Event in Life of St. Xenia Fool Is Verified

A page from the Life of Elder Theodore adds some detailed information to the Life of St. Xenia Fool for Christ

from book: Russian Ascetics of Piety compiled by NM Bp. Nicodemus of Belgorod
"Life of Elder Hieromonk Theodore" 

page  270

" . . . in the Preobrazhensky* Guards Regiment, where he {Elder Theodore] soon received the rank of sergeant.  A certain incident drew his thoughts to eternal life and sharply changed his usual luxurious way of life.  On one occasion in the circle of his comrades and at the high point of their merriment, one of them collapsed on the floor and died on the spot."

This clearly is the same incident described in the Life of St. Xenia.  The man who collapsed was Andrei, Xenia's husband.  His sudden unexpected death changed her life, and the life of the Elder Theodore, as well.

  Life of St. Xenia here:
https://startingontheroyalpath.blogspot.com/2009/08/life-of-st-xenia-of-st-petersburg.html
  and here:
https://archive.org/details/the-orthodox-word-nos.-01-106.-father-seraphim-rose-improved-scans_202602/081%20V14N04%201978%20Jul%20Aug.ENH.SRCH/
  or
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/04amaofofcpxfonr822u0/h?dl=0&e=1&preview=081+V14N04+1978+Jul+Aug.ENH.SRCH.pdf&rlkey=p3rh5q7raqgfi844jz1huxper
(please email me if link does not work.  Include url of this post. Ask me for OW #81)

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https://churchsupplies.jordanville.org/products/russian-ascetics-of-piety-february

 
Russian Ascetics of Piety was the most extensive work compiled by St Nicodemus, Bishop of Belgorod. This multi-volume set was originally published by the Athonite Monastery of St. Panteleimon between the years 1906 – 1910.  It contains a large collection of the lifes of holy ascetics of the 18th and 19th centuries.  The compiler himself died as a martyr at the hands of the Communists in 1919.

Caution: half the books sold today (2026) by neo-Jordanville are world-Orthodox books.

 

Caveat Lector:  
     The publisher, Old Paths Press, is coming out with some really wonderful books, newly translated from Russian written by our trusted modern Church Fathers, such as St. Theophan the Recluse.  It appears to me we can pretty much trust that the materials have not been censored.  For the most part, the enemy of our Church should not find any cause for censoring these older materials that have nothing to do with the ROCOR-MP union.  However, be aware that the publisher assumes that their MP is the valid continuation of the true Russian Church.  The footnotes indicate which ascetics have been more recently canonized by the MP, after the Lifes were compiled by the Holy New Martyr Bp. Nicodemus.
     Old Paths Press will disgrace their publications.  An example is their 2 volume hardcover set On True Christianity by Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk.  The Old Paths Press have defiled this wonderful offering by including a foreword written by a world Orthodox flaming ecumenist-heretic, Met. Jonah Paffhausen. 
     Future generations will pick up this heirloom-quality book and assume that Met. Jonah Paffhausen was a safe author who can be trusted.   So, if you purchase a copy for your home library, or for a gift, be sure to make a note about this on the foreword page inside the book — that the author of the foreward is an ecumenist-heretic under much serious criticism from both valid and invalid Orthodox Christians.
     This practice of associating a saint (Tikhon) with a heretic (Paffhausen) is a mixing of pearls with dirt that I see happening in different places now.   For example:  St. John Maximovitch and St. Seraphim of Platina are grouped with false elders like Porphyrios and Sophrony.  If so many in this generation do not detect this abomination, then how will the next generation detect it?

About Jonah Paffhausen:
Met. Jonah Paffhausen: Modernism Cloaked as Traditional — All you need to know
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8809Hjc5Ik 
(1 hour 19 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/@GentleBreeze1234  
channel owned not by a member of our Sister Churches

Gentle Breeze offers this introduction to his exceptional video:  

     His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah Paffhausen, is a retired bishop currently serving a parish in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. He is a graduate of Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary, and was the former primate of the OCA. Of late, he has been featured on popular Orthodox Youtube channels, he has spoken at Orthodox conferences and events, and is considered by some to be a teacher of traditional Orthodoxy. However, in many of his public teachings, His Beatitude has departed in a variety of serious ways from the teachings of the Orthodox Church. We will see him affirm the sanctity of post-schism Roman Catholic saints, say that the Bible and the Ecumenical Councils contain errors, that Roman Catholics and Coptics have apostolic succession, that evolution is compatible with Orthodoxy, that events described in the lifes of Saints didn't actually happen, and more.  The viewer will see all of this in recorded video clips that as of the making of this video, are available publicly on Youtube.
  video archived here: (download necessary for viewing)
  https://app.box.com/s/jgafnk2d5x3q6jt0zrzz15geos2raker 

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* Preobrazhensky is the Russian word for "Transfiguration"

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