We only wanted to point out to those who wish the path on which, having embarked, it is possible to go safely to the goal. Amen.

Sermon on the Day of the Coronation of the Most Pious Tsar Nicholas Pavlovich, Emperor and Autocrat of All Russia, Delivered at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra on August 22, 1832

Thy processions have been seen, O God, the processions of my God the King, Who is holy (Psalm 67:25)

The porphyry-bearing singer of Israel, in the midst of prophetic raptures and visions, once turned his gaze to the past fate of his homeland - and his bright eye almost drooped from the multitude and greatness of the miracles performed by Providence for the glory of his people Israel (Luke 2:32). He saw the wondrous exodus of the Israelites from Egypt; an even more wondrous crossing of the Red Sea; legislation and miracles at Sinai; he sees Jehovah, the Lord of hosts, dwelling in the midst of his people, and leading them as a pillar of fire and cloud in the wilderness. how the earth shakes and the heavens melt at the presence of the God of Sinai, he sees, and from the fullness of grateful feeling he exclaims: "Thy processions have been seen, O God, the processions of my God the King, Who is in holiness!

This royal day, listeners, calls upon us to turn our gaze to the fate of our Fatherland. We believe that the God of Israel is both our Lord and our fathers, that our kings reign over Him, and our mighty ones burn righteousness with Him (Proverbs 8:15); we believe that our most pious sovereigns, accepting visible anointing... from the Holy One (1 John 2:20), at the same time they are clothed with invisible power from above (Luke 24:49), that the Spirit of God hovers over them from that day (1 Samuel 16:13), guiding them into all truth (John 16:13). It is impossible that this blessed faith does not have confirmation in the very fate of our Fatherland, that in the sacred tablets of the history of our kings there is not found empirical evidence of the great truth that there is given to them from the Lord power and power from the Most High (Wis. 6:3). When is it more appropriate to proclaim this great and joyous truth in the ears of one and all, if not on this royal day, in remembrance of the sacred coronation of our most pious sovereign Nicholas I, not only in name, but also in deeds?

Therefore, true sons of the Church and the Fatherland, come, let us magnify the Lord of our fathers together; let us unbend the sacred tablets of the people's existence and proclaim the fate of God's Providence, revealed in the lives and deeds of our kings. But so that our weak eye may not be darkened by the multitude and variety of God's ways, let us now focus our reverent attention solely on the fate of the blessed reigning House.

When Providence takes a nation or tribe under its protection, it apparently removes it from among the rest at the very beginning, appropriates it to Itself especially, and puts upon it a certain indelible seal of the highest election. As it seems, this seal was laid at the very beginning on the sovereign house of the Romanovs! If anyone, then the name "crowned by God" and "exalted by God" in all its power befitted its ancestor! People acted so little in this case, or, more precisely, so much opposed, that it was most likely to be expected that the young lad would be completely forgotten. In fact, who remembered Michael, except the Heavenly Father, Who hid him for a time in the mystery of His face from the rebellion of man (Psalm 30:21)? It seems to me that I see how the crown, torn from Godunov's brow by the storm, is transferred from head to head, as if looking for a worthy one! Not finding one, he apparently wants to join the crowns of foreigners! But now the head of the son of the Russian land, the man of abuse and counsel, is crowned with him. Isn't this the end of disasters? Won't Shuisky find the means to establish his throne, to pacify the Fatherland? - No, Providence wants the good of Russia not for years, but for eternity; for this he needs not courage, but goodness and innocence; The new royal vertigrad must begin from the virgin rod. And so, in the voice of the people, at last, the voice of God is reflected; they seek the earthly king at the foot of the Throne of the King of Heaven; from the depths of the holy monastery comes the one who must appease the wrath of God over the troubled Fatherland with his innocence. What a blessed and holy beginning! At this time, the words of the prophet were fulfilled over Russia, as over ancient Israel: "I will lead a child little..." and he shall lay his hand on the caves of the fiends of asps (Isaiah 11:6:8). For what was Michael, in comparison with many men of power, if not a little child? And that there were many cities and villages, embraced by the spirit of rebellion, if not "caves of asps"? - But the God-crowned lad laid his sovereign hand on these caves, and they turned into dwellings of the world. It seemed that he had come out of the holy monastery, surrounded by the invisible Heavenly Host. After some experiments of patience, necessary for the rooting of the young royal age in humility and hope in God, all the hostile began to bow down at the mere name of the autocrat. And where courage and art were exhausted without success, one royal word was enough, and Russia, which had hitherto wavered from one end to the other of Mikhailov's reign, like an ocean after a storm, lay within its boundaries with the natural quietness of a child.

Blessed is not the Lord, Who has so favored our beloved Fatherland? Who removed the seekers of other tribes from the Orthodox throne? Who raised up the progenitor of kings from among His people, from the house of His holiness? Who gave young kindness its strength and strength?

Thy processions have been seen, O God, the processions of my God the King, Who is in holiness!

Let us look further. Already Russia, rooted in greatness by the autocracy of the throne, ascends from perfection to perfection. The deep wounds of the Fatherland have been healed; the rejected members became part of the public body; even alien regions begin to seek peace under the shadow of autocrats who reign in God's mercy. Greater perfection cannot be desired according to the ordinary order of things!

But for a people faithful to the God of their fathers, there is no other order than the will of God and the will of kings. It is predestined that the young sons of the North should come out to the disgrace (theater, spectacle - ed.) of world events to moderate and bring the ardent children of the South to their senses; so that as soon as possible they will be equal in education with their elder brethren - and it will be! What do you need for this? To speed up the course of things for a whole century? - It will speed up. To spread the light of civil education even where the name of the laws is not known? -Spreads. To force the tsar himself to voluntarily descend from the throne to the woodworkers' temple, and instead of the autocratic skipper, to take up a mlat and an axe? -Will.

You already see, most honorable listeners, that our word concerns the deeds of the great reformer of our Fatherland. What an instructive subject for a reverent contemplator of God's destinies! The greatness of Peter is the true greatness of God's Providence for our Fatherland. Walking in the footsteps of this monarch in your mind, you involuntarily think that you are following in the footsteps of one of the God-chosen men of antiquity, armed with miracles. At Peter's beckoning to the sea, they forget their impassability, the rivers take on a different course, the deserts turn into cities, the mountains are humbled, the wilds are filled, the very tabernacle of the covenant – the Church of God – in the form of its external administration takes on a new appearance under him*. Who commanded this extraordinary luminary to rise in a country that had hitherto been famous only for the northern lights? Who breathed into his soul a multitude of great thoughts, each of which would have made great the mind that produced it? Where did the strength of the will come from, which found within itself that irresistible support on which, leaning on, it was able to move the whole Fatherland forward for a whole century? In the language of the world, which nowhere and in nothing wants to see the ways of God, such people are usually called geniuses: a name that strikingly changes the [course of] thought with which it is used! For the ancient world, meaning by the geniuses of guardian spirits, wanted to explain the greatness of extraordinary people by the supernatural influence of the latter; and now by the same name they think to turn them into sons of chance and to break their union with Heaven! That is, it is better to use words without thought than to admit that all these so-called geniuses are the visible instruments of Providence, the living mysteries of God's destinies, the true messengers of Heaven, who are to be the guardian angels of the nations.