Religious ritualism and family values: the unity of the past and the present
Authors: Bodak Valentyna 
Published: April 2019

Summary: The article is devoted to the problem of religious ritualism as a constituent and factor of family life in its past and present. The purpose of the article are the substantiation of religious rituals as values in the life of the family, the definition of its role through the prism of freedom of conscience and beliefs, the reflection of socio-cultural transformations of the relationship of religious rituals and family values in the unity of tradition and modernity. The use of the historical method in the work allowed us to determine the cultural-historical, civilizational circumstances that determine the content and structure of religious rituals in conjunction with the development of the family and family values in the unity of traditions and novtions. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the definition and justification of the unconditional value of the emotional-aesthetic atmosphere of the family and existential communication, which is achieved between members of the family community in the process and under the influence of religious ritual.

Religious and ritual communication both within and outside the family is a process of exchange of certain feelings and knowledge of its members. This is only possible if the family members (in the system: parents – children – grandchildren), who make such communication, establish not only mutual understanding but also the unity of thought about the religious and emotional content of a ritual act, when the convictions of communicators coincide on the results of this spiritual activity recognized as values (ideas, thoughts, ideals, feelings, mood, etc.). By displaying such values with the help of symbolic means that affect the emotional and sensory sphere of both adults and younger family members, rituals stimulate the emergence and development of feelings, experiences and moods that meet these values. In communicative communication during the various ritual actions (joint daily prayers, reading prayer texts, funeral ceremonies, baptism, wedding, sanctification of housing, etc.), family members enter into a specific kind of relationship between themselves. The processes of their communication and relations are realized through such socio-psychological mechanisms as suggestion, persuasion, imitation and stereotyping. The shared experiences significant for family members in communication greatly contribute to their spiritual unity and rapprochement, the establishment and strengthening of internal and external relations (within and outside the family). The family as a social and, at the same time, the ritual community lives according to the laws of group psychology, which is characterized by strengthening of the mood in the feelings of "We". It is under the influence of jointly performed ritual that the formation and objectification of religious consciousness in the activity of the family and its members takes place as a connection of freedom and responsibility, holistic and partial, general and separate. The family and family religious ceremonies remain one of the most important values in human life and community. Appeal to the family traditions of religious culture allows us to find spiritual foundations for the further development of society in the modern post-industrial era. The prospect for further research is the justification from the point of view of religion of traditional family values and their socio-cultural transformations in the present.