What Might Have Been Nikolai Gogol's Favorite Prayer (Dead Souls)

Nikolai Gogol’s favorite verse from the Eastern Orthodox prayer book ("Molitvoslov") could have been this:

"Господи, Ты сказал в Святом Евангелии, что мертвые услышат глас Сына Божия и оживут. Так ныне сотвори, чтобы мертвые души наши услышали глас Твой и ожили бы в радости.

Lord, Thou saith in the Holy Gospels that the dead would hear the voice of the Son of God and would come back to life. So that this day grant that our own dead souls might hear Thy voice and might live once more in joy."

This is the last line of the prayer marked No. 1 in the series titled Молитвенные прошения преп. Силуана Афонского: Prayerful Supplications of the Reverend Silouan the Athonite.

Why is this not Gogol's favorite verse in his favorite prayer? Because Silouan's dates are 1866-1938, and Gogol died in 1852. This is an obvious instance in which a religious figure is influenced by Russian literature. The phrase "мертвые души (dead souls)" by all accounts did not exist in the Russian language before Gogol first used it as the title of his immortal novel, first published in 1842.