Venerable Xenia of Rome and her two female slaves

Xenia was born Eusebia, the only daughter of a Roman senator, in the 5th century. On the eve of the marriage her parents had arranged, she secretly left Rome with two devoted maids and sailed to Alexandria, then to the island of Cos. There they met Paul, abbot of the monastery of Saint Andrew at Mylasa in Caria, who took them to his city. To stay hidden she took the name Xenia, "stranger".

Paul made the three women nuns. Xenia bought land, built a small church of Saint Stephen, and a community of nuns grew up around it; when Paul became bishop of Mylasa, he made her a deaconess against her wishes. She was known for hard fasting, which she tried to hide from the other sisters. According to her Life, at the hour of her death a cross in a wreath of stars appeared in the clear sky over the city.