Pavlenko P. Ethnic and Universal in Early Christianity: principles, characteristics and trends

Thesis represents one of the first complex survey in Ukrainian Religious Studies of theoretical foundations of Early Christian religious faith, research of the nature of correlation between ethnic and universal in religion of Jesus Christ. The thesis proves that Christianity was designed by its founder as a ethnic (Jewish-centric) religious system (1), disclosed, on the one hand, the main causes of tension between Judaic-Christian and Hellene-Christian traditions, between Palestine as an ethnic Jewish Christianity and Paulinism as universal (beyond-ethnic, super-ethnic, cosmopolitan) Christianity of Apostle Paul (2), and on the other hand, those processes that have turned Christianity out from its original Jewish-Judaic cultural and religious orbit and led it, in the final analysis, to transformation into the supranational religion of the ancient world, and then into the official ideology of imperial Rome (3). Thesis argues that the original Christianity of Jesus Christ (Judeo-Christianity) realized itself in the entirely Judaism's context, in the Jewish cultural milieu presented itself as a messianic movement within Judaism of that time, perceived itself as a culminating stage of the development of Jewish religion. On the contrary to Judeo-Christianity, Hellene-Christianity asserted faith in Christ mostly grounded on the foundation of the Greek philosophical thought, Hellenistic and Roman cosmopolitan view. Moreover, universalist Christianity or Hellene-Christianity forged simultaneously with denial of Jewish-centric and Judaic-centric legacy, actually, side by side with rejection of the original Apostolic tradition (4).