The monograph of the famous philosopher, culturologist, art critic V.V. Bychkov is a unique study of the formation, development and existence of Christian culture over the almost two-thousand-year period of its existence from the point of view of artistic and aesthetic consciousness based on the material of the Eastern Christian (Orthodox) area: patristics, Byzantium, southern Slavs, Ancient Rus', Modern Russia. The book analyzes a combination of such phenomena as Christian symbolism (understanding of image, symbol, allegory, sign), antinomianism, concepts of spiritual eros, creation and creativity, beauty and art; actualization of the space-time continuum in art; Much attention is paid to such phenomena as the icon (its theology, philosophy, artistic language), the aesthetics of asceticism, the liturgical synthesis of the arts, etc. The first volume is devoted to early Christianity and Byzantium. The second covers Christian culture from the baptism of the southern and eastern Slavs to the 20th century. The transformation of the main paradigms of Christian culture among Russian religious writers and thinkers of the 19th-20th centuries is traced. and in such cultural movements of the “Silver Age” as symbolism, avant-garde, neo-Orthodoxy. Along with traditional problems for Christianity, attention is also paid to such controversial ones as sophia, conciliarity, theurgy, the newest ideas about the symbol, etc.

CONTENTS: Southern SlavsChapter one. The path from the Greeks to the SlavsAncient RussiaChapter one. The spiritual as aesthetic Chapter two. The charm of beautyChapter three. Art Blooms Through WisdomChapter Four. Philosophy in colorsChapter five. The canon as the basis of creativityChapter six. Between “realism” and “symbolism” Chapter Seven. SchismChapter eight. On the threshold of the New TimeToward a new symbolismLiteratureMusicPaintingChapter nine. The phenomenon of ancient Russian aesthetic consciousness. Russia. XIX - XX centuriesChapter one. Christian philosophy of artGogolBukharevDostoevskyLeontievLev TolstoyVl. SolovievReligious aesthetics in the 20th century. Chapter two. Aesthetics of neo-OrthodoxyAesthetic dimension of existenceSophiologyThe meaning of the iconChapter three. Symbolism in search of the spiritualVyacheslav IvanovAndrey BelyReflection of symbolism. EllisChapter Four. Apocalyptic visions of the avant-gardeOn the threshold of the third millenniumList of abbreviationsIndex of names. Compiled by L. S. BychkovaSummaryBibliography