St Xenia of St Petersburg

At about twenty-six, Xenia Grigorievna Petrova was suddenly widowed when her husband, an army colonel and court chorister, died at a drinking party without Christian preparation. Grief became her conversion. She gave away her house and possessions, put on her husband's uniform, answered only to his name — saying Xenia had died — and took up the harshest of callings, foolishness for Christ, walking the streets of Petersburg for some forty-five years. The city's poor came to love her: mothers considered it a blessing if she touched their children, and merchants prospered when she accepted a kopeck. At night she was found praying in the fields, or secretly carrying bricks for the builders of the Smolensk cemetery church. Records of her life are sparse — even her exact dates are uncertain — but veneration at her graveside chapel has never ceased. She was canonized in 1988 and is the beloved patroness of St Petersburg.