Section 03: Renunciation

The concrete shape of St. Xenia’s renunciation and the theology read into it. Where section 02 places Xenia within the holy-fool tradition, this section follows the renunciation step by step as the tradition tells it — the house, the petition, the uniform, the kopeck — and then sets out how the interpreters read it: as a bridal-baptismal death-and-exchange and as the purest expression of the kenotic strain in Russian sanctity.

Tradition: Russian Orthodox (glorified ROCOR 1978, Moscow Patriarchate 1988)

The single file here, Dying in Another’s Place, narrates and interprets the renunciation. It follows the tradition through its concrete acts: giving away the house to Paraskeva Antonova; the relatives’ petition to have her declared insane and the trustees’ examination finding her sound of mind and free to dispose of her property (the tradition’s own guarantee that her foolishness was chosen, not pathological); wearing her husband’s military uniform until it fell to rags, then red-and-green clothing echoing its colors; and refusing every alms but the small “Tsar on horseback” kopeck, which she gave away at once. Each detail is pinned to its earliest accessible written attestation per METHODOLOGY.md §3.5 — all of it hagiographical tradition, written down about a century after the events. The file then reads the renunciation through two attributed frames: the bridal-baptismal death-and-exchange by which Xenia dies that her husband may be saved, and Fedotov’s account of Russian sanctity as kenotic self-emptying after the pattern of Christ’s kenosis.

Section Contents

  • Dying in Another’s Place — the renunciation: the house and Paraskeva Antonova, the sanity petition and the finding of soundness, the uniform and the red-and-green rags, the “Tsar on horseback” kopeck, and the theology read in it (bridal/baptismal death-and-exchange; kenotic sanctity per Fedotov).

How to Use

Cross-References