Речь благочестивейшему Государю Императору Александру Николаевичу пред вступлением Его Величества в Харьковский кафедральный собор 2 .

Most pious Sovereign! “Saul has conquered thousands, but David has conquered darkness!” the women of Israel once exclaimed after the defeat of the Philistines (1 Sam. 18:7). Your victory is higher and greater than David’s: You conquered not with weapons, but with good deeds, not darkness or tens of thousands, but entire millions. You conquered millions of hearts of all these people, whom with the wave of royal power you brought into the freedom of civil life, and who were previously devoted to You as a King, and now cannot help but love You as their true Father. You have won millions of hearts and all the faithful sons of Russia, who are able to understand what great good You have done for their homeland, and cannot help but see in You a most just Father, equally caring for all of His children. Your victory, aimed exclusively at the happiness of the kingdom entrusted to You by God, far leaves behind the victories of many other conquering kings, who, often subjugating alien peoples to their power, did not know how to conquer the hearts of their subjects and, while ruining and devastating neighboring countries, brought little benefit, and sometimes even brought harm to their own. Let us not cease to pray to the Lord, that He grant both You, our Sovereign Father, and us, Your children, to enjoy the fruits of Your high, moral, Christian victory, unparalleled in the annals of our fatherland. Amen. Said by His Grace Macarius, Bishop of Kharkov and Akhtyrka, August 14, 1861. You might be interested in: