Life and Marriage
By her secular name Euphrosyne, she was the daughter of Prince Rogvolod Borisovich of Polotsk and was raised in the Transfiguration Monastery of that city. Around the age of thirty she married Yaroslav Vladimirovich, Prince of Pskov, probably as his second wife.
Yaroslav abandoned Pskov for Livonia, where he married a German Catholic woman and joined the Livonian Order in raids against the Russian lands, capturing Izborsk in 1231. According to the Orthodox Church in America's listing, Eupraxia was the aunt of Prince Dovmont-Timothy, the later celebrated holy prince of Pskov.
Monastic Foundation and Martyrdom
After her husband's defection, Eupraxia founded the John the Baptist (Ioanno-Predtechensky) women's monastery on the Velikaya River in Pskov in 1243, taking the monastic name Eupraxia and serving as its first abbess.
Summoned to Livonia for negotiations regarding her dowry, she was murdered in 1243. Russian sources record that she was killed on May 8, 1243, at Odenpe (modern Otepää, Estonia) by her stepson, the son of Yaroslav and his German wife. She was buried in the cathedral of the monastery she had founded.
Veneration and Canonization
Eupraxia is venerated as a right-believing martyr-princess of Pskov. She is commemorated on October 16 (Old Style) / October 29 (New Style), and within the Russian Orthodox Church she is remembered during the twenty-first week after Pentecost. She is also numbered among the Assembly of Pskov Saints.
She received church-wide recognition in 1734 and a local canonization in Pskov around 1859. No dedicated English-language Wikipedia article exists for her; the information is drawn largely from Russian-language Orthodox sources, including the Pravoslavnaia Entsiklopediia (2008).
Miracles & Traditions
Historically Documented: Local veneration developed following reported miraculous occurrences at her tomb.
Traditional Accounts: A miraculous event is recorded after her death, in which myron (holy oil) flowed from an icon hung above her grave.
