Letters from Saint Ignatius to the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod, Count A.P. Tolstoy

Contents Preface Letter No. 1 Letter No. 2 Letters from Saint Ignatius to Count Alexander Petrovich Tolstoy (1801–1873) date back to the latter’s tenure as Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod. According to contemporaries, he was one of the smartest and most educated people of his time 1 . T. I. Filippov, who served under Count Tolstoy as an official of special assignments on issues of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, recalled: “In the summer of 1855, I had to introduce the count through correspondence to I. V. Kireevsky, from whom, upon my return to Moscow, along with gratitude for the acquaintance I had arranged, I heard the following words, forever preserved in my heart: “It becomes easier to live after meeting such a person.” a person like Count Alexander Petrovich "" 2. Due to the rarity of information about Count Tolstoy, we will provide a detailed biographical information about him. He came from a Russian noble family of the mid-14th century. His father is a member of the State Council (from 1823), general of the infantry (1814) Count Pyotr Aleksandrovich Tolstoy (1770–1844); mother - Princess Maria Alekseevna Golitsyna (1772–1826). Count Alexander Petrovich Tolstoy was born in St. Petersburg, was educated at home and began military service early: at the age of sixteen, as a cadet, he joined the Life Guards Artillery Brigade, two years later he was transferred to the Guards Horse Artillery, and two years later he was promoted to officer and enrolled in the Cavalry Regiment and appointed adjutant to the chief of staff of the 1st Army, General I. I. Dibich (later Count Dibich-Zabalkansky, Field Marshal). In 1824–1826 he was on expeditions to survey the Caspian and Azov seas and exterminate sea robbers, took part in all military actions of the detachment and was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, 4th degree with a bow. Upon returning from the expedition, he left military service and at the end of 1826 he entered the College of Foreign Affairs and was assigned to the embassy in Paris (over the staff), which was headed at that time by Count C. O. Pozzo di Borgo. The following year, Tolstoy was sent on a diplomatic mission to Constantinople, from where he traveled, as his service record says, “to surrounding countries for military-topographical descriptions and on secret missions.” Then, after war was declared on Turkey in 1828, Count Tolstoy again entered military service in the same Cavalry Regiment and took part in campaigns and military operations under the command of General Dibich. For his distinction in the capture of the Turkish fortresses of Aidasa and Burgas, he was awarded the Order of St. Anne, 3rd degree with a bow, and 2nd degree with a golden sword with the inscription “For bravery.” In August 1829, Tolstoy was appointed aide-de-camp to Emperor Nicholas I, but after the end of the war he decided to continue serving in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (former Collegium) and retired in February of the following year. In 1830 he received the court title of chamberlain and appointment as first secretary of the Russian mission in Greece. This appointment did not suit him, and he moved to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, headed at that time by Count A. A. Zakrevsky. In 1831, Tolstoy served first as manager and then as director of the Economic Department (later the Ministry of State Property). In 1834, he was already an active Privy Councilor, holding the post of Tver civil governor, and from December 1837 - military governor in Odessa with the rank of major general, with administration and a civil part. Count Tolstoy held this position until February 1840, when, after a conflict with Prince M. S. Vorontsov, the Novorossiysk governor-general, he retired and went abroad. From then on, for fifteen years, he stood aloof from government and public activities. Count Tolstoy returned to service in May 1855, during the Crimean War, when he accepted the position of chief of the Nizhny Novgorod militia, and subsequently held the largest government posts - Chief Prosecutor of the Synod (from 1856 to 1862), then until the end of his life he was a member of the State Council. From December 1856 - Lieutenant General. In 1859 he was awarded the insignia of impeccable service for twenty years, the Order of Vladimir 2nd degree with swords, the cross of the Greek Order of the Savior; in 1862 - the Order of the White Eagle. In 1839 he was elected an honorary member of the Odessa Society of Russian History and Antiquities. An expressive description of Count Tolstoy after his appointment as Chief Prosecutor of the Synod was given by the philosopher and publicist N.P. Gilyarov-Platonov in a letter to Archpriest A.V. Gorsky, professor and later rector of the Moscow Theological Academy: “It is difficult to find a person more devoted to the Church, more ready for any improvement and at the same time less inclined to make any personal calculations in the management of such an important part. <...> He belongs to the category of those people whom I cannot describe otherwise than to call them Optina Christians. These are people who deeply respect spiritual life, who want to see in the clergy leaders to the spiritual heights of life, who long for Orthodox Christianity in Russia to be the realization of what we read in Isaac Siyorin, Barsanuphius, and so on. And he himself is exactly like that in his life. No one is less able to put up with officialdom, with formalism and with worldly vanity in the cause of Christianity” 3. T.I. Filippov, in part of his memoirs about Tolstoy, which remained unpublished, writes: “The appointment of Count Alexander Petrovich as Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod followed (September 20, 1856) during the stay of the Sovereign (Alexander II. - V.V.) in Moscow on the occasion of the wedding to the kingdom and, despite all its unexpectedness, did not surprise anyone; on the contrary, it seemed completely natural to everyone: this had already happened and his moral image, which fully corresponds to this purpose, is imprinted in the general imagination. He himself accepted this appointment, suddenly and against his will, as a calling that he was obliged to obey, and in this thought he found peace from those internal anxieties that he could not help but experience with the vivid imagination of the varied and difficult tasks associated with his election, with his refined conscientiousness and with a clear awareness of the incorrectness of the established relations of the Chief Prosecutor with the Holy Synod” 4. “Five and a half years of his service in the Chief Prosecutor’s position,” the Russian Biographical Dictionary reports about Count Tolstoy, “coincided with the beginning of the reforms of the reign of Emperor Alexander II, which also affected the Spiritual Department. His published correspondence with Moscow Metropolitan Philaret testifies that he took a lively and active part in various important matters of the synodal and diocesan administration of that time. His particular attention was drawn to questions about measures to elevate the position of persons in the Spiritual Department - about improving the spiritual and educational part, about the rights of monastics to dispose of their property; Tolstoy treated the translation of the Holy Scriptures into Russian, undertaken according to the thoughts of Metropolitan Philaret, with extreme caution. “We are very happy that we currently have him,” Metropolitan Gregory of St. Petersburg wrote about the count, “despite all the difficulties, he helps us a lot and works a lot in our favor.” A. O. Smirnova talks about a kind of audit that Count Tolstoy carried out when he was the governor of Tver: “Once he went to the district city and went to the district court, entered there, prayed before the icon and told the frightened officials that they were in a terrible mess. “Take off your image for me! Oh, yes, it's all dirty with flies! Bring me some chalk, I’ll show you how to clean a chasuble.” He cleaned it, crossed himself and placed it in the corner. “I’ll change the icon case for you, flies won’t get in behind the glass, and you pray; “Everything will be all right.” He didn’t look at anything, to the great joy of the dumbfounded officials; and what I came with, I left with...” 5 . Tolstoy reacted with sympathy to the patriotic undertaking of M.P. Pogodin when he began publishing the magazine “Moskvityanin”. In 1841, Pogodin wrote in his diary: “In the morning there was Count Tolstoy, with whom we talked a lot about Russia, present and past. Your magazine will be banned, he said, because the Russian spirit and a lot of Orthodoxy are too clear in it. There is some invisible, secretly operating force that is preventing all good in Russia. It’s true, it has its origin in foreign lands, trembling Russia and acting through gold” 6. In 1832, N.A. Mukhanov testified in his diary that Count Tolstoy found a common language with A.S. Pushkin on the issue of patriotism 7 . In 1833, Tolstoy married the daughter of Prince G. A. Gruzinsky, Anna Georgievna. This marriage was not entirely ordinary. A. O. Smirnova writes about Tolstoy in her notes: “At the age of thirty-five, the princess married Count Alexander Petrovich Tolstoy, a holy man. He submitted to his miracle (eccentric - V.V.) and lived with her like a brother” 8 . Anna Georgievna was the great-granddaughter of the Georgian prince Bakar; like Tolstoy, she was a direct descendant of Vakhtang VI and was her husband’s fourth cousin. The countess was always strict towards herself and did not allow any whims or excesses. Every day, especially in her declining years, she attended church; Not only did she strictly observe all fasts, but she considered it her duty to fast and partake of the Holy Mysteries every fast, which was generally uncharacteristic of contemporaries in her circle. The Tolstoys had their own home church, in which, among many rare icons, there was an image of All Saints of the Georgian Church, where the faces were painted from images taken from ancient handwritten books. A. O. Smirnova says that they housed seminarians who “made up a decent choir and sang in a simple tune. The count took the clerk out of Jerusalem; he was such a reader that he could only compare with the clerk of Emperor Pavel Petrovich; the words rolled out like pearls” 9. The interests of Saint Ignatius and Count Tolstoy intersected on the name of Gogol, or rather, on his then sensational book “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” 10 . Count Tolstoy was a friend of Gogol, who died in his house. In literary criticism, he gained a reputation as a person who played a fatal role in the writer’s fate. One can often find a reference to the words of S. T. Aksakov, who considered acquaintance with Tolstoy decisively disastrous for Gogol” 11. However, if we turn to the count’s personality and the details of his relationship with Gogol, we will see a different picture. Many facts speak about Tolstoy’s extraordinary modesty. For example, he demanded that M.P. Pogodin remove mention of himself from his obituary article about Gogol. On this occasion, P. A. Pletnev wrote to V. A. Zhukovsky in March 1852 that Count Tolstoy “out of Christian humility does not want his name to be displayed anywhere as a person who provided favors or assistance to Gogol. On this basis, it is not mentioned anywhere in print that Gogol lived in his apartment” 12. Only after Tolstoy's death did his widespread but secret charity become known. Archpriest Nikandr Bryantsev, who did not know the count personally, says that he never once received a refusal from him to help the poor. “But every gift from him,” he writes, “we were obliged to convey without mentioning the giver. This was an indispensable, constantly repeated condition from the count. “If I find out,” the count said, “that anyone, even those who accept them, is aware of my sacrifices (that is, notified - V.V.), I will stop further patronage of the cause led by you (that is, by me)"" 13. Gogol was attracted to Tolstoy by many things, in particular his natural kindness, the religious disposition of his soul, and his penchant for asceticism. Anna Vasilyevna Gogol told V.I. Shenrok from the words of her brother that Count Tolstoy secretly wore chains 14. According to T.I. Filippov, “he diligently followed all the decrees of the Church and was especially precise in observing fasting, which he brought to such strictness that for some weeks of Lent he avoided even consuming vegetable oil. To the comments that he often heard about the uselessness of such strictness in analyzing food, he usually replied that he was unable to fulfill other, higher requirements of the Christian law, such as complete victory over subtle, deeply rooted passions from habit, and therefore he chose at least such a simple and even accessible means to express his submission to the dictates of the Church...” 15. The relationship between Count Tolstoy and Gogol was fundamentally different from all the writer’s social, friendly and literary acquaintances; if in Gogol’s friendship with the Aksakovs, P. A. Pletnev, M. P. Pogodin, SP. While Shsvyrev played a major role in their common literary interests, as well as their admiration for his talent, Tolstoy, in his own words, “was not at all a fan of Gogol’s works” 16 . However, the sphere of literature and art was not alien to him: he was a widely educated person and, for example, appreciated and understood poetry. General A. O. Duhamel, who became friends with Count Tolstoy in 1825 during the Aral expedition, recalled: “When we were young, we enjoyed poetry in our leisure hours. I read him by heart some of Schiller’s poems, and he, in turn, introduced me to Pushkin’s poems and taught me to appreciate them” 17. A. O. Smirnova writes that Tolstoy was friends “with the monks of the Greek courtyard, read and spoke Greek fluently; Akathists and canons delighted him; they are written in verse, and this poetry cannot be compared with anything” 18. Count Tolstoy was also well-read in spiritual literature. According to T.I. Filippov, “he practiced daily and extensively in the study of Holy Scripture, its famous interpreters, as well as in reading the immortal works of the great fathers of the Church, of whom he especially loved St. Basil the Great as one of the greatest teachers of the universe and unattainably high artists of the word..." 19. At the same time, Tolstoy mostly read the Holy Fathers in the original (in Greek and Church Slavonic). Among his friends and acquaintances were many writers, scientists and statesmen - N. M. Karamzin, A. S. Pushkin, V. A. Zhukovsky, A. S. Khomyakov, V. I. Dal, V. Humboldt, Count M. N. Muravyov, Count I. Kapodistrias. As Chief Prosecutor of the Synod, he knew all the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church, and also had friendly and official connections with church leaders in the West and East. T.I. Filippov wrote to Countess Anna Georgievna Tolstoy in August 1875: “The memory of Count Alexander Petrovich is reverently kept in all those monasteries of the Orthodox East that I was able to visit” 20. In the house of Count Tolstoy, Gogol met Hieroschema-monk Sergius, a resident of the Athos Panteleimon Monastery, a writer who wrote under the pseudonym Svyatogorets. Gogol read his book “Letters of the Svyatogorets to his friends about the Holy Mount Athos” with pleasure and taught the author how to proofread. In the spring of 1850, Father Sergius recalled one literary evening: “...My best friend, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, wonderful in heart and feelings, is here. I have a particularly close relationship here with Count Tolstoy, who has received Count Tolstoy as a homely Count Tolstoy of a wonderful heart and very simple. Through an acquaintance, he sent a copy of my letters to one of the city priests of the Tver province, and he read my works in church instead of teachings in the first week of Lent...” 21. This priest was, apparently, Rzhev Archpriest Matthew Konstantinovsky, the spiritual father of Tolstoy and Gogol. It is difficult to say to what extent Count Tolstoy influenced Gogol. In any case, Gogol's letters to him are imbued with the same teaching tone as in relation to other addressees. So, for example, he wrote to him on March 5 (NS) 1845 from Frankfurt: “Whatever I said regarding Great Lent and the feats of fasting and fasting that lie ahead for you, fulfill it with literal precision, no matter how unnecessary it may seem to you or not going to the point. Also impose on yourself a vow of voluntary abstinence in speech for the entire duration of this time...” 22. From the time they met, Gogol repeatedly lived with the Tolstoys - in Paris, in Moscow on Nikitsky Boulevard; perhaps he visited the family estate of Anna Georgievna’s father in the village of Lyskovo. In one of his letters to her, Gogol conveys his “deepest bow” to the old prince. The estate of the Georgian princes Lyskovo has long been famous for the splendor of its churches and the shrines located in them. For about fifty years, the Cross of St. Equal-to-the-Apostles Nina, the enlightener of Georgia, was preserved here, which she received from the Mother of God with the command to go preach Christianity in Iberia. Five miles from Lyskov was the famous Nizhny Novgorod Makaryevskaya fair, in which Gogol showed particular interest. His notebook contains an extract “About the Nizhny Novgorod Fair”, as well as a note “Information about Lyskov” (Gogol intended to use these materials in the second volume of “Dead Souls”). Immediately after it is the entry: “Matters facing the governor,” inspired by conversations with Count Tolstoy. In the Governor General from the second volume they saw a lot of Alexander Petrovich. Gogol classified him into the category of people “who are capable of doing a lot of good for us under the current circumstances of Russia, who see things not from the arrogant European heights, but directly from the Russian common sense” (from a letter to N. M. Yazykov dated November 12, 1844), and encouraged him to engage in government activities. In the book “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends,” seven letters-articles are addressed to Count Tolstoy - more than to any other addressee. Gogol’s personal correspondence with Tolstoy was very extensive, but after the writer’s death, Tolstoy may have destroyed his letters. In any case, in the spring of 1852, he informed his sister, Countess Sofya Petrovna Apraksina, that, while sorting out Gogol’s papers, he was removing his and her letters to the deceased - an action from which some researchers concluded that Tolstoy almost “theft” the manuscripts of the second volume of Dead Souls. Such an assumption contradicts the opinion of contemporaries about the personality of Count Tolstoy. So, for example, V.A. Zhukovsky, whose moral authority was unusually high, consulted P.A. Pletnev about the circumstances of Gogol’s death, wrote in March 1852: “Where did he live recently in Moscow? Is it true that the count has? If so, then the papers are in good hands, and nothing will be lost” 23. Two letters from Count Tolstoy to Gogol have reached us. One of them, from Paris, dated August 5 (NS) 1847, a response to Gogol’s letter from Ostend dated July 27 (NS) of the same year. At the beginning of it, Tolstoy will convey the instructions of the Parisian doctor Grubi, then moves on to the situation in the Caucasus. Some thoughts and even expressions of Count Tolstoy are consonant with Gogol’s intonations, especially in “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends.” “The Caucasian affairs and many others,” he writes, “are, of course, very sad, but these types of events fit the punishments of the most righteous Judge, like cholera, crop failures, etc. I am not so much upset by the sentences and punishments as by the blindness that inevitably leads to new unknown misfortunes. I am horrified by the universal, unanimous and constant gratification of all the most despicable passions and lusts of man. And those in power, and writers, and artists, and scientists, and industrialists, and in Rome, it seems, the Church itself - they all set out together and are dragging others along the broad path” 24. The broad (that is, easy) path is the antithesis of the narrow (difficult) path, as Orthodox asceticism calls the path to Christ (see: Matthew 7:14). And further, mentioning that he had read a new and fairly detailed history of Spain from the time of Philip II, Count Tolstoy compares the policies of the Russian government with similar moments in Spanish history: “And much from Providence was entrusted to them, and they should have been the organizers of an entire part of the world, and they were given many powers, and great weapons, and courage, and wealth; but they turned wealth into an unheard-of and unprecedented luxury, from which the entire upper class became completely relaxed and even stupefied (starting from the Royal House), as a punishment for carelessness in America. However, no matter what I read, Russia seems to me everywhere...” 25. In a response letter to the count dated August 8 (New Style), 1847, Gogol develops these themes. Tolstoy’s second letter to Gogol - draft and undated - was written in Moscow and apparently dates back to the end of winter - beginning of spring of 1851. Tolstoy informs Gogol about various Moscow news and mutual acquaintances, talks about his solitary life and activities: “For the most part, I read and reread things that you knew a long time ago - things that are always new and always nourishing” 26 . Saint Ignatius, apparently, knew about the friendly relations between Gogol and Count Tolstoy. Let us recall the review of the saint (at that time archimandrite, rector of the Trinity-Sergius Hermitage) about Gogol’s book: “A man is seen turning to God with the fervor of his heart. But this is not enough for religion. In order for it to be a true light for a person in fact and for it to emit from him genuine light for his neighbors, there must be a certainty in it, and this certainty lies in the exact knowledge of the truth, in separating it from everything false, from everything that merely seems true” 27 . “But purity alone,” the saint continues, “is not enough for a person: he needs revival, inspiration. So, in order for the lantern to shine, it is not enough to wash the glass often; you need to have a candle lit inside it. This is what the Lord did with His disciples. Having cleansed them with the truth, He quickened them with the Holy Spirit, and they became light for men. Before receiving the Holy Spirit, they were not able to teach humanity, although they were already pure. <...> True, a person has an innate inspiration, more or less developed, arising from the movement of the feelings of the heart. The truth rejects this inspiration as mixed, it mortifies it, so that the Spirit, having come, resurrects it by renewing its state. If a person is guided by his inspiration before purification by the truth, then he will emit for himself and for others not pure light, but mixed, deceptive, because in his heart lives not simple good, but good mixed with evil more or less” 28. Applying these principles to Gogol’s book, St. Ignatius concludes: “...it emits both light and darkness. His religious concepts are not defined, they move in the direction of heartfelt inspiration, unclear, indistinct, spiritual, and not spiritual. Gogol's book cannot be taken entirely as pure verbs of truth. It's mixed here. It is desirable that this person, in whom self-sacrifice is noticeable, should moor to the haven of truth, where the beginning of all spiritual blessings” 29. In conclusion, the saint advises his friends to read the Holy Fathers, “who acquired purification and enlightenment, like the Apostles, and then wrote their books, from which pure truth shines and which convey to the readers the inspiration of the Holy Spirit” 30 . Saint Ignatius himself was an excellent writer, and having become a monk, he also became a theologian. He is distinguished by his ability to convey with rare clarity and harmony the essence of information gleaned from the works of the Holy Fathers. From the letter it is clear that he understood Gogol’s sincere desire for ascetic work and knowledge of the truth. But he also saw that Gogol had not yet cleared himself of the passions that colored his book, which he intended to be more theological and educational than artistic and journalistic. The truth, Saint Ignatius believes, was distorted in these letters thanks to the passions of the author. Because of them, everything that comes from the writer’s pen will inevitably bear the imprint of unerased sin. One who has not been cleansed by repentance, who has not acquired true humility, cannot separate truth from lies, evil from good. His assessments and judgments will always be imperfect and erroneous. “A person trusts a lie, thinking that he trusts the purest truth,” said the saint 31. In his review of Gogol’s book, Saint Ignatius precisely defines the path of spiritual ascent of a person (as well as a writer who dares to talk about spiritual subjects): “This process must take place with every Christian, a Christian in reality, and not in name alone: ​​first purification by the truth, and then enlightenment by the Spirit” 32 . The saint of the Russian Church shows the height from which it is precisely necessary to undertake such works. He reminds us of the Apostles, who, before receiving the Holy Spirit, did not have the opportunity to bring the truth to their neighbors. Behind the Apostles stands patristic literature, that is, theological and ascetic books in which the Holy Spirit speaks and the personality of the author is not visible. In Gogol, on the contrary, there is “mixing,” that is, the author appears with all his passions, and this along with “light” (that is, grains of truth). Saint Ignatius evaluates Gogol's book very accurately. He writes that the author, before being purified by the truth, was guided by his inspiration, and therefore his book does not give the reader pure light, but mixed, deceptive light, because in his heart lives not simple good, but good mixed with evil more or less. At the conclusion of the letter, the saint, without saying this directly, advises all his friends not to read the spiritual works of secular writers and invites them “in relation to religion to engage only in reading the Holy Fathers” 33. The opinion of Saint Ignatius about “Selected passages from correspondence with friends,” apparently, was shared by the Optina elders. In the library of Optina Pustyn there was kept a copy of Gogol's book with a review of the saint enclosed in it, rewritten by the hand of St. Macarius 34. It is unknown how the review got to Optina; perhaps it was brought by Gogol himself, who visited the monastery three times. On July 10, 1850, he wrote to Count Tolstoy from Vasilievka: “I stopped on the road to the Optina Hermitage and forever carried away the memory of it. I think it’s no better on Mount Athos itself. Grace is apparently present there. Try to visit this monastery...” 35. Immediately after Gogol’s death, Count Tolstoy sent a notice and fifteen silver rubles to Optina Pustyn to commemorate the soul of the newly deceased. Remembering Gogol's behest, Tolstoy maintained friendly ties with the holy monastery for the rest of his life. He corresponded with the Optina Elder Venerable Ambrose and planned to settle in the monastery of St. John the Baptist. Providential circumstances accompanied the very death of the count. In the summer of 1873, on his way back from Jerusalem, he was dying in Geneva and refused to confess and receive communion from the local priests. The Optina monk Father Clement (Zederholm), whom the count had previously patronized a lot and whose godfather he was, was ordained a hieromonk within a few days and sent abroad. In Geneva, he confessed and twice gave communion to Alexander Petrovich, who died in his arms. On the fortieth day after the death of the count, Archimandrite Gregory (Palama) said about him in the Moscow Donskoy Monastery: “I myself had to witness his warm prayers, his heartfelt tenderness when he visited the holy places in Jerusalem, his ardent tears and full of faith, love and hope for the Lord God, with which he daily watered the life-bearing Tomb of our Savior. Such firm preservation of Orthodoxy in all its inviolable purity and the warm faith that the deceased had, in our age of general deviation from true Christianity and Orthodoxy, made him truly one of the few chosen ones” 36. Andronikashvili B.B. Reading pages of the past... Tbilisi, 1987; Voropaev V. A. One of the few chosen ones (On the 200th anniversary of the birth of Count Tolstoy) // Historical newspaper. M., 2001. No. 3–4; Voropaev V. Tolstoy Alexander Petrovich // Holy Rus'. Great Encyclopedia of the Russian People. Russian patriotism. M., 2003; Nekrasova E. S. N. V. Gogol. His relationship with Count A.P. Tolstoy. Letters from N.V. Gogol to Count A.P. Tolstoy// In memory of S.A. Yuryev. A collection published by friends of the deceased. M., 1891; Tarsaidze N. G. Historical sketches. Tbilisi, 1972; Shilov D.N. Statesmen... // Historical Bulletin. M., 1999. M° 3–4. Biographical materials and memoirs: The word spoken by Archimandrite Gregory (Palama) in the Moscow Donskoy Monastery, on the fortieth day after the death of Count Alexander Petrovich Tolstoy // Citizen. 1873. October 15. M° 42; Bryantsev N., archpriest. In memory of Count Alexander Petrovich Tolstoy // Church and Public Bulletin. 1874. February 15. No. 20; Filippov T.I. Memories of Count Alexander Petrovich Tolstoy // Citizen. 1874. January 29. M? 4; A word in memory of Count A.P. Tolstoy, delivered by Archimandrite Neophytos Pagida in the St. Petersburg Greek Church on January 20, 1874 // Ibid.; Materials for the biography of N. P. Gilyarov-Platonov // Russian Review. 1896. No. 12 (letter to Archpriest A.V. Gorsky); Collection of letters of the Optina Elder Ambrose of blessed memory to lay persons. Part 1. Sergiev Posad, 1908 (letter from Count Tolstoy to Father Ambrose about a dream and the elder’s explanation of the dream); From the correspondence of His Grace Theophan the Recluse with the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod A.P. Tolstoy // Soulful Reading. 1898. No. 3. Obituaries: Citizen. 1874. No. 3; Church and Public Bulletin. 1874. No. 20; Report on State Council for 1873. St. Petersburg, 1875. Your Excellency, Gracious Sovereign! Recognizing it as a sacred duty, before my departure, to bring the most humble gratitude for all the favors shown to me to His Imperial Majesty the Sovereign Emperor Alexander Nikolaevich, also to the Empress Maria Alexandrovna, I most humbly ask Your Excellency, take the trouble to ask me for an introduction to Their Majesties. With feelings of great respect and complete devotion, I have the honor to be Ignatius, Bishop of the Caucasus and Black Sea. Your message dated November 4, by which you deign to notify me that, according to your most submissive report, the Sovereign Emperor has most graciously deigned to grant me the full Hierarchal vestments, which I have had the honor to receive. Bringing to Your Excellency the most sensitive gratitude for your attention to me, at the same time I humbly ask you to lay down at the feet of His Imperial Majesty my most humble gratitude for the favors shown to me. With great respect and complete devotion, I have the honor to be Ignatius, Bishop of the Caucasus and Black Sea November 5, 1857. See: V. P. Meshchersky. My memories. St. Petersburg, 1912. Part 3. P. 341 Citizen. 1874. No. 4. January 29. P. 113 Russian Review. 1896. No. 12. P. 997 GARF. F. 1099. Op. 1. Unit hr. 74. L. 1 A. O. Smirnova-Rosset. Diary. Memories. M., 1989. P. 226 N. P. Barsukov. Life and works of M. P. Pogodin. St. Petersburg, 1892. Book. 6. P. 53 See: A. S. Pushkin in the memoirs of his contemporaries: In 2 vols. T. 2. St. Petersburg, 1998. pp. 221–222 A. O. Smirnova Rosset. Diary. Memories. P. 224 For St. Ignatius’ review of Gogol’s book, see this edition (Vol. 4, pp. 509–512) S. T. Aksakov. The story of my acquaintance with Gogol. M., 1960. P. 118 Works and correspondence of P. A. Pletnev. St. Petersburg, 1885. T. 3. P. 736 Church and Public Bulletin. 1874. February 15. No. 20. P. 4 See: V.I. Shenrok. Materials for the biography of Gogol. M., 1897. T. 4. P. 409 Citizen. 1874. No. 4. January 29. P. 112 Literary heritage. M., 1952. T. 58. P. 755 Russian Archive. 1885. No. 2. P. 187 A. O. Smirnova-Rosset. Diary. Memories. P. 225 GARF. F. 1099. Op. 1. Unit hr. 1263. L. 95 Collection Op. and letters from Svyatogorets to his friends about Mount Athos, Palestine and Russian holy places. St. Petersburg, 1865. T. 4. P. 39 N.V. Gogol. Collection cit.: In 9 volumes. M., 1994. T. 9. P. 308 Works and correspondence of P. A. Pletnev. T. 3. P. 733 RGALI. F. 139. Op. 1. Unit hr. 51; see also Y. V. Gogol. Collection Op.: In 9 volumes. T. 9. P. 585 RSL. F. 302. K. 5. Unit. hr. 55 This edition. T. 4. pp. 510–511 This edition. T. 4. P. 512 See: N.V. Gogol, I.V. Kireevsky, F.M. Dostoevsky and K. Leontiev before the elders of Optina Pustyn. The head of the Optina monastery, Fr. Joseph. M., 1897/ Dep. Reprint from the magazine “Soulful Reading”. 1898. Part 1. pp. 157–162; see also: D. P. Bogdanov. Optina Pustyn and the pilgrimage of Russian writers to it // Historical Bulletin. 1910. No. 10. P. 332–334 N.V. Gogol. Collection Op.: In 9 volumes. T. 9. P. 482 Citizen. 1873. October 15. No. 42. P. 1131 RGIA. SPb. F. Mb 797. On. 27. 2 dept. 2 tbsp. Case No. 250. RGIA. SPb. F. 797. Op. 27. 2 dept. 2 tbsp. Case No. 250. Here and below the letter numbers are given in the original numbering. ed. ABC of Faith portal