The life of St Procopius of Vyatka
From then on he made his home in the open streets, thinly dressed regardless of season, sleeping in whatever spot the night happened to find him and turning away every offer of a roof over his head; he answered mostly with gestures and stayed silent around nearly everyone but his own spiritual father, with whom, and only with whom, he could speak like an ordinary, clear-minded man.
One striking gift attached to him in memory concerns his visits to the sick: Church tradition holds that he would set fire to the bedding of those on the mend and, by contrast, wrap the dying in their own sheets, a small outward sign of a foresight that reportedly went well beyond such details. For roughly three decades he carried this hidden discipline, weathering cold, hunger, and the ridicule of onlookers who assumed his madness was simply real. Having named the hour of his own death ahead of time, he passed quietly out of this life in 1627, not yet fifty years old.
