In a document read aloud at his coronation, and placed by his own hands on the altar of God, where it is still preserved, the Emperor Paul named the Russian sovereign ‘Head of the Church.’ This headship, it has been said, was alluded to by the late Pope Gregory XVI. during his interview with the Emperor Nicholas in 1845; and the Emperor may, perhaps, have preferred to describe himself as an ‘Ober-politzee-meister,’ or an ‘eldest son’ rather than a head. But he by no means abdicated his inheritance; and the world is more inclined to accept than to explain away the plain - spoken assertions of Peter I. and of Paul: ‘I am your Patriarch;’ ‘Supreme Judge;’ ‘Head of the Church.’