The life of St Xenia of St Petersburg
She gave away the house and everything in it. Her relatives went to the authorities, who questioned her and found her sound in mind and free to dispose of what was hers. She put on her husband's clothes, answered only to his name, and told people that it was Xenia who had died. For forty-five years she walked the poorer streets of the city, taking nothing but small coins and giving those away again. She would not sleep under a roof, but passed her nights praying in the open fields. While the stone church in the Smolensk cemetery was going up she carried bricks to the scaffolding after dark, so that no one would see who had done it. She was buried in that cemetery, and people have come to her grave ever since.
