Статья посвящена актуальной для современного общества проблеме текстов гимнографии Православной Церкви и их роли в духовной жизни христианина. Являются ли они частью богослужения или призваны стать фундаментом для личного развития каждого из верующих? В статье даются доказательства спасительной (сотериологической) доктрины о необходимости выражения свободной воли человека в его стремлении к достижению Царства Небесного.

An important part of the non-fictional heritage of N. V. Gogol, which can be called theological, was practically unknown and not studied until the beginning of the 20th century. Subsequently, these texts became the reason why the name of Gogol is now included in the history of the formation of philosophical and theological thought in Russia. G. Florovsky, generally recognizing Gogol’s theological talent, sharply criticizes the religious reasoning of the Russian classic, primarily his “theory of prayer”, seeing in it a dangerous temptation for Christian believers. This article attempts to show that the fragment of Gogol’s letter to Yazykov chosen by Florovsky does not satisfy the requirements of pure theory, remaining a practical edification. Bringing Gogol’s thought to the necessary level of abstraction, as well as its correlation with his other thoughts about prayer in particular and Christianity in general, allows us not only to remove the main accusations from the “theory”, but also to use it as a link between Gogol’s ideas about individual duty of every Christian and his project of a theocratic state. This, in turn, clarifies Gogol’s ideas about the special importance of state service and his own place in Russian literature as a writer as a type of religious and public service.