History of the formation of the New Testament canon of the Holy Scripture: on the issue of the “forgotten” research of representatives of the Russian Theological School Archpriest Alexander Gorsky and Holy Martyr Hilation (Troitsky)

This article examines the research conducted by outstanding representatives of Russian theological thought of the second half of the 19 th -early 20th centuries - Archpriest Alexander Gorsky and Hieromartyr Hilarion (Troitsky). In their research, they put forward and substantiated a hypothesis about the formation of the complete canon of the Holy Scripture of the New Testament in the Church of Ephesus in the second half of the 1st century.
The article is relevant due to the fact that in modern Russian theological publications, scientific works and textbooks devoted to the issues of the formation of the New Testament canon, the hypothesis of Archpriest Alexander and Hieromartyr Hilarion is practically not mentioned. In the Russian theological environment, the assertion, accepted by Western Catholic and Protestant biblical studies, that the canon of the Holy Scripture of the New Testament was formed in Rome no earlier than the second half of the 2nd century, still prevails.
The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that it analyzes and comments for the first time on the ideas expressed by Archpriest A. Gorsky and Saint Hilarion (Troitsky). The author identifies main arguments presented by each of them, as well as the additions proposed by Saint Hilarion.
The work uses comparative theological and dialectical methods, which made it possible to compare the opinions of the authors of the articles on the issues under consideration; intertextual analysis helped to establish the connections between the texts under study.

In conclusion, the author of the article points to the validity of the hypothesis put forward by Russian theologians, confirmed by both the facts about the circumstances in which the Ephesian Church found itself in the 1st century, and the goals of the apostolic epistles highlighted by Archpriest Alexander Gorsky. The results of the study can be included not only in textbooks on the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, but also serve as a starting point for further research on this topic.

Holy Scripture of the New Testament, New Testament canon, the Apostolic Epistles., Church of Ephesus, Archpriest Alexander Gorsky, Holy Martyr Hilarion (Troitsky)