Abstract

The subject of investigation is the influence of Christian ethics both on spiritual orientation and social life of people. There are specific features in Christian ethics. This features are evident in the attitude towards the world in everyday behavior of people in various spheres of social and private life. There is a significant influence of Christian ethics on culture, life, family, customs, traditions and life style of the peoples in the process of investigation. Christian ethics is manifested in Christian ethos, which takes various historical forms in the process of cultural development. Christian ethics is specified in Christian morality and Christian morals. Orthodox morals and ethical features are defined both at the high morals level and at the life level in this project. Investigating relations between official Christian culture and folk Christian culture we can notice both antagonism and mutual penetration of elements from one culture to another. Official Christianity is represented in the system of dogmas and moral principles and it is a theology. Such notion as folk Christianity is defined as the unity of Christian studying and folk traditions of the people. The components of the people’s Christianity are a folk Catholicism and folk Orthodoxy. The features of national Orthodox Christianity are represented in the appeal to the Slavs in its moral and aesthetic principles in its beauty. There are three main principles represented in the basis of the perception of Christianity: natural goodness, conscience and heartfelt contemplation; sanctification of space and time, craziness, mystic death and resurrection which are based on the teaching of the Holy Fathers of eternal life. Severe ideological, psychological and moral control over the population, not only on the part of the priest but also on the part of people, was a feature of folk Catholicism. Thus, we can draw the following conclusions: both folk Catholicism and folk Orthodoxy have their own features, but the common were poor understanding of dogmatic Christianity and pagan beliefs vitality. Analyzing the folk Christian culture it was revealed that magical consciousness, as the deep layer of the national consciousness connected with magic, remains almost unchanged from the ancient time until the present one.