The introduction describes the initial period in the history of the Voronezh diocese, preceding the life of St. Tikhon.

In the first part of the work, on the basis of all the carefully worked out and critically analyzed literature published at different times and by various persons, as well as archival documents about the Holy Father, a complete life of St. Tikhon was compiled to the best of his ability, covering all aspects of his life and work at the cathedra and in retirement. At the end of this part, the editions of the works of the saint are considered and a brief description of each of these works is given.

In the second part of the work, in the light of the statements of St. Tikhon, the Orthodox teaching on salvation is revealed and, in particular, the teaching of the saint concerning the creation of the world and man, as well as key issues of anthropology, Christology and soteriology, is analyzed.

At the end of the work, there is an extensive bibliography (a total of 654 titles of various books, articles and notes). All literature that had a direct or indirect relationship to the life and work of St. Tikhon had to be divided into three sections. In the first section there are editions of the works of St. Tikhon [2]. In the second section, there is literature about St. Tikhon [3]. The third section contains the names of encyclopedias, reference books and dictionaries that were used in writing the work.

At present, there is a fairly extensive literature on the life and works of the saint. A list of this literature in alphabetical order is placed in the bibliography attached to this work. Some of the sources of the biography of the Holy Father should be noted especially.

The life of St. Tikhon was first described by his cell-attendant Ivan Efimov (later Hieromonk Tikhon, a monk of the Usman monastery).

At the request of Archpriest Evfimy Bolkhovitinov, he compiled his memoirs in the form of notes, in which he recorded individual episodes from the life of St. Tikhon without any sequence. For example, the notes begin with a detailed description of the vestments of the body of the deceased saint, which is most remembered by the cell-attendant. Yefimov himself says that he collected in his notes everything "that he saw and heard from the lips of the bishops", what "came to mind" [4].

Efimov's notes served as a model for the compilation of memoirs by another cell-attendant of St. Tikhon, V.I. Chebotarev. His notes are similar to Yefimov's notes both in form and in style of presentation, only their character is somewhat different. If Yefimov emphasizes more supernatural phenomena in the life of the saint, dwells on the description of the grace-filled visions of the holy father and on the mysterious omens of his future glory, then Chebotarev seeks to capture his external feats and instructions and reminds several times that he is conveying the words of the bishop himself [5]. In addition, Chebotarev supplemented his personal memoirs of St. Tikhon with information about him from other people close to him, for example, the Zadonsk schema-monk Mitrophan, a resident of the city of Yelets K.I. Studenikin, the novice N.A. Bekhteev, and others.

These notes were fully used by the prominent scholar and historian Archpriest Evfimy Bolkhovitinov, inspector of the Voronezh Seminary (later Metropolitan Yevgeny of Kiev) [6] in his work "A Complete Description of the Life of His Grace Tikhon, Formerly of Kexholm and Ladoga and Vicar of Novgorod, and then Bishop of Voronezh and Yeletsk, Collected from Oral Traditions and Notes of Obvious Witnesses, with Some Historical Information Relating to the Novgorod and Voronezh hierarchy, published especially for lovers and admirers of the memory of this Bishop" [7], published in St. Petersburg in 1796, i.e. 13 years after the repose of the saint.

It was I. Efimov and V. Chebotarev who served as "obvious witnesses" for Archpriest E. Bolkhovitinov. But Archpriest Evfimy did not limit himself to their notes. With great zeal he also collected other materials, sending inquiries to all who personally knew the deceased saint, and in 1820 the second edition of his "Description" was published, corrected and supplemented. This biography was the only one for a long time and was published more than ten times. The work of Metropolitan Eugene serves as the best guide for all researchers of the life and work of St. Tikhon.

After the glorification of the Voronezh saint in 1861, interest in his holy personality increased significantly. In the same year, N.V. Elagin (without indicating the name of the author) published "The Life of Our Father Tikhon, Bishop of Voronezh, Zadonsk the Wonderworker" [8]. The popularity of this "Life" is evidenced by the fact that it was reprinted 12 times. There is reason to believe that its author was Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy P.S. Kazansky. Firstly, because this work is mentioned in the list of literary works of this professor[9]. Secondly, P.S. Kazansky himself speaks of him in his correspondence with his brother, Archbishop Platon of Kostroma and the publisher of the "Selected Lives of the Saints" A.N. Bakhmetyeva [10]. The author in his work, in addition to the primary sources common to all the biographies of the saint, used some archival data.

In addition, while working on the work, he used all the material known at that time and available to him, so, according to the priest T. Popov, "the numerous lives of many authors and publishers that appeared in print after the works of P.S. Kazansky did not give anything new in literature in comparison with the material that was given before their appearance" [11].

Of the other biographies, the most complete and detailed are the work of Archpriest A. Lebedev "St. Tikhon of Zadonsk and All Russia the Wonderworker" [12], published in 1865, and in 1898 (in Moscow) by N. Sergievsky "St. Tikhon, Bishop of Voronezh and Zadonsk, and the Wonderworker of All Russia". Both of these authors strive to reveal the inner podvig of St. Tikhon, to show, along with the simplicity of his way of life, the depth and height of his asceticism, to prove that the image of the saint serves as an example for every Christian to follow at the present time.

Of great interest is also the description of the life of St. Tikhon, made in the first part of the master's thesis of the priest T. Popov, "St. Tikhon of Zadonsk and His Moral Teaching" (Moscow, 1916). Giving an overview of all the available literature on the saint, the author concludes: "There is no lack of historical material for a complete and comprehensive biography. But there is no biography that would spiritualize all this material, concentrating all this material, scattered in sources and fragmented into parts in studies of various names, into one whole and around a single idea - the representation of the inseparable image of a living personality" [13]. Priest T. Popov in his work managed to concentrate all the material available to him, but it is difficult to talk about the spirituality of this biography. It is quite possible that such an impression arises due to the lack of a clear plan in it.