The yearly cycle, having turned ten times, now returns to us, rejoicing Russians, that most radiant day on which, in this very temple, we saw our most pious Emperor Nicholas Pavlovich receive the hereditary imperial crown and be sealed with holy anointing.
This crown shines. The crowned head prospers. Therefore, in our present joy, we can sing with the royal Psalmist, "You have set," O Lord, "upon his head a crown of precious stone."
With hope confirmed by experience, we may add the following Psalm verse: "He asked life of You, and You gave him length of days unto ages of ages" (Ps 20:4-5).
At the thought of a crown, another verse of the ancient reverent contemplator of nature comes to my memory: "You will bless the crown of the year of Your goodness," O Lord, "and Your fields will be filled with abundance" (Ps 64:12).
If the year of the earth forms for it a kind of crown, more or less adorned with its fruits, how much more may we consider the year of a king, and still more the decade of our most pious Emperor, as a new crown over the crowned Head.
This crown is not made of branches, flowers, or precious stones, but of wise undertakings, beneficent deeds, and blessed successes.
It is a crown fashioned and adorned by properly royal labor, yet also sanctified by the blessing of God. For wise undertakings are brought into action and crowned with success not by human will and power alone, but by God's blessing above it.
Shall I point out, even with a passing glance, some of the precious stones of this crown, though they are visible to you without me?
Shall I point them out only because, when we rejoice at seeing something, we love to point out to one another even what all can see? Behold.
External enemies have been conquered and subdued. Domestic enemies have been destroyed. Alliances especially favorable to the peace of kings and peoples have been especially strengthened.
By rare royal skill enemies have been transformed into friends. More than once, the personal presence of mind of the most pious Emperor has been powerfully and beneficently set against the force of calamities that were not in human power to forestall or avert.
By vigilant care the military forces have been, and still are, continuously maintained in a development corresponding to the dignity and security of the State.
The naval forces especially have not only been increased, but, I do not know whether to say, raised from the dead by the attentive and life-giving royal gaze.
Education, the arts, and industry have been encouraged in many ways. Legislation and justice have received their special crown in the systematic composition of the laws.
Philanthropic institutions for education, healing, and care have increased in number and flourish beneath the unsetting sun of direct royal guardianship.
Every need, poverty, and misfortune, public or private, has continually found, and still finds, the beneficent royal hand open.
In accordance with the needs of the Holy Church, her pastors, her temples, and her monasteries have in part been multiplied and in part benefited.
In regions where, in former unhappy times, Eastern piety was constrained by the violences of the West, the own eye of the most pious Sovereign observed the poor condition of Orthodox temples.
His special will clothed them with fitting beauty. His love for the Orthodox Church has inspired the zeal of her ministers.
Many thousands of her children have been returned to her maternal embrace. Some had been torn from her in their ancestors during days of disorder and persecution. Others had gone astray in years of ignorance.
These are some parts of the lofty work in the crown of the royal decade. It shines majestically and sweetly to the eye of the Russian heart, and not only in the present time.
It also reflects light for good hopes in the future.
The hand that holds the scepter of all Russia, firm at the beginning, has naturally acquired greater ease of movement through ten years of experience. Meanwhile, care and security for the more distant future of the realm have been extended by the education of the Heir to the Throne.
The natural love of Russians for their king has naturally been multiplied by acquired love for a king who continually cares for us, lives and acts for us, and from his sacred height draws so near to his people that our hearts, one may say, touch his heart.
What then shall we say, rejoicing Russians? "Command, O God, by Your power. Strengthen, O God, what You have wrought in us" (Ps 67:29). "You will add days to the king's days, his years to the day of generation and generation" (Ps 60:7).
But it is time for me to remember that this place and these minutes are appointed not simply for depicting impressions and pouring out feelings, but chiefly for teaching.
Should not the teaching that our own heart now requires concern what we might render to the king, who continually struggles for our good, and what we might render to God, Who blesses his struggles?
Not only the benefactions of the Heavenly King, but also the beneficent struggles of the earthly king on our behalf, are beyond our recompense.
On our part, not recompense but only correspondence is possible. What correspondence? The continual animation of ourselves toward fulfilling our duties before the Heavenly and earthly king.
So the apostolic word teaches: "Submit yourselves therefore to every human institution," that is, to every authority established by God over men, "for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors as sent by him" (1 Pet 2:13-14).
What satisfying teaching. By submitting to the king and to authority, you are pleasing to the king. At the same time, by submitting "for the Lord's sake," you are pleasing to the Lord.
Must it be proved that one ought to obey? Where there is human society, there is necessarily authority, which unites people into the structure of society.
Without authority, one can imagine only an unordered multitude of people, not society. But authority acts in society and preserves it through obedience.
Consequently, obedience is necessarily joined to the existence of society. Whoever would shake or weaken obedience would shake or weaken the foundation of society.
But the Apostle is not content to teach obedience somehow. He teaches obedience with a definite motive: "for the Lord's sake."
Here one sees the assumption that he had in view other kinds of obedience, based on other motives, such as for oneself, for society, or for authority.
Yet above the others he chose for his disciples one kind: obedience "for the Lord's sake."
Whoever obeys from fear of punishment obeys for his own sake, to protect himself from the unpleasantness of punishment. There are people for whom even this motive toward obedience is necessary.
But no one would wish to boast that he had chosen precisely this kind of obedience for himself.
Whoever obeys in order to gain advantage, reward, or honor also obeys for his own sake. Authority acts prudently and beneficently when it uses the incentives to obedience just mentioned.
Yet by their very nature they can have place only in certain cases. They cannot establish and secure universal obedience.
The most common works of obedience, and those necessary for society, are least capable of being joined with some recompense or honor. Such, for example, is the payment of taxes.
The philosophizing mind will praise obedience for the sake of society and, together with it, for one's own sake. A man's good cannot be arranged and preserved otherwise than through society.
Society provides man with personal security, the formation of capacities, occasions for using them, means for acquisition, and again the security of what has been acquired.
But since obedience is necessary for the preservation of society, each man must obey for the sake of society, out of gratitude to it for himself.
At the same time he must obey for his own sake, so that, by preserving society through obedience, he may preserve for himself what he receives from society.
This speculation is just. But are there many people in society capable of establishing their obedience according to ideas and speculations?
When I look at experiments in which, in our time, some peoples and States wish to base obedience on such speculations, I see that nothing there stands firm.
Thrones and altars are shaken. In the words of the Prophet, "the people are as the priest, and the servant as the master" (Isa 24:2).
The reins of government are torn. Uprisings swarm. Vices grow shameless. Crimes mock justice. There is neither unanimity, nor trust, nor security. Each coming day threatens.
Seeing all this, I cannot help concluding that public order must evidently not be founded on human speculations.
There is obedience for the sake of society and authority, not so much by speculation as by the feeling of the heart, through love for the Sovereign and the fatherland.
Happy is the people animated by this love. It is the vital warmth in the body of the State, a self-moving direction toward public unity, the winged chariot of authority, free submission, and submissive freedom.
We Russians, nourished from mother's milk with love for the Sovereign and fatherland, know from old and recent experience how strengthening this food has been for the most difficult struggles in the most difficult times.
Continue, and do not forget, this food, in some manner wondrous, and on earth higher than earthly in quality. It is the manna of national life.
The sooner the better, gather it throughout the fatherland, and daily nourish yourselves and your children with it.
For we warn you: there are peoples among whom the sweet manna of love for the fatherland, not being used rightly and in due time, has spoiled or has begun to seem less pleasant to a damaged taste.
There are lands where, beneath the burning sun of false enlightenment, it has melted, evaporated, and flown away.
But in what must precaution consist? In knowing and keeping the God-given law that descends from the highest heaven: how to gather, preserve, and use the manna.
Let us speak without allegory. In order that natural love for the sovereign and fatherland may be unchanging, pure, and saving, it must be guarded and guided in its actions by the higher, wholly heavenly and divine law of Christian love.
Thus, as far as possible, we have reviewed the various motives for obedience that the holy Apostle Peter either rejected or passed over in his exhortation to obedience.
If I am not mistaken, from what has been said so far you could see that all of them leave one feeling the need for a stronger, more universal, purer, and more exalted motive.
This alone, as perfect, the Apostle chose: "submit for the Lord's sake."
"The authorities are appointed by God," says another Apostle. "Therefore he who resists authority resists the ordinance of God" (Rom 13:1-2).
"Submit yourselves therefore to every human authority," to every lawful authority, and especially to the supreme authority, "for the Lord's sake."
Submit with full and unquestioning obedience for the sake of the Lord Almighty and Righteous, Who cannot allow resistance to His ordinance to remain unpunished.
Submit sincerely for the sake of the Lord, the Knower of hearts, Who sees and condemns not only every act of disobedience, but also every stiff-necked or murmuring thought.
Submit with hope for the sake of the Lord, the most wise and all-good Provider, Who continually watches over the bringing of His ordering toward ends saving for us.
He especially has "the king's heart" in His hand (Prov 21:1).
Submit with love for the sake of the Lord, Whose glorious kingdom in the heavens and gracious kingdom in human souls is a kingdom of love.
He commanded us to strive with all the strength of the soul that His will may be done "on earth as it is in heaven," and therefore also in the earthly kingdom.
Here is obedience that is always satisfying to authority and always blessed for the one who obeys.
THEOSIS