At the end of the XX Century the paradigm of functional styles includes religious style. The study of genres of this style takes place in the categorical-textual aspect. The category of tonality (or subjective modality), understood as the emotional and volitional attitude of the author of the text, is recognized as style-forming.The tonality of the religious style is due to specific communicative and pragmatic features that reflect the perception of religious texts as the transmission of divine truth. The sublimity of feeling, the reverence inherent in religious texts, form a reverent tone, which is characterized by a certain set of linguistic means. The explication of reverence in the akathist genre manifests itself at the lexical, grammatical and syntactic levels, and is also expressed graphically. The basis for the reverent tone of the akathist is the constructive principle of pretextuality. Precedent is actualized by quotations and reminiscences of the proto - text-Holy Scripture. Genre (hymnographic) intention praise litany establishes the stylistic tone of the reverent tone.