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Abstract:

The study is dedicated to the idea of St. Theophan to compose the Gospel story according to the four canonical books of the evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, forming the basic principles of reading the testimonies of the evangelists about the earthly life of Jesus Christ. The article reconstructs since 1870 the creative history of the book, published in 1886, based on the letters of St. Theophan to the Athos monk Arseny (Minin) and N.V. Yelagin. This is the only lifetime edition of the “Gospel Story” by St. Theophan considered as intermediate; however, the bishop did not have time to fully realize his plan. The author of the article establishes a connection between this book and the three-volume “Gospel Story” by Archpriest Pavel Matveevsky, in the preparation of which were used many observations of St. Theophan, and the bishop himself acted as editor. An analysis of St. Theophan’s remarks and amendments he made to the manuscript of Matveevsky gives an idea of the holistic concept of the unfinished work, the theoretical justification of which is St. Theofan presented in his articles “Lessons from the Deeds and Words of the Lord and God and our Savior Jesus Christ” and “Indications by which Everyone for Himself can Compose One Consistent Gospel Story from the four Gospels.”