The Gospels are the books of the New Testament that tell about the life of Jesus Christ, his public ministry, crucifixion and burial. For the Orthodox person, the Gospel is one of the most important books of the Bible.
The canonical gospels are called those that are accepted in full by the Orthodox Church. There are four gospels included in the body of the books of the New Testament. The authors of these inspired works were the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
In addition to these four Gospels, there are apocryphal works. For example, the gospel of Judah, the gospel of Peter. These books were not recognized by the church as canonical, as they had dubious content. Also, the exact authorship of these Gospels has not been established. It is possible that the apocryphal Gospels, unlike the canonical ones, were written several hundred years later than the birth of Jesus Christ, or the heretics of the Gnostics were the authors of the apocrypha.
As mentioned above, the canonical Gospels recognize the fullness of the Church as the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of John. From the very beginning of the development of Christian writing, none of the believers have questioned the authority of these sacred books. It was these works that were accepted as absolute truth without the admixture of various false teachings.
These four Gospels objectively tell about the life and teachings of Christ, tell about the events of the New Testament history. Already in the first century, these works were quoted by believers. However, the official approval of these four Gospels as canonical was adopted only in the 4th century.
In the history of the Christian Church, 360 can be called the time of the adoption of the canon of the New Testament books. This event took place at the local Laodicean Cathedral. The Fathers of the Council approved all 27 canonical books of the New Testament, which included the Gospels authored by Mark, Matthew, John and Luke. Later, at the VI Ecumenical Council (680), the canon of the books of the New Testament was given a universal character.
