Gorskii, Aleksandr Vasilevich

Born Aug. 16 (28), 1812; died Oct. 12 (24), 1875. Russian church historian and student of early texts. Professor and from 1864 rector of the Moscow Divinity School.

In 1849, Gorskii began working on A Description of Slavic Manuscripts in the Moscow Synodal Library (vols. 1–6, 1855–1917), which contains many valuable discoveries and a great deal of reference information on the history of Slavic and Greek literature. In the periodically issued Supplements to the Works of the Church Fathers in Russian Translation, Gorskii published factually valuable lectures on the early history of the Christian church and biographies of the Russian metropolitans, including Cyril II, Peter, Alexis, Cyprian, Photius, and Jonas. The supplements also contained important extant documents of ancient Russian literature, including the celebrated “Sermon on Law and Grace by Metropolitan Hilarion.”