His High Excellency, K. P Pobyedonostzeff, fortnerly Procurator of the Holy Synod of Russia, has for years past shown sympathetic and practical interest in my work, which has encouraged me during serious difficulties, and has been profoundly appreciated.
The Holy Synod of Russia has defrayed in part the cost of publish- ing this volume; and his High Excellency Count Sergius I. Witte has contributed very liberally to this object.[1] I am sincerely grateful to them.
I wish, also, to express my obligations to the late mitred Archpriest, Father Feodor Pavlovitch, of Tzarskoe Selo, for many books and much important information. Memory Eternal !
It is fitting that I should commemorate last of all my book's first friend, — his Grace, the Most Reverend Archbishop Nicholas, formerly Bishop of Aleutia and Alaska, now appointed a member of the Council of the Empire, and of the Holy Synod. He was the first person to whom I imparted my intention of making this gift of love to his Church, the first to see and to approve of my systematic arrangement and of the manuscript. He gave me a complete set of the valuable Slavonic Service Books above mentioned, and others, and has constantly used his power to the fullest extent to render possible this publication, affording me, meanwhile, the invaluable help of his fervent sympathy in my long and difficult task.[2]
To all these friends I now say, with sincerest gratitude, in the language of the Church which they love so well, Many Years!
It is my earnest hope that this Service Book may not only be of some use to the Russian Church in North America, for the use of which, in public worship, it is designed, but that it may help the other Churches—especially those of the Anglican Communion, to one of which I am myself attached—to a right understanding of the Holy Orthodox- Catholic Apostolic Church of the East.
Isabel F. Hapgood.
New York, October, 1906.
