A faithful and dutiful wife, when her husband was away on business for the Tzar, Saint Juliana worked with her household staff to give of their bounties to those in their such that multiple families had their needs met by her generosity. When famine struck the land, her compassion and giving abounded even more. For those who, despite her best efforts, did not survive, she paid for their Christian burial if their family could not afford it. Compassion was as if a natural reflex for her developed by nightly shared metanias with her husband and early morning prayer on her own. When she lost two of her children unexpectedly, she asked her husband to allow her to retire to a monastery. Although he did not grant his blessing because of the care she owed to their remaining children, he did allow her to live a monastic life in their domestic Church. The Saint took up the ascetic life with a vigor only matched by her generosity. She kept vigil at night, only allowing herself moments of sleep on the ground with a log for a pillow; she fasted severely so she had more to give others, and she kept the Jesus Prayer ever on her lips. Unable to bear her humility which was as a scourge to them, she was attacked one night by demons, but she drove them out by calling on the intercessions of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker who appeared with a stick that reminded those rebellious ones of their defeat by the wood of cross. At her death a visible halo of light formed around her head, and years later her body was found to incorrupt and emitting a heavenly fragrance.