Word XIX. On the Day of the Sacred Anointing and Coronation to the Throne of Our Most Pious, Most Autocratic Great Sovereign Emperor Nicholas Alexandrovich

“«The kingdom belongs to the Lord, and He is Master over the nations» (Ps 21:29).”

Is Russia the Kingdom of God?

Year after year, the Church and Russia gratefully recall and joyfully celebrate the day of the sacred anointing and coronation to the throne of our Most Pious Sovereign, the Emperor Nicholas Alexandrovich—and glorify the Lord, who has laid upon him honor and majesty, in the words of the royal prophet, and upon his head a crown of pure gold (Ps 20:4).

The royal anointing is a sign of the outpouring of the grace of the Holy Spirit, the life-giving Lord, upon the person anointed—and of wisdom and strength for the governing of his subjects. This sacred rite is an ordinance of God. Of David, anointed to the throne by Samuel the prophet, it is said in the sacred history that, as soon as he was sealed with oil, the Spirit of God began to rest upon him. King David himself says this of the gracious action upon him of the sacred anointing and of the power of God imparted through it: God girds me with strength and makes my way perfect, He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and sets me upon my high places; He teaches my hands to war, and my arms break even a bow of bronze; You have given me the shield of Your salvation, and Your right hand upholds me, and Your favor has made me great. You have enlarged my steps under me, and my feet have not slipped. I pursue my enemies and overtake them, and do not turn back until I have destroyed them; I strike them down, and they are not able to rise, they fall under my feet, for You have girded me with strength for war, and have subdued under my feet those who rose up against me. You have made my enemies turn their backs to me, and I destroy those who hate me. I scatter them like dust before the wind, I trample them like the mire of the streets. You have delivered me from the strife of the people, You have made me the head of the nations; a people whom I have not known serve me; as soon as they hear of me they obey me; foreigners submit themselves to me; foreigners fade away, and are afraid out of their strongholds; the Lord lives, and blessed be my defender! Let the God of my salvation be exalted, the God who avenges me and subdues the nations under me, and delivers me from my enemies! For this I will praise You, O Lord, among the nations, and will sing to Your name; You who greatly deliver the king, and show mercy to Your anointed David and his descendants forever (Ps 17:33-51).

See, then, what power the sacred anointing, or, more precisely, the pouring of oil upon his head, had for King David, and what God was to him, as king of the chosen people. God directed, so to speak, every step, every action of David—through him God Himself reigned over Israel; David’s kingdom was, in very truth, the Lord’s kingdom. But David was also a king after God’s own heart (Act 13:22), as God Himself testified of him, and was a true shepherd of the Hebrew people, being both king and, at the same time, prophet, unceasingly teaching them right faith and strict piety through his famous, God-inspired psalms and through orderly worship; he waged frequent wars against enemies within and without, conquered them all, and secured for his successor Solomon a peaceful reign.

Can it be said of our fatherland at the present time that it is the Lord’s kingdom, and that the Lord is the Ruler of the Russian people? — By its right Christian, apostolic faith, unimpaired by human speculation, by the Orthodox order of divine worship and the Mysteries, by the power of the signs and wonders worked from the relics of God’s glorified servants and from wonder-working icons, and generally by the countless signs of God’s mercy still worked to this day upon the faithful, and by the good, godly life of no small number of true Christians among the Russians—Russia may be called the Lord’s kingdom. This, however, is only one side of it.

On the other side, because of the godlessness and impiety of many Russians, the so-called intelligentsia, who have strayed from the path, fallen away from the faith and reviled it in every way, trampled all the commandments of the Gospel, and permit themselves every kind of debauchery in their lives—the Russian kingdom is not the Lord’s kingdom, but the vast and sprawling kingdom of Satan, deeply penetrated into the minds and hearts of Russia’s falsely learned and half-learned, and of all those who live broadly according to the pull of their own passions and the false, perverse notions of their own mutinous mind, which despises the Reason of God and the revealed Word of God. And so, see what is happening in it at the present time: everywhere, strikes of students and of working people in various institutions; the noise of parties whose aim is to overthrow the present monarchical order established by God; the widespread dissemination of brazen, senseless proclamations; disrespect for the authority of power, established by God—for, according to the apostle, there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God (Rom 13:1); children and young people have imagined themselves to be rulers and arbiters of their own fate; marriage has lost, for many, all significance, and divorces at whim have multiplied endlessly; many children are abandoned to the mercy of fate by unfaithful spouses; a certain madness and lawlessness reigns. Is this the Orthodox kingdom, is this the Lord’s kingdom? Finally, unpunished conversion from Orthodoxy to whatever faith one pleases has been permitted; while the same Lord whom we confess, in the Old Testament, decreed the death penalty for those who have renounced the law of Moses (Hebr 10:28).

Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, says the Lord, and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand (Mt 12:25). If matters proceed thus in Russia, and the godless and the anarchists—madmen—are not subjected to the righteous punishment of the law, and if Russia is not cleansed of its abundance of tares, then it will be laid waste, like the ancient kingdoms and cities wiped from the face of the earth by God’s justice for their godlessness and their lawlessness (Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, the Greek-Macedonian kingdom).

Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered; let those who hate Him flee from before His face; as smoke vanishes, let them vanish; as wax melts before the fire, so let sinners perish before the face of God, and let the righteous rejoice (Ps 67:1-4). Amen.