The article deals with Mikhail Sergeyevich Molodensky, the USSR Science Academy Corresponding Member’s heritage part concerning to the main task of higher geodesy - determining the Earth’s physical surface and the external gravitational field. The work is dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the theory itself and the centenary of the journal "Geodezia i Kartografia", where his articles were regularly published. Considering that the article is of anniversary nature, just general provisions of the theory are presented in comparison with the methods characteristic before and after the middle of the 20th century. The main tasks of higher geodesy in the 1930–1940s are described, in connection with which the need of excluding previously neglected effects arose. Details, as well as biographical information on the researcher can be found in the existing numerous literature. In the domestic scientific community it is believed that due to formulating Molodensky`s theory geodesy became a precision science. H. Moritz wrote that of all the geodesists, only Molodensky was worth being awarded the Nobel Prize