Optina Pustyn. For any Orthodox person, this place is associated with an exalted feeling of gratitude to the Almighty, sincere faith, selfless service to God and the Fatherland. But for our Russian army, Optina Pustyn also has its own special value. This is where a new stage of interaction and mutual understanding with the Church begins. In the nearby part of the Strategic Missile Forces, for the first time in the post-revolutionary era, a unit was created in which soldiers who decided to devote themselves to the service of Orthodoxy in the future serve. It is no secret that the training of clergymen begins long before the young man is ordained to the priesthood. What if it's time for him to join the army? So for such children, future priests, monks and other ministers of worship, with the permission of the commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Missile Forces, Army General Vladimir Yakovlev, a special company was created. Spiritual support was taken over by the monks of the nearby monastery.

The daily routine of this unusual unit is not much different from the life of an ordinary company. Only in the morning there is a special time for prayer and on church holidays, as a rule, the division has a day off. But for commanders, it is a pleasure to have such soldiers under their command. Exemplary order in the location, cleanliness in the assigned territory. During the entire existence of the company, not a single gross violation of military discipline occurred in it, not to mention more serious offenses!

Soldiers and sergeants of the company do not carry out combat service, but household chores and everything that is supposed to be done according to the charter are performed in such a way that the foreman cannot get enough of it. The rocket engineers themselves are working at today's standards.

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by the standards of the phenomenon is explained simply and modestly:

"Service to God and service for the good of the Motherland are one and the same thing. If a person believes in God, then he can and should serve conscientiously.

With the help of the monastery's servants, the company's soldiers set up a prayer room in the location, and the library of Orthodox and fiction literature here is such that soldiers and officers from neighboring units come here (by the way, there has never been a case that the books taken were not returned on time).

Together with novices from the monastery and volunteer assistants from local residents, the company's soldiers participate in the restoration of the Russian shrine-they help to return the monastery's buildings and its courtyard from oblivion, from the ruins.

For monks, believers in shoulder straps are a matter of special concern. After all, almost every one of them went through difficult times, when a believer in the barracks was almost a target for ridicule and mockery. Time has put everything in its place. Now each of the soldiers has his own spiritual mentor. Confessions, communions, conversations on the most intimate topics-all this is of particular importance in the moral development of soldiers.

The Orthodox company exists only recently. But already several "generations" of soldiers can be considered its pupils. By tradition, everyone who leaves for the reserve writes a letter to a young recruit who is preparing to become a soldier. It contains instructions, wishes, and words of gratitude to the commanders.

And how I would like to see these beautiful traditions appear in each part. There would be more such units where there is no place for sloppiness and rudeness, and soldiers perform their military duty with dignity and honor.

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