Linguistic, rhetorical and stylistic characteristics of the contemporary Russian orthodox preaching discourse

The article elicits the rhetorical principles of Russian Orthodox Sermon, viewed as an organized whole, constructed according to the scheme of ‘rhetorical ellipsoid’. The preaching text is described as an ensemble of functional and semantic blocks, given linguistic and rhetorical description and commentary. Linguistic and Stylistic analysis of sermons uncovers the characteristic features and key tendencies of the development of the Russian Orthodox Preaching in Russian at present.