I woke up after the anesthesia—no pain and no consequences for two years now! The operation was performed on February 7—also “by coincidence”—the day after Blessed Xenia’s feast (her name day). I didn’t even know about it at the time. My relative had more serious and complicated surgery, couldn’t get better for a long time, but still avoided chemotherapy and began to recover. And she recently got married at the age of fifty-six!
I believed in God in my own way, but I didn’t understand why I should be baptized. “Well, I’ll get baptized and have to follow all the rules; but why should I do that?” I thought then. Nevertheless, I often prayed in front of a small icon of Blessed Xenia of St. Petersburg—the only saint whose Life I knew and whose help I had clearly felt. Every time, while praying to her, I felt a wave of warmth and the presence of someone close and dear to me. Soon I found a new job, only having set this goal and sat down at the computer. My partner turned out to be a religious young woman and a model of meekness and unobtrusiveness. She answered many of my questions about Orthodoxy, without any attempts to “involve” or “instruct” me.
Last spring, I went to Blessed Xenia’s grave again with my daughter Anna, who was thirteen at the time. Before that she had had a falling out with her classmates, she had become short-tempered and her grades had dropped. Although she was baptized (her grandmother had insisted on it), she, like me, had no idea about church life. We arrived and stood in line. Later we went into the chapel—a service was going on there. Suddenly my daughter burst out crying! She couldn’t understand what was happening to her and couldn’t explain anything—she was just sobbing, with tears streaming down her face. We had to leave the chapel. I started comforting her and convincing her to come back. But she feared that she might start crying again. A man who was walking by began to console my daughter too. He said he was from Diveyevo; he wrote down her name and promised to ask the sisters of the Diveyevo Convent to pray for her. We walked around the cemetery with him. I am so grateful to him!
Anna calmed down completely and decided to go back into the chapel. The service continued inside. One priest was saying something, and another, a very old one, was anointing the visitors with holy oil by the tombstone. And I did not know how to behave. I kissed the cross and wanted to slip past the old priest. “Where are you going?” he called me out. I told him that I was not baptized. He replied, “Don’t worry, God is merciful!”, and anointed me. He radiated such kindness! Unable to restrain myself, I burst into tears as well, and now my daughter had to calm me down! And, indeed, why was I still not baptized?!
I was baptized soon afterwards—it was May 26. It seemed as if I had gotten into a fairy-tale: there were so many vivid emotions and wonderful coincidences! At the first opportunity I went to church for the evening service to thank God for everything that had happened to me. It was June 5. I came up to the central icon and saw Blessed Xenia in it! I already knew that her memory was celebrated on February 6, but I had not known about her other feast on June 6. It was just an incredible “coincidence”! Now Anna and I often attend church and receive Communion. My daughter has become much calmer. My husband is happy to support us and has joined us.
“He brought me flowers yesterday!”
Anna Ershova:
I was learning how to sew vestments. “How I want to get married! I’m so tired of shouldering this burden on my own: I have three children!” my teacher Natalia told me. Without thinking twice, I advised her: “Go to Blessed Xenia immediately! She will help you!”
Alexander Prostev. Blessed Xenia
Of course, work did not allow Natalia to go to Blessed Xenia immediately, but she promised to go on Monday (our conversation was on Friday). I attended the evening service at St. Seraphim’s Church on Saturday, went up to the local icon of Blessed Xenia of St. Petersburg and prayed: “Dear Blessed Xenia, help Natalia—join their destinies. She likes him very much!”
The fact is that the man in question had not viewed her as a woman at all, but only as a friend—a woman always feels this. On Monday, I called Natalia to remind her of her planned pilgrimage to Blessed Xenia and tell her that I had already prayed in front of her icon, and she replied: “What a miraculous prayer you made—he brought me flowers yesterday!” Natalia was soon married, and before I could learn how to sew a phelonion (priest’s vestment), she had to finish it herself in a new place of work!
