A CHAPTER XXI. Ancient Rite of Coronation. UGUST 22 [o.s.].-Anniversary of the coronation of the present Emperor, in 1826, a State holiday. The Emperor Nicholas is the third sovereign of the existing dynasty, for between the deaths of Peter I. and Catharine II. there was no dynastic law of sucsession, but a series of revolutions; and Paul, who crowned himself at Moscow, April 3, A.D. 1797, and at the same time promulgated a statute fixing the imperial succession, was the founder of a new dynasty. That change by which the spiritual power derived from the Apostles was suppressed in Russia, or transferred (so far as it was possible to transfer it) to the Crown, has naturally produced alterations and omissions in the form and ceremonies used both in the election and consecration of bishops, and in the coronation of sovereigns. The present anniversary affords a proper occasion for stating the changes which have been made in the form and order of a coronation. The first coronation is that of the Emperor Leo (A.D. 487), who was crowned by the Patriarch or Archbishop of Constantinople, Anatolius. A profes sion or engagement-but at first less full than it became afterwards-was required of Anastasius, the fourth successor of Leo, by the Patriarch Euthymius, before he would crown him, Anastasius being suspected of Macedonianism. In like manner the Patriarch Cyriacus, demanded guarantees of Phocas (A.D. 606). Afterwards this became a fixed custom. And in the earliest Russian forms the substance and spirit is the same, though there is not the same precise form of requisition, nor the same written engagement. In the older Greek forms the Emperor, on the requisition originally of the Patriarch of Constantinople, professed and promised this:-"I, N. Emperor, do accept, confess, and confirm the Apostolic and divine traditions; also the constitutions and definitions of the ecumenical and the local councils. I recognize all the rights and customs (προνόμια καὶ ἔθιμα) of the most holy great Church of God (i.e. of the Catholic Church, and in particular of the Patriarchal Church of Constantinople). I consent to all that has legitimately, canonically, and irrevocably been decreed and determined at different places and times, by our holy Fathers. I promise to continue constantly a faithful son of the holy Church, and to be her defender and protector, &c. &c. "And all that the holy Fathers have rejected and anathematized I also reject and anathematize with all my heart and soul. "For the performance of all this I give my word before the holy Catholic Church, and at this date I have subscribed this with my own hand, and have given it to my most holy lord N. the Ecumenical Patriarch and to the holy Synod." A like engagement to this was required by the Russian Metropolitan of Novgorod, Nicon, in A.D. 1652, as a condition before he would consent to become Patriarch of Moscow; and it was given, or rather repeated verbally, and ratified by an oath, in the cathedral of the Assumption by the Tsar Alexis Michaelovich and all his court. According to the law of Christ, as a bishop or a priest baptizing a man does this by virtue of his spiritual mission and order, and the man baptized shows a voluntary submission to the bishop or priest, submitting himself to the law of Christ, so also aforetime, when the bishop crowned and consecrated a Tsar, or Emperor, he did this by virtue of his order; and in the same act the Tsar showed a voluntary submission to the bishop. In the Old Testament, kings were anointed before hand to the kingdom by the prophets of God; and in the Psalms it is said of Christ himself, "Thou shalt anoint him with the oil of gladness, and thou shalt set a crown of pure gold upon his head." Following this order, the Patriarch or Bishop aforetime anointed the Tsar, or Emperor, first, and crowned and installed him afterwards. But now, the Russian Emperor crowns himself without grace first, and causes the creatures and instruments of his usurped spiritual supremacy to anoint him with oil, without grace or meaning, afterwards. The ancient form was this: In the Liturgy, before the Tpioáyiov, the Emperor being seated in the nave of the church on one raised platform or ambon, and the Patriarch on another, the Patriarch sent and called the Emperor to him "to receive grace;" and then he began to read the prayers for anointing, some secretly and some aloud (which prayers are quoted, or written out, by Nicon in his "Vozranjenia," p. 242-245). And the Emperor came down from his own platform, and went up the steps of the platform of the Patriarch, and stood there before him, bending his head; and the Patriarch, putting his hand upon the Tsar's head, said the two prayers which shall be spoken of directly. CHAPTER XXII. Modern Rite of Coronation. O it was once; but now, according to the after-form S° used at the coronation of the Emperor Paul, there is only one raised platform, on which the Emperor sits alone in the centre of the nave of the church, a carpet being laid thence up to the Holy Doors, and the members of the Synod (who may, or not, be bishops), and the bishops, stand below on either side of this carpet, vis-à-vis to one another. So the Emperor sits exactly as a patriarch or primate would sit at the head of his clergy, and shows himself visibly in the church as Head of the Church and of the so-called Synod and of all the clergy. Two bishops go up the steps of the Emperor's platform and address him, in an involved style, to this effect:-Since by the providence of God, and by the operation of the Holy Ghost, and by your own will, your Imperial Majesty is now to be Anointed and |