Ksenofont Vyazemskii

Ksenofont Vyazemskii was a Russian schemamonk of St Panteleimon Monastery, born in 1852 at Staritsa, Tver province, of an ancient princely family. He died of a heart rupture on 5 September 1903. He is venerated by the faithful, without a synodal canonization.

Named Konstantin Alexandrovich in the world, he was the son of General Prince Alexander Vyazemsky, a veteran of the Crimean War, with an estate at Dubna. At fifteen his father died, which grieved him deeply; his mother, a French woman born in Russia, raised him in love for his neighbour and in faith: I believe in God because she believed in Him, he writes in his diary. He was in the Corps of Pages in St Petersburg, dreamy and curious; he wrote much, prose and verse, novels, dramas, poems, without publishing, for the censors did not pass them. He studied natural science and loved nature, travelling seven years through Russia, then through China, India and Europe, observing closely. Later he left the world and became a monk on Athos. He died on 5 September 1903.