God! Truth! This is supreme over one's fatherland, but one's fatherland is also from God; and truth lies also in devoted love for your native people. All people in the world are family before Christ; and so I ask you: What place is there for hatred for other nations?! No, there is only love. But if you do not love your own people with filial love, how will you love another people?! And another thing: there exists between parents and children a special, grace-filled interdependence - a divine responsibility. Could it be that the Apostle Paul had no love for his own people, having preached to all manner of pagans and converted them all, but in his own prayers consigns himself to hell and separation [from God] if only his people [the Jews] could be saved (Romans 9:3)?

• Archimandrite Gabriel (Urgebadze)