Based on the creative work by a modern Russian writer, archpriest Nikolay Agafonov, there is regarded the functioning of the evolutional model “outer sinful-ness – inner virtue”, which determines the features of the themes and poetics of the modern native spiritual prose.

There are investigated the issues and poetics of the work by a modern writer archpriest Nikolay Agafonov Hermit Against the Will considered in the context of the modern Orthodox prose. The main theme of the phenomenon is the issue of spiritual evolution of a person revealed in the light of a number of models: disbelief

There is researched the thematic originality of a new and little-studied phenomenon - orthodox fiction. There is revealed the main thematic dominating idea of the majority of orthodox authors works - moral search of a personality, ones spiritual evolution. Theoretical propositions are illustrated by the example of the stories by a priest Yaroslav Shipov Pelican and Debtor.