TO THE RATIONALE OF THE CONCEPT OF THE ORTHODOX ATLAS OF RUSSIA
The concept of the Orthodox Atlas of Russia is based on a complex of methodological and ideological approaches of collection, analysis and visualization of empirical data on the history, distribution and contemporary status of Orthodoxy in Russia. At the heart of the creation of the Orthodox Atlas of Russia is a combination of several blocks: 1) the philosophical and theological rationale for the concept, the object of mapping and its features for the territory of Russia;2) collection and ordering of spatial information - inventory of historical and cultural processes that took place and takes place on the territory of Russia, transferring them into maps; 3) an analytical unit that includes interpretation, link with other phenomena and processes, such as the natural environment, resettlement, socio-economic development, etc. In modern cartographic works, only elements of the second block are presented. A holistic picture of the spread and nature of religious processes can be obtained only taking into account the territorial natural and cultural specifics of Russia. This specificity is revealed in the works of Russian philosophers. In particular, Ilyin Ivan expressed it in three properties of Russia: the burden of a large territory, the burden of a harsh nature and the burden of a multinational composition of the country.The most important results of the work on the atlas will be: 1) scrutinizing the spiritual and cultural heritage of Russia; 2) the reflection of the current state, the depth and degree of embeddedness of spiritual values in the cultural environment, the identification of trends in the religious processes in the regions, the emergence of risks and conflicts; 3) studying the relationship of spiritual and cultural processes with processes in the economy, and environment;development of methods for studying religious processes in space and their cartographic visualization; 5) creating a methodology for interdisciplinary analysis and synthesis of religious processes in a geographic environment. Work on Atlas should unite scientists, philosophers and theologians. And this is also one of the important results.