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The article delves into the concept of miracles from the perspective of the Catholic Church, tracing the evolution of human consciousness from fear to awe to curiosity, leading to the phenomena of mythologization, religious experiences, philosophical explanations, and rational understanding of everyday events through science and technology. The relevance of the study is due to the great influence and role of the Catholic Church in the modern world. Miracles as one of the key phenomena related to Catholic values are examined. By means of categorial and discourse analyses, along with the case study method, the work highlights the theological interpretation of miracles, distinguishing between official Christian doctrines and vernacular religious practices. It explores the process of institutionalization of religion and the significance of miracles within the context of Catholicism, emphasizing their role as divine revelations and signs of the supernatural. The article discusses the theological views on miracles of such thinkers as Augustine of Hippo and St. Thomas Aquinas, underscoring how miracles attest to faith and the resurrection. Contemporary examples of miracles recognized by the Catholic Church, such as those at Lourdes and involving figures like St. Padre Pio and Carlo Acutis are outlined. The process of canonization and the phenomenon of stigmata are described. The discussion extends to the philosophical debates on miracles, contrasting rationalistic criticisms from figures like David Hume and Baruch Spinoza with the religious significance attributed to miraculous events. The article also critiques the positivist perspective that subjugates religion to reason and science, emphasizing the enduring nature of miracles in religious discourse despite scientific advancements. In conclusion, the study advocates for a reconnection with the miraculous, religious, and metaphysical realms, positing that embracing mystery and awe can imbue life with meaning, wonder, and purpose, countering the secularization thesis that diminishes the role of miracles and spirituality in the modern world.

The relevance of studying the processes of religious consciousness comes from the importance to ensure more coordinated interaction of scientific communities in intercultural communication. The PRC remains one of the key partners of the Russian Federation and partnership requires deeper understanding of the counterpart. This paper analyses social phenomena classified as miracles in Russian and Chinese cultures from the perspective of intercultural communication. To achieve this goal, the authors 1) highlight key theoretical approaches to the study of the semantics of miracle; 2) systematize the available data on key concepts and denotations of the semantics of miracle in Russian culture and supplement existing approaches; 3) establish the key features of the semantics of miracle in Chinese culture; 4) outline approaches to creating a sketch of a universal semantic model of a miracle as an invariant of two cultures; 5) identify the capabilities and boundaries of this model. The research materials included corpuses of national folklore traditions, legal documents, literary and theological works, and scientific (mainly religious) studies. The methodological framework was formed by the approach of N. Luhmann, who defined religion as a variety of forms of the universal anthropological phenomenon of observing of the unknown. Distinguishing descriptions of the first (naive), second (expert) and third (philosophical-synthetic) order, represented by the corresponding languages L1, L2 and L3, allowed to identify the terms traditionally related to the sphere of religion (L1) and to trace their descriptions (L2) and reflection in L1 and L2 within the framework of philosophical and theological writings (L3). As a result, several historically specific interpretations of the concept and the denotations behind it have been identified. They include both universal similarity and local features determined by the historical development of Russian and Chinese societies. For Russia, these features are inextricably linked with the influence of Christianity, where a distinction is made between elitist theological forms and mass believes, often referred to as superstitions. The main lexemes marking the miraculous in Chinese are 奇迹 (qíjì), reflecting the phenomenon of the amazing, surprising; 神迹 (shénjì), applied to the miraculous, God-like, spiritual, but not witches or sorcerers; 妙 (miào) as an aesthetic perception of a miracle, including an incomprehensible mystery; 灵 (líng) marks the supernatural, emanating from the earthly principle yin, therefore associated with folk witchcraft and sorcery. It has been established that in both Russian and Chinese culture, miracle is always combined with a certain worldview (L1), with a complex of ontological statements (L2). Experts (L3) typically turn to the prism of religious disciplines and/or teachings that analyze the correspondence of worldview, ontological constructs and lived religious experience. The sketch of the universal semantic field that makes up the intersecting concepts of Russian and Chinese cultures, obtained as a result of the research, needs further clarification by turning to the sociology of religion and the psychology of religion.

The phenomenon of the miraculous cannot be removed from human existence, no matter how much its presence contradicts the arguments of reason, legislation, or common sense. Its attractiveness for philosophical reflection has been evident since the ancient classics (4th century BC), when the very phenomenon of admiration was considered the root cause of knowledge by Plato and Aristotle. The miraculous turns out to be semantically interconnected with religious communication, understood as the observation of the unknown, inexpressible, inaccessible within the familiar (N. Luhmann), including its naming and classification. This study is devoted to identifying the basic sociocultural differences and their dynamics associated with the lexeme miracle in the Russian context of the 11th–18th centuries based on the analysis of written sources. Tracing the evolution of the semantics of the miraculous, identifying the criteria for assigning such a characteristic to a certain phenomenon and the value assessment of what was called a miracle, the following trends are revealed. On the one hand, it is a differentiation from religious communication, which distinguishes between true and false miracles depending on the origin (for example, the Christian God or the Magi, fortune tellers, sorcerers, etc.). On the other hand, there is an increase in the complexity of the phenomenon itself, acquiring by the end of the 18th century various communication features. These are true/false miracles in religion; legal/ illegal in the field of state regulation of public life (starting with the legislation of Peter the Great); miracle as superstition, deceit and quackery for selfish purposes, i.e. marginal communication, contrary to science, morality, law and the ideals of the Enlightenment as the worldview of the elites; as a historical and cultural phenomenon (in works related to the history, ethnography and folklore that are emerging in Russia); as an artistic mean (functional element) in literature.