St Xenia of Peterburg : short video imagining her life

An online Synaxaristes including martyrologies and hagiographies of the lives of the Orthodox Church's saints. All Forum Rules apply. No polemics. No heated discussions. No name-calling.
User avatar
Barbara
Protoposter
Posts: 3983
Joined: Sat 29 September 2012 6:03 pm

St Xenia of Peterburg : short video imagining her life

Post by Barbara »

User avatar
Barbara
Protoposter
Posts: 3983
Joined: Sat 29 September 2012 6:03 pm

Re: St Xenia of Peterburg : short video imagining her life

Post by Barbara »

There was a fictional account of St Xenia written recently called The Mirrored World. I read it but did NOT recommend it to anyone. While it was surprising to see a book appear attempting to reconstruct the life of St Xenia, some of it was ridiculous.
The title evokes the section called the Sheesh Mahal of a Moghul fort or palace. But, like the book itself, it sells itself on a false premise. This mirrored style has never been part of interior - or exterior - church architecture in Russia.

St Xenia comes off like a kook. At best, an endearing kook. Not as the wonderful inspiring Saint she was. Her clairvoyant help to people is clumsily presented by the author, Debra Dean, who seems ill at ease in the spiritual life. She painstakingly researched Russia of the era from a secular point of view but projects little understanding of the Church and Church life.

I have forgotten all the many problems to point out with this book that I planned to make because I disliked it so much that I tossed it. I am warning anyone else not to expect much at all from this novel.

It does NOT do justice to this marvelous Saint ! Maybe someone who is Orthodox will come forward to do a truly good literary depiction of St Xenia.

User avatar
Barbara
Protoposter
Posts: 3983
Joined: Sat 29 September 2012 6:03 pm

Re: St Xenia of Peterburg : short video imagining her life

Post by Barbara »

St Xenia's Day Feb 6, 2016 : a happy incident of St Xenia's intercession for a Rocor-A Cathedral in Ontario, Canada :

"...it was quite an old building with fundamental maintenance problems... The parish repaired the furnace and replaced the roof but could not afford more. Still, a building committee was formed in 1994 to consider alternatives including construction of a new church, but the latter was outside the realm of the parish’s realistic possibilities.

"One very cold evening in late January 1995 there was a great tribulation. In the middle of the night the alarm went off, and when parishioners arrived at the church they found that the plumbing had frozen and then burst... one of the older members began to pray through his tears, “St. Xenia, you have not abandoned us in the past. Please help us now! We need a new church where we can glorify God and praise you fittingly!”

"St. Xenia heard this prayer! Less than two weeks later this man miraculously came into a very large amount of money, which he immediately pledged to cover the cost of the construction of a new church. "

The account of the formation of the currently named parish is lovingly related. Here is how St Xenia came to reign supreme in Kanata, Canada [ almost the same word ] :

"Parishioners sought a patron saint but could not agree on a saint or feast, and when they were asked to submit suggestions, seventeen were proposed! The solution was to write each of the names on a slip of paper and place the slips into a spare chalice, which stood on the altar-table during the Divine Liturgy. At the end of the Liturgy, the celebrating priest, the late Fr. Alexis Guerbilsky of Montreal (who often served in our parish), invited the youngest member of the parish, a little girl of about two, to pull a name from the chalice. The name that Fr. Alexis read out was that of St. Xenia. There was a gasp, a silence, and then tears of joy, and now only concord. The congregation joyously sang the Troparion and Megalynarion to their new patron saint."

http://www.stxenia.ca/parish-history/


Note, by the way, that the Blessed St Xenia Cathedral's website makes a very clear distinction.
Lest any World Orthodox would-be parishioners surmise otherwise, the description on St Xenia's home page states emphatically :

"We are a parish of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and are not part of the Moscow Patriarchate."

User avatar
Barbara
Protoposter
Posts: 3983
Joined: Sat 29 September 2012 6:03 pm

Re: St Xenia of Peterburg : short video imagining her life

Post by Barbara »

Here is another all-in-Russian 47 minute video regarding St Xenia :

User avatar
Barbara
Protoposter
Posts: 3983
Joined: Sat 29 September 2012 6:03 pm

Re: St Xenia of Peterburg : short video imagining her life

Post by Barbara »

One more, too, some sort of documentary produced in 2010.

The line to get into St Xenia's resting place in the Smolensk Cemetery is amazing ! Even in the pouring rain.
It made me grateful that I had visited in sunny weather - and with no line to speak of.
That was before the Russian people were much returning to Orthodoxy, however, which probably explains the difference in popularity of a visit to the Saint's relics.

User avatar
Barbara
Protoposter
Posts: 3983
Joined: Sat 29 September 2012 6:03 pm

Re: St Xenia of Peterburg : short video imagining her life

Post by Barbara »

St Xenia's Day, 2018 : the fantastic video of the glorification of St Xenia by Metropolitan Philaret and the Synod of Bishops of Rocor in 1981 never fails to inspire.
Now someone has written made a great addition to the youtube comment section after one of the postings of this video. Great both because of the last sentence and also because it explains the services in a glorification, of which English speakers watching this video can only gaher a vague sense while listening to the Russian narrator and observing the scenes from the Vigil and Liturgy :

"The Glorification was held at the Russian Cathedral of Our Lady of the Sign in New York City. I don't believe there were any relics of St. Xenia, this was prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, but I believe there was dirt from her grave. A Glorification is proceeded by many memorial services, and the Church prays for the soul of the departed (the one being glorified). Then, with newly composed Service in honor of the new Saint, we begin the All-Night Vigil Service - a combination of 9th Hour, Great Vespers, Litya, Matins with Velychanya ("We Magnify"), concluding with 1st Hour. Then in the morning, the Divine Liturgy. During these services, the new Saint is praised and remembered in hymns as a Saint for the first time. After Liturgy a Molieben is celebrated. It is really a wonderful a blessed experience to glorify a new Saint of God!!!
And to be sure, there were living saints in our midst during the service, the future St (Metropolitan) Philaret being foremost."

Aside : To think I always thought that word was "Velichaya". Now I finally learned what actually is being said !

Hopefully, Rocor-MP will next be performing this sequence of services for Metropolitan Philaret [Vosnesensky]. No one deserves that honor more. A single view of the video communicates the remarkable sanctity of Rocor's 3rd 1st Hierarch.

User avatar
Maria
Archon
Posts: 8428
Joined: Fri 11 June 2004 8:39 pm
Faith: True Orthodox Christian
Jurisdiction: GOC
Location: USA

Re: St Xenia of Peterburg : short video imagining her life

Post by Maria »

Barbara,

The ROCOR-MP is compromised. They have "glorified" many pseudo-saints as have the EP.

We must be careful not to promote the MP.

In Christ,
Maria

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner.

Post Reply