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Alexei Khomiakov
10 March 1852
The Archbishop of Kazan on Palmer's case * Death of Mme. Khomiakov
Most Reverend and Dear Sir, —
After your kind letter which I received at the beginning of November, I was for a long while in a most painful position. I felt deeply and intensely your anxiety and grief: I felt that my duty was to seek some means of giving you some aid or at least some consolation; but what could I do? I had no friendly acquaintance with the Spiritual Directors of the Russian Church. I had no means of being of any use to you, and yet my heart was torn with grief for you and your friends. At last, I decided upon a line of action. I got acquainted with one of our young bishops, a man of piety and feeling. He promised to do what he could, but after some fruitless correspondence with more influential persons he confessed that he could do nothing for you, or at least that he could give no hopes at present. I next took a rather bold step. I wrote a letter to one of the most eminent of our divines and archbishops, Gregory, Archbishop of Kazan, member of the Holy Synod, whom I had never seen and who probably had never heard about me. The day before yesterday, I was rejoiced by a rather unexpected answer, and that answer contains most consoling assurances which I make haste to communicate to you.
If the archbishop is well informed, there is a project of a petition from some of your friends in England to our Synod, and they are only waiting for your return to England to sign and send it. The project meets, it seems, with the most undisputed approbation from our divines. Gregory promises (and his words are of no light character) that if the petition is signed and duly furthered to the Synod, every difficulty shall disappear, and every just request shall be met with the joy of Christian brothers and of men who consider the welfare of the Church as their dearest interest and its promotion as their only duty on earth. Do not be tardy, dearest sir, in the service of God's Kingdom! Hasten your return! Hasten to take the last and decisive step. The door of the Church is open. Brothers are ready to meet you with brotherly love. Your zeal, your humble constancy, have cleared away all doubts, all misrepresentations of which you were not even aware.
The Archbishop of Kazan excuses the Patriarch [of Constantinople] by the enmity in which all the Communions of Western Europe seem to vie with one another against the Eastern Church all over Greece, Syria, and Asia Minor. This certainly is a painful truth, and goes far to excuse temporary measures of self-defence. I have given you only the leading features of his letter. I cannot express the feeling of deep sympathy with your sufferings which forms its character, his high esteem for you, his Christian hopes and even the impatient expectation with which he looks forward to a decisive step from your friends. I am sure (I pledge myself to that) that in every just request you will find in him the warmest, and, I may add, the most powerful advocate.
The Lord has visited me with a heavy trial. On the 26th of January (O.S.) my wife died, and with her every possibility of earthly happiness for me. God's will be done! I try to be thankful. Fifteen years and a half of almost unmixed bliss is more than one man in a million has been allowed to enjoy, and a million times more than I ever have deserved. Our mutual love was as boundless as an earthly feeling can be. It is not dead. We interchange prayers for one another, just as we interchanged words of affection during her lifetime. She was a pure, loving, and deeply religious soul. How often in our conversation about England have I heard her say: When shall we be so happy as to praise God in the same Church with MM. Palmer and Williams?
Her death has been childlike: no fear, no affliction, but a full reliance on God's mercy. We may be sure that she has met in Heaven a greater love than any love she could have found on earth. God's will be done!
Accept, dearest sir, the assurance of the sincere respect and affection of you most devoted,
Alexei Khomiakov
10 March 1852, Moscow
As I am not sure of the address, I write to Constantinople, Athens, and Oxford. N.B. — a word in the letter of the Archbishop of Kazan is particularly important: What is Mr. Palmer doing in Athens when he is expected and called for elsewhere?
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