John of Damascus (Иоанн Дамаскин) is a poem by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, first published in the January, No.1, 1859 issue of Russkaya Beseda magazine.
The Moscow censorship committee at the request of the 3rd Department ordered the circulation of the Russkaya Beseda to be stopped for the poem to be withdrawn from the edition, which had already been printed.
Evgraf Kovalevsky, the Minister of Education, issued a special order, permitting the publication[4] which outraged the head of the 3rd Department, Prince Vasily Dolgorukov.
[5] According to biographer Dmitry Zhukov, Dolgorukov, informed of the forthcoming publication by the Interior Minister Alexander Timashev's agents, ordered to stop the print.
Kovalevsky sent his personal report to the emperor, stating: "Only some verses, taken out of context might have caused suspicion; otherwise the general idea, the implementation of it, everything about this poem, permeated with the spirit of Early Christianity, dispels doubts.