A shepherd and an artist: Ignatius Bryanchaninov's spiritual prose

The paper considers the views of St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) on artistic creativity, which, from his point of view, in its higher manifestations must be evangelical in nature. Spiritual prose of the saint is analyzed here as a phenomenon of Russian native literature. On the basis of fragments of the «Ascetic experience» it is shown how «deep and powerful spiritual experiences» are clothed in an aesthetically expressive form. The idea of the epiphanic vision and message is substantiated in this work.