Research by Doctor of Arts, prof. Russian Academy of Music N. S. Gulyanitskaya is devoted to the problems of musical Christian culture of the past century, which, being banned for a long time, was out of sight of musicologists. The monograph sets the task of linking the beginning and end of the century, the work of composers of the New Direction with the "latest" spiritual music of contemporary authors.The first part examines the works of many leading composers of the late XIX - early XX centuries. (with reference to the founder of this trend - Tchaikovsky and other famous Russian writers). The influence that their artistic work had on the spiritual music of their followers, including composers of the Russian diaspora, is analyzed.The second part examines the status quo in the field of spiritual and musical compositions, both church and concert | approaches and means of implementation are compared, the musical language and figurative-semantic structure are analyzed.The text touches upon various issues related to the issues of genre, "timbrization", pitch-rhythmic structures and other aspects of a spiritual and musical work as a single integrity , arising from the textual semantic basis.