Palmer, William

Born in the family of a noble clergyman. He was educated at Rugby School and Magdalen College in Oxford, where he entered in 1826, and in 1830 received the first prize for a poem written in Latin . In 1831 he received a bachelor’s degree in art, in 1832 he was ordained a deacon, and in 1833 a master’s degree in art. Then for three years he taught at the University of Durham , from 1837 to 1839 he was an examiner in the schools of Oxford, from 1838 to 1847 he taught at the College of St. Magdalen. Since the late 1830s, he became interested in Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church . Adjacent to the party of puzeyists ^[4] , he set the reunification of the Church of England with the Orthodox Eastern task of his whole life.

Having received an “outgoing letter from the Anglican bishop” (in accordance with rule 33 of the apostolic decrees ), in which the bishop asked those churches Palmer would visit to admit him to commune in the sacraments, he arrived in St. Petersburg and, with the help of the British ambassador, met with leading Russian church officials trying to convince them that the Anglican Church is a branch of the Catholic. He was not, however, admitted to the Orthodox communion until he renounced Anglicanism, which Palmer did not. Having learned the Russian language , he began to study the doctrine, history and establishment of the Eastern Church. His efforts returned to the bosom of the Orthodox Church the eldest daughter of Princess Golitsyna, who emigrated to Geneva. He asked to be accepted into church fellowship by the Moscow Metropolitan Filaret , who — almost a year after receiving the letter — answered him that he could not fulfill his wish with his power. In the fall of 1841, Palmer returned to England, presenting a report on his work to Bishop Karl Blomfield , having received consent to continue his work.

At the beginning of 1842, Palmer met in Paris with Princess Golitsyna and, although he could not convince her to return to Orthodoxy, made it impossible for her to take the sacrament in the Church of England. After that, he came to Russia for the second time and asked for his communion with the Orthodox Church in the Holy Synod , which was greeted by the synod with extreme disapproval. The synod recognized that it was possible to take communion only "on the basis of reunion with the Church of the heterodox", that is, under the condition of renunciation of the 44 heresies contained in 39 points of Anglican worship. Palmer agreed to recognize the universal character of the Orthodox Church and renounced the 44 heresies, but did not recognize their presence in 39 paragraphs, which form the basis of the teachings of the Church of England, and requested that he be appointed a priest who would explain this matter in more detail to him. At this time, his father died and he returned to England. In the period after his second return, he attempted to harmonize the doctrines of the Anglican and Orthodox churches.

In 1844, according to some reports, he took another trip to Russia and the East. In 1852 he again turned to the Orthodox Church with a request for acceptance into fellowship, however, he refused further negotiations himself, when he was given the condition of obligatory baptism. On the eve of the Crimean War , traveled to Palestine, visited Jerusalem. He spent the winter of 1853-1854 in Egypt. Then, having lost hope in the Russian church and the Greek church (he also addressed the Patriarch of Constantinople ), he went to Rome , where on February 28, 1855 he converted to Catholicism. The reasons prompting Palmer to this transition are set forth by him in a letter to Count A.P. Tolstoy, published in the Russian Archive (1894, No. 5). In Rome, he lived the rest of his life in Piazza Santa Maria in Campitelli, was engaged in research on church history. He was buried on April 8, 1879 in the same city at the Campo Verano cemetery near the church of San Lorenzo .

He is known for his work The Diary of the First Journey to Russia (1840–41), published by Cardinal Newman under the heading Notes of a visit to the Russian Church, by the late W. Palmer (London, 1882). The work Schort Poeme and Hymns (Oxford, 1843), dedicated to Khomyakov, gave rise to a correspondence with the latter, published in the Orthodox Review (1869, book 3). He collected and translated into English extensive materials on Patriarch Nikon and, together with his thoughts on the significance of Nikon's activities and the consequences of his deposition, published them in The patriarch and the Tsar (London, 1871–1876).

• Barsov N.I. Palmer, William // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.

• DNB Article