As I carefully read the central press, I am becoming more and more convinced that the problem of patriotism has been of increasing concern to the highest authorities of our state over the past two years. The euphoria of enthusiasm for "universal" democratic reforms has passed. Politicians and newspapers, which until recently preached outright cosmopolitanism and stilted" universal " moral values, suddenly started talking about a "national idea" of national significance. They began to develop a program of patriotic education of citizens.

When I touch on a particular topic, I always go from the concept. The Dictionary of Foreign words states that the word "patriotism" comes from the Greek "patrice" - homeland, fatherland, contains love for the Fatherland, loyalty to one's homeland, one's people. The Etymological Dictionary of the Russian language explains:

"The words' patriot ' and 'patriotism' appear for the first time in Russia in Peter the Great." Academician Vladimir Ivanovich Dahl in his Explanatory Dictionary of the living Great Russian language testifies that "patriotism is love for the Fatherland, a patriot is a lover of the Fatherland, a zealot for its welfare, a fatherland lover or a fatherland". How rich is our great language in imaginative shades and how emphatic it is in meaning! One word "fatherland lover", even if it is a rare book, says a lot to the heart of a Russian person.

The venerable Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedia confirms: "Patriotism - love for the Fatherland". Almost a century later, the Dictionary of the modern Russian Literary Language does not lag behind it, explaining the concept as " loyalty to one's people, readiness for any sacrifice and feats in the name of the interests of one's Homeland. A patriot is a person who loves his homeland, is devoted to his people, is ready to make sacrifices and perform feats in the name of the interests of his Homeland."

The Greek "pater" means father. Thus, patriotism is a relation to the Fatherland. And the God-blessed love of the father, commitment to the father's heritage, is the natural ground for the growth and veneration of patriotism. Rejection of self-love and patriotism is rejection of one's own roots and means spiritual and ancestral suicide.

The main meaning in all these dictionary explanations is Love. Christians know that love is one of the names of God. God is Love. It is through love that the image of God is manifested in every earthly person without distinction, that is, divine grace is realized.

Orthodox people with the word "love" always remember the unsurpassed explanation of this high quality of the human soul, uttered by the Apostle Paul in the thirteenth chapter of his First Epistle to the Corinthians:

"If I speak with the tongues of men and angels, but do not have love, I am a clanging brass or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all the mysteries, and have all knowledge and all faith, so that I can move mountains, but I do not have love: Then I'm nothing. And if I give away all that I have, and give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love endures for a long time, is merciful, love does not envy, love does not exalt itself, is not proud, does not behave outrageously, does not seek its own, is not irritated, does not think evil, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ceases, though prophecies will cease, and tongues will be silenced, and knowledge will cease. For we partly know and partly prophesy. When that which is perfect comes, then that which is partial will cease. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; but when I became a man, I left the childish things behind. Now we see as if through a dim glass, divinely, then face to face, now I know in part, and then I know, just as I am known. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but love is the greater of them."

That's what Love is! It is terrible to repeat that Love is greater than Faith and Hope. But all is right, for Love is God, and Faith is only faith in Him, only hope in Him. This is how love for the Fatherland is defined in its Divine fullness. Hence, loyalty to the Motherland can also be traced: a lively, necessary desire for civil peace and unity. I will try to briefly describe the components of patriotism in the understanding of a person.

Patriotism is a God-pleasing phenomenon, because the Lord himself divided humanity into languages, that is, peoples, and granted each of them earthly inheritances - fatherlands.

Patriotism as a manifestation of first of all high heart and soul feelings has deep spiritual roots.

Patriotism is a collective and collective phenomenon, sacrificial.

Patriotism is a geographical and geopolitical phenomenon. There is no landless patriotism.

Patriotism as a national state idea is formed throughout the history of the Fatherland, at the same time, relying on the past, it is always directed to the future as a developing idea.

Patriotism is the field of love. We know that without love, there is no procreation.

Patriotism is a hereditary phenomenon, transmitted from father to son, from one generation to another.

Patriotism is a continuous phenomenon in the temporal and genetic sense.

Patriotism is a natural phenomenon and necessary for the full existence of both the Fatherland and every compatriot.

Patriotism is both an objective phenomenon due to the above factors, and a very subjective, individual expression.

The terrible spiritual catastrophe that shook our Fatherland during the revolution did not destroy our love for the Fatherland, although in the first years of the revolution (as in the very recent past) there was a real ideological war against patriotism. A new great test for our country - the Great Patriotic War, which began to be called so from the very first days of the fascist invasion-rekindled a saving sense of patriotism in the souls of ordinary compatriots and in the souls of the rulers.

Thus, Russian imperial patriotism was formed gradually, over the centuries, from a high sense of love for the family, for the motherland, for the father and mother of each of the Slavic, Caucasian, Ugric, and Turkic tribes. Chroniclers depict our ancestors as people who love their land, their forefathers and their descendants, ready to defend their earthly lot to the death.

After the Baptism of Rus in the tenth century, the Russian people began to comprehend the sacred significance of the Russian land in the light of Christ's truth. Saint John of Kronstadt called the Russian land the footstool of the Throne of the Lord.

With the emergence of Muscovy out of many principalities, first, and under John the Terrible of the Russian Kingdom, Russian spiritual patriotism rose to the universal scale of Orthodox patriotism, because Russia, due to the fall of Byzantium, was by that time the last state stronghold of Orthodoxy. The Russian tsardom is becoming a multinational kingdom, and our ancestors are gradually beginning to acquire a new degree of patriotism, which repeatedly rises above the Russian national patriotic idea, not detracting from it itself, but ennobling it, enriching it. It was from that time that we can speak of a new messianic and missionary character of Russian patriotism. With such a unique spiritual treasure, inherited from many-wise and God-loving ancestors, the Russian people came to the twentieth century after the Birth of Christ.

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