The history of the affirmation of Christianity in the Caucasus had its ups and downs, depending both on the internal stability of the countries carrying out missionary activity, and also on external factors. So, the Mongol invasion, which destroyed Alania and ruined Georgia, interrupted the ideological influence of these outposts of Christianity on Adygs. However, the Ottoman factor, the breakdown of Byzantium and the liquidation of the Italian colonies in the North-West Caucasus, began a gradual and steady period of Christianity.
Adygs retained the memory of many Christian holidays and ceremonies. So, they observed a 40-day fast, which ended with a foster one day (analogue of Easter), when the population was caught with painted eggs. 50 days after Easter, Uidbene was celebrated (Trinity Day). According to the testimony of L. Liulier, two more spring holiday-makers – lyumysh and kyoyashte – can be correlated with meat and cheese in the Orthodox Church.
The echoes of the Christian era are the Adyghe names of the days of the week. So, the resurrection was called thaeumaf / thiemahue (divine day); a shambat / shebat (Saturday), bereskashu (Friday) and bereskazhy (Wednesday) – large and small Paraskeva (fasting) – clearly go back to the Greek prototypes.
The functioning of Christian vocabulary in modern Kabardino-Circassian language is mainly observed in the speech of the Circassians living in settlements administratively not in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, but in other administrative units of the Russian Federation. Although many of the settlements where Kabardinians live are part of the Kursk region of the Stavropol Territory (Sernovodskoye village, formed from two villages – Avalov and Azaniev, Grafsky farm, Bugulov, Gubzhokov, etc.), the inhabitants of these settlements are united under the common name “Mozdok Kabardins ”, as these settlements are located on the southeastern outskirts of the modern Stavropol Territory in the zone known as the Mozdok Steppe. In addition, these include Kabardinians living directly in the city of Mozdok and the villages adjacent to it. The studied region is distinguished by confessional and national diversity of its population. An interesting fact is that not all Circassians who call themselves “Mozdok Kabardins” profess Orthodox Christianity. It is legitimate to assume that the descendants of the Kabardins who converted to Christianity at a time when the adoption of Christianity were a condition giving the right to property and social preferences remained Christians.First of all, the attention of the researcher is attracted by lexemes that exist in the speech of the Mozdok Kabardians, absent in the speech of the rest of the Circassians. These are word forms of the type azyeshesh1e (1esyeshesh1e), Alerdiy, Bzhor, Bzhorade / Bzhorane, Dyuguzhigue, Zheshshchys, K1eyishkh, Lyubyd, etc.
All these tokens are associated exclusively with Christian religious rites and are the names of different types of rites, ceremonial food, Christian holidays, etc.
Certain interest in terms of semantics is caused by the word form k1eyishkh (lit .: eating willow), which means Palm Sunday. As can be seen from the meanings of the components of a compound word formed by the model “noun + verb”, the new meaning is not connected with Sunday, as in Russian Orthodox Christians. It is known that eating three buds of willow or willow on this day is one of the customs associated with this holiday. To attract good luck in business, it is recommended to eat 3 buds of willow, lit in the church on Palm Sunday, and drink “meal” with holy water with thoughts about a case in which good luck is needed. Here we see the same case of the nomination of the Christian festival according to one of its attributes, as in the case of the Baptism, called by Topgaue “letters: shooting from a cannon”.
Thus, it is obvious that most often the nomination of holidays, ceremonies, customs associated with Christianity, on the Adyghe linguistic soil are formed by the addition of the foundations, most often the noun and verb. In addition, these names are associated mainly with some attributes of the holidays, and not with the original Russian names of these rites.
