The ancient Russian prelates stood up for their country, but the prelates of to-day do not seek to obtain justice from the Tsar, but aim rather at flattering and corrupting his pious rank and power.
If the people sin, the Tsar can divert God’s wrath; if the Tsar sins, the people are helpless. God visits the sin of the monarch upon the whole country.
Lately at a drinking feast, the “little Shepherd of Riazan” said to my father: “You Tsars—gods on earth—are like unto the Heavenly Tsar,” and the Kniaz-Pope, a drunken fool, reviled the prelate: “Though I,” said he, “am but a mock patriarch, yet even I would not have spoken such words to the Tsar! God is greater than the Tsar,” and the Tsar praised the buffoon for saying this.
When in the course of the same feast, the bishops began to talk about the widowed state of the Church and the need of a Patriarch, the author of my being in great wrath unsheathed his short sword; all were terror stricken, thinking he was going to kill them; he struck the table with the flat of the blade, and shouted: “I am the Patriarch; Tsar and Patriarch in one!”
Theodosius is trying to persuade the author of my being to assume the title of Emperor, after the example of the ancient Roman Caesars.