Gorskij was born in 1812 in Kostroma as the son of an Orthodox priest, and studied at the Moscow Theological Academy, from which he graduated in 1832. He was offered employment as a teacher and later became rector (1862-75) of this institution. Besides a doctorate in theology, Gorskij also held one in Russian history. He died in 1875 in St Sergius’s Monastery of the Trinity in Sergiev Posad.

In 1849, Gorskij and Kanton Ivanovič Nevostruev were commissioned by Metropolite Filaret to compile an inventory of the library of the Moscow Synod. Although Gorskij had little experience or training he managed to edit five volumes of the inventory, which appeared between 1855 and 1869. (The sixth and final volume was not published until 1917.) The Description of Manuscripts in the Library of the Moscow Synod offered systematic reference data on Slavic and Greek literature. Gorskij, who also published broadly on Russian Church history and early Slavic literature, collaborated with leading contemporary historians and Slavic philologists such as Osip Bodjanskij, Mihail Pogodin and Ismail Sreznevskij.