Archbishop Joan: Let us love our Homeland, make it prosperous and flourish!

2025-11-27 11:52:00, Aktualitet CNA

Archbishop Joan, in an interview with the media outlet Ngjallja, gave very strong messages in the context of the November 28-29 holidays.

Important messages where at the core of everything is patriotism.

"Denying the Homeland is like denying God," was one of the main messages that His Beatitude conveyed in this interview.

He also called on all Albanians to love, strive, and care for the country.

Full interview with Archbishop Joan.

What is the Orthodox Church's teaching on Patriotism?

Archbishop Joan: The relationship between the Church and the Nation is a complicated one, but they are often artificially put as if they are in opposition. Without a doubt, the Church teaches us to love everyone, teaches us to love our country, where we were born and raised. This love is part of a great love that is for all people. All people have a love for their family, for their parents, and, undoubtedly, they will have a love for their homeland, because it is impossible to love God and not love the country where you were born and raised.

Many people often take the view that these two things are opposed to each other. To love the Church and to love God, you will certainly also love your homeland. This is not to love one and not to love the other. For example, to love your homeland and not to love God, or vice versa. This relationship is very important, because if we do not have love in our soul for our country, this is an offense against God. The Church does not deny ethnicity. Without a doubt, the Church is universal and transcends it; the Church believes in the brotherhood of all peoples of the world; the Church is catholic, inclusive, general. But the relationship between the general and the particular is not a opposition of one against the other, but is a harmony of one with the other.

By loving God and loving all these other things, we will undoubtedly love even more those around us. Love is not something abstract: to love people and the whole world in general, but to love the people we meet every day, the people we see every day. Loving your country is part of this, so the Church does not deny ethnicity. Denying ethnicity, at least in my view, is denying God. A person who denies his homeland, denies his nation, has also denied God. That is why the Church teaches us to love our country. Loving the country means that you try with all your heart for that country to progress, prosper and live in peace and harmony. It is the obligation of every Christian to love his country. Since we were born here, God has appointed us guardians of this country and we are responsible before God for its well-being, because "the earth is the Lord's and everything in it" - says the Psalmist.

Which means that this part of the earth, which has been assigned to us who were born here, we have an obligation to love it, we have an obligation to enrich it and we have an obligation to see this country progress and shine. This is true patriotism. People must love their country, because if they do not love their country, they will certainly not love God either. As Saint John says in his letters (1Jn.4:20) that the man who says he loves God and hates his brother is a liar; for how can you love God whom you have never seen and not love your brother whom you see every day?! Here we see our fellow countrymen, our brothers every day, and if we do not love them, we certainly do not love God either. That is why the Church encourages patriotism as an important part of religious life.

The relationship between the church and the nation/ Archbishop Joan's strong message: A man who denies his homeland denies God
November 27, 11:00

Fortbliss, in today's time, many people appear as nationalists and often identify themselves as patriots and patriots. What is the difference between a patriot and a nationalist?

Archbishop Joan: This is a slightly more complicated topic, but it also depends on what people understand by the word patriot and what they understand by the word nationalist. In a general sense, it can be said more or less in this way: a patriot is someone who loves his country and focuses precisely on the love for the country and the prosperity of that country, while a nationalist has taken on the meaning of opposition to other nations, whether neighboring nations or nations further away.

The exaltation of your nation and the oppression and contempt of other nations can become something dangerous, because, if hatred is ignited in the soul, the same people who perhaps think they are only hating others, they also hate the people of their own nation. The Nazis were nationalists.

Their party was even called National Socialist. No doubt they had hatred for many other nations, but that hatred manifested itself in their own nation and millions of Germans were persecuted and killed, tortured by everyone, because in the human heart love and hate cannot exist at the same time.

If we love our country, there is no need to hate others. He who loves his country makes it flourish. Hatred for others will begin and spread to your own country and to other people. Nationalism is based on selfishness. Someone says: Germany above all, someone says our country first and various forms like these, but this is based only on selfishness.

True patriotism does not exclude all humanity from love. The patriot tries to value his country, help it develop and prosper. Nationalist - depends on the terms, because in Albanian it does not fully convey this, in Albanian the word "nationalism" has often had the meaning of patriotism.

The nationalists of the Renaissance were not nationalists just to oppose others, but they were patriots and perhaps the best term for them is to be called patriots, people who loved their country and spared nothing; they spent their wealth and everything they had, both material and spiritual, to give the country independence and to make it flourish. Today, our duty is precisely to continue in this line: Let us love our country! If we make our country flourish, we have undoubtedly fulfilled our duty before God, before the nation and before the homeland.

The difference between a patriot and a nationalist/ His Beatitude Joani: Love for the country, without hatred for others
November 27, 11:13

Your Beatitude, on November 28, after the Divine Liturgy, you will preside over the Service of the Doxology of the Flag, a service that takes place in all our Orthodox churches. What is the meaning of the Service of the Doxology of the Flag that is performed on Flag Day, on Independence Day?

Archbishop Joan: In all the Orthodox Churches of the world there is a day on which they do Doxology, and from the word you know that Doxology means praise of God. The purpose of what is done is first of all a gratitude to God, because God has given us a very beautiful place, a place that has everything; there are mountains, there are fields, forests, rivers and hills, seas and lakes, so, it has everything. For this we must be grateful and thank God. But that alone is not enough.

In the Orthodox sense, as I mentioned a little earlier that the earth belongs to God, we are also stewards of a part of the earth. Which means that a true patriot is the person who strives to make this country flourish; and to make a country flourish, you must first love it, love the people, and of course you must love God. I often tell people an episode from the Gospel and I retell it over and over again, because it is very important.

Before the Lord gave Saint Peter a very important task to shepherd His flock, to take care of His sheep, as a metaphor for the Christian flock and for the flock of all people, He asks him a question three times and says: "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" And after Peter answers: "Yes, Lord, I love you". Then He says: "Feed my sheep".

Which means that, in order to love people, you must love God, and loving God means loving all the values ??that come from God's teaching.

Today we are faced with something: people have abandoned values, those traditional values ??that have existed for centuries, that have shaped civilizations and kept people, people. By subverting these values, love in the soul diminishes, because if we do not love God, we will undoubtedly have difficulty loving other people. It does not enrich the family either, if we do not love people.

Often, unfortunately for us, people who have responsibility for the country do not have this love and the most dangerous thing is when this is masked with nationalist slogans. A person who does not love his people cannot be a patriot and a patriot! A person who does not love his country, who does not try with all his heart to make it prosperous, how can he be a patriot?! It cannot be covered with rhetoric, cursing other people and other nations. Therefore, on these days we remind believers of these two things:

First, to be grateful to God, and second, to love the country as a responsibility to God. If we are to be good stewards, we will undoubtedly do something; but to strive to do something, you must love someone.

A person who loves God will also love people. It is impossible to love God and not love your homeland and the place where you live, where you were born and raised, where your parents, grandparents and great-grandparents lived. That is impossible! A person who loves God with all his soul will also love them. This Doxology also serves as a part of patriotic education so that people love their country and feel responsible for it, because true love is not just a feeling, but true love is accompanied by deeds.

A parent for a child is not satisfied with just saying "I love my child", but tries to help him, does deeds. Deeds are what speak. If our deeds do not show patriotism, it can be hypocrisy. Therefore, it is very important for us to love our country, as part of the general love of God's love.

Flag Doxology/ Archbishop Joan: A service of gratitude to God for the homeland
November 27, 11:22

Fortblituri, can you give us a short message for Independence Day, November 28?

Archbishop Joan: I would like to wish you all a happy day, to thank God and to strive for our country with all we can, because by striving for our country, we undoubtedly help ourselves more.

A person who tries to build a warm environment in the family and for that he is very good. In a place where there is no peace, where there is no harmony, where there is quarreling, strife and envy and slander, there can be no peace and it cannot be a place where you can live peacefully.

Making our country flourish and making it a peaceful place, a place of prosperity, will undoubtedly be good for each of us. On this special day for our country, I wish you all happiness and many years!/ CNA