34. Слово в день венчания на царство, и миропомазания Благочестивейшаго Государя Императора Александра Павловича

(Spoken at the Assumption Cathedral on September 15; printed separately in Christian Reading of 1840 and in collections of 1844 and 1848.) I pray, first of all, to make prayers, supplications, petitions, thanksgivings, for all people, for the king, and for everyone in power: so that we may live a quiet and silent life in all piety and purity. 1 Timothy 2:1–2 What the Apostle so urgently asks of his disciple Timothy, the Bishop of Ephesus: or better to say, that he certainly commands this through the Bishop and the entire church: this, Christians, is what we now perform with particular solemnity in this house of prayer. Making prayers, supplications, petitions, thanksgivings for all people, we especially offer them for our King, now anointed by God, who not only protects our life and safety with a scepter and sword, but strives in spirit and with all his life, “so that we may lead a quiet and serene life in all piety and purity” 180. It would be ungrateful before God and before him not to remember now what example he set for us not long ago in the matter of prayer, when, despite the fatigue from the journey, or the many different activities of a short stay in a vast city, in six days he visited the local churches four times during the hours of offering a bloodless sacrifice. How pleasant it must be for subjects to pray for the King, who so diligently prays for his subjects! But while this work is accomplished by the zeal of each and every one, the Church does not consider it unnecessary, often in the midst of the very work of prayer, to repeat to us the Apostle’s commandment about prayer; “I pray, first of all, to make prayers, supplications, petitions, thanksgivings, for all people, for the king, and for everyone in power: so that we may live a quiet and silent life in all piety and purity.” Therefore, I considered it unnecessary not only to repeat this commandment, but also to resolve it with the special instructions about prayer contained in it. The first instruction in the Apostle’s saying about prayer is that he puts the matter of prayer first of all: “I pray that first of all you should pray.” There are many good deeds that Christianity requires from a Christian, and which it accomplishes in it: but the work of prayer must be first of all; because without it no other good deed can be accomplished. To find and by deed to follow the path of the Lord, to understand the truth, to see life, or in other words, to crucify the flesh with passions and lusts through repentance, in order to cleanse oneself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, through faith to be resurrected and enlightened in the heart by the light of Christ, finally, by Divine love, to be lifted up to union with the Divine and to deification through this union: here in a few words is an abbreviation of the great deeds that must be accomplished in Christian; and how can they be accomplished when the lowest of these cannot be accomplished without the highest; and the highest is usually unattainable for one who has not yet been able to enter the lower degree? How can one find the way who does not see the truth? Or how can one walk the path in whom there is no life? But Jesus Christ cannot become truth and life for us unless He becomes the way: for in this exact order He promised to reveal Himself to us when He said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). How to resolve this multi-braided knot, all of whose ends are hidden inside it? How to open this imprisoned treasury, which at first glance does not present either a key or an opening where it fits? The main thread by which the entire knot of spiritual mysteries is resolved, and the key by which all the treasures of grace are opened, is prayer. Pray with David: “Tell me, O Lord, the way, where I will go, for I have taken my soul to You” (Psalm 143:8): - and the true path of the Lord will be revealed to you. “If anyone lacks wisdom from you,” or, what is also, the knowledge of saving truth: “let him ask of God, who gives to all without partiality, and without reproaching, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5). If someone “asked you for food”, Lord, with a strong and pure prayer: “You gave it to him” (Psalm 20:5), and You always give it, “fulfilling the good desires” of those who love You (Psalm 103:5). And what is prayer itself in its essence, if not the breath of Divine life in man, according to what is said: “the Spirit itself groans in us with groanings that cannot be uttered” (Rom. 8:26)? Where there are even faint beginnings of breathing, there are signs of life; and where there is no breathing, there is no life. Thus, in whom there are even the rudiments of prayer, there are signs of spiritual life: the state of a person without the spirit of prayer is the state of a lifeless person in the inner man. Therefore, just as for natural life one must first of all arouse the breath, so for spiritual life one must first of all arouse the spirit of prayer. The second instruction in the Apostle’s saying now under consideration is that he gives the concept of different types of prayer. “I pray,” he says, “to make prayers, supplications, petitions, thanksgivings.” We must offer prayers to God as God, supplications as a Judge, petitions as a King, thanksgiving as the Creator and Giver of blessings. Through petitions we can ask from Him for benefits, mainly eternal, and partly temporary; With prayers we need to beg Him to deliver us from evils, from sin and from punishment for sin; the fulfillment of petitions and prayers is naturally followed by thanksgiving; prayer in its own 181 and its highest sign forgets in some way both evil and its own good, and rushes to the contemplation of the supreme and universal good in God, so that in it the soul of a person, in the words of the mysterious Song Singer, “ascends” to God, “like a stalk of incense smoke” (Song. 3:6). Prayers lament before God and are consoled; petitions are bold and humble before Him; Thanksgiving rejoices and rejoices; prayer reveres Him and burns in love, like a sacrifice that is always living and burnt. Prayer in general is the soul of all special prayers, petitions and thanksgivings; however, depending on the state of the Christian, combining these with prayer is not only permissible for him, but useful and even necessary. – He who does not bring prayers for the forgiveness of sins, either out of ignorance does not know them, or hides them from himself with pride, like the Pharisee, and, in either case, does not belong to the kingdom of God, which, since “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23), does not accept anyone except those who supplicate and have mercy. – He who never brings petitions to God has little faith in His goodness and power, or does not believe at all. “Until now” - this is how Jesus Christ accuses the Apostles themselves of this lack of prayer - hitherto “do not ask for anything in My name: ask and you will receive, that your joy may be filled” (John 16:24). He who does not give thanks renders such an injustice to the heavenly Giver of all blessings that even among people, in relation to earthly benefactors, is condemned and punished with general contempt. The third instruction of the Apostle's saying under consideration is that it determines for whom prayers should be performed and in what order. “I pray,” he says, “to say prayers for all people, for the king, and for everyone who is in power.” I have heard some who say: “Where can we pray for others when we cannot pray for ourselves?” Such people, of course, think that they should pray for themselves first of all, but they don’t have to pray for others. What should they think, what should we all think, when we hear that the Divinely inspired teacher in prayer commands to pray for all others without exception: “for all people”; commands us to pray for some people primarily: “for the king, and for everyone who is in power”; and doesn’t mention prayer for themselves at all? What does this mean? The fact that prayer for oneself, taken separately from prayer for others, as the fruit of spiritual self-interest, cannot constitute pure Christian virtue, and therefore is not worth a special commandment; Meanwhile, the one who prays for everyone prays at the same time for himself, and with greater purity and selflessness, the less he separates his own particular good and salvation from the general good and salvation of all people. Therefore, Jesus Christ Himself gave us all one prayer, not each for himself, but each and every one for all, commanding us to ask “our Father” for his heavenly “will” for the whole “earth”, and “daily bread, forgiveness of debts, deliverance from temptations” for all “of us” (Luke 11:2-4). Even in our private cases, He wanted at least “two or three to take counsel to ask the Father in heaven for every thing” (Matthew 18:19). So, do not renounce prayer for others under the pretext of fear that you cannot pray for yourself: but in fact be afraid that you will not pray for yourself if you do not pray for others. If everyone only prays for himself; then everyone will remain only with his own prayer, cold with cold, weak with weak: but if everyone prays for everyone; then everyone will be helped by the powerful prayer of the entire Church of Christ and all the Saints of God. “I beg you to say prayers for all people.” As for the prayers prescribed especially “for the king, and for all those in power”: it is not useless at this time to pay attention to the fact that when the Apostle wrote this commandment to the Church of Ephesus, then the kings and authorities on whom its external well-being could depend were not Christians, but pagans, not defenders, but for the most part persecutors of the Church. If it is a Christian duty to pray for such people, then how disgusting it would be for Christianity to neglect to pray for the King, who is Christ’s anointed, and who, by authority and example, affirms and spreads piety! This negligence cannot go unpunished because of that intimate connection with which God’s Providence in the fate of kings and peoples is not always close, but always in a marvelous way accurately connects piety with prosperity, and vices with disasters. Why couldn’t such pious and beneficent kings as Hezekiah and Josiah prevent the destruction of the kingdom of Judah? - Because the unworthy people did not want to accommodate the spirit of piety that they tried so hard to arouse in them. The fourth instruction in the Apostle’s saying under consideration is that he sets the correct goal for the work of prayer: “let us live a quiet and silent life in all piety and purity.” The consequences of prayer brought for the wrong purpose are depicted by another Apostle when he says: “You ask and do not receive; He shows a fruitless prayer: “You ask and you do not receive.” But why is she barren? - Because it does not have the necessary kindness and dignity: “ask for evil.” Why is she unworthy? - Because those who pray have the wrong goal, in order to satisfy their own lusts: “may you depend on your sweets.” Warning against this abuse and, one might say, desecration of the sacred thing that is prayer, Saint Paul prescribes that in our prayers and petitions we should keep in mind not our own desires, but the common life of all Christians, the well-being of the Church and the Fatherland; so that the object of our desires is not a pleasant life, to please coarse or subtle lust, not an abundant life, to satisfy greed, not a brilliant and glorious life, which would feed our pride and ambition; but life is quiet and serene; so that, finally, this very thing should not be the last goal of desires, since we, not having in this temporary, external life, an “abiding city” (Heb. 13:14), cannot set here the last goal for our striving, but so that we, having achieved a quiet and serene state of temporary and external life, will all the more unhindered reach out to achieving further successes in our inner life, to acquire the right to eternal life in the coming heavenly city: “Let us live a quiet and silent life in all piety and purity.” Let us, brethren, make use of these Apostolic instructions, if anyone has not yet made sufficient use of them. Let us not allow idleness or vain amusements to remove us from the sacred work of prayer, public and private, church and home; We will not allow the very things of the world to destroy this work of God in us. There is “a time for every thing under heaven” (Eccl. 3:1): how could there not be a time for prayer, which is the first thing under heaven? There is a time for spectacles: how could there not be a time for a church? If you hasten to do both good and lawful deeds, hasten even more to precede them with prayer, so that what is good and lawful may become holy; for “all things are sanctified by prayer” (1 Tim. 4:5). “I beg you, first of all, to say prayers.” Let us, as much as possible, be attentive to the various cases to which the work of prayer, when prudently applied, becomes complete and perfect. Feeling guilty before the justice of God, let us bring prayers to Him that He may forgive us our debts; and even if we had done everything commanded, we would not stop begging for mercy, recognizing ourselves as inexcusable slaves who have not yet earned anything, having only fulfilled what was due. Let the thought that the heavenly Father knows our needs, this sweet food of Christian hope, not turn into food for laziness or unbelief; the fact that the Father is omniscient does not prevent his children from being sincere; Let us bring our children's petitions to Him, so that He who, in His omniscience, foresaw them, could fulfill them in accordance with His righteousness. But as children of obedience, whether we receive what we ask in full measure, or do not receive it at all, or even lose what we had, in all these cases we will not cease to bring our thanks to the Father, who is as generous as he is when he gives bread, as good as he is when he does not give a burning coal to a foolish child, or takes away from him a deadly weapon. Let us dare to come closer and closer to this all-good Father, even without the mediation of our needs and His gifts: it is enough to hear one word of Him, or one of His name, “that our soul may go out into His word” (Song. 5:6), and everything will be poured out before Him in the prayer of love and joy. So “I beg you to make prayers, supplications, petitions, thanksgivings.” Let us expand our hearts with prayer and embrace all people with it. In it, let both the distant become close, and the alien to one’s own, the high and the low, equal before the face of the Almighty; in it, let enmity fade away, and let love ignite with a stronger and purer flame. We will especially seek through prayer the good of those whom God has appointed with special deeds to create our good. Who knows how much the prayer of faith can do for the Tsar and the Fatherland? Once upon a time, the prayer of Elisha alone for the king and the kingdom of Israel was stronger than the army; for she brought an entire enemy army captive to the capital of Israel. “I beg you to say prayers for all people, for the king and for everyone who is in power.” Finally, let us beware lest an unclean intention, like a worm, damage the fruit of prayer in its very interior. How unworthy, for example, would a prayer for the Tsar be if someone appeared in it with others only in order to fulfill a custom and a civic duty! No! This is not what Christianity demands; The King is not worthy of this. With a sincere heart and with all our soul, let us offer “prayers for all people, for the king, and for everyone who is in power,” with the pure intention, “that we may live a quiet and silent life in all piety and purity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior” (1 Tim. 2:1-3), to whom let prayer be given without ceasing, thanksgiving in everything, and glory forever. Amen. In the department ed. and in Christ. Read: honesty. In the department ed. and in Christ. Thu: special... You might be interested in: