Across the eight countries: the return of St. Feofan (Govorov) from Jerusalem to Russia

With the beginning of the Crimean War in 1853, members of the Spiritual mission in Jerusalem, which included hieromonk Feofan (Govorov), had to return to Russia. Travel through Turkey was impossible, and they had to travel through a number of European countries. The discovery of new archival documents shows the entire history of the mission members journey from Palestine to Russia. They visited Athens, Rome and a number of Italian cities, Vienna. On a five-month journey, the mission members not only visited churches, monasteries and shrines, but also studied the features of architecture, painting, visited educational institutions, museums, libraries and had various meetings. Especially in the diary entries noted their meeting with Pope Pius IX. Hieromonk Feofan, visiting the cities of Western Europe, sought to better understand the confessional peculiarities of Western Christians. The acquired knowledge subsequently gave solidity to his Orthodox assessment of Western theology.