It looks like a miracle - the erection of the temple of the Appearance of the Mother of God to St. Sergius of Radonezh at the orphanage for the deaf-blind in Sergiev Posad. But when you listen to the rector Father Meliton, you understand that there is no miracle. This temple is the materialization of a dream, love, perseverance, a happy occasion and prayers, and it could not fail to arise in this place.
There is an opinion that the blind or deaf comprehend the world more sensitively.
A blind person mobilizes touch, smell and intuition. But this is the material side. There is also a spiritual side. Faith sees what the eye does not see; faith knows what the mind has not yet comprehended. A blind person, with the help of intuition and, most importantly, faith, cognizes the essence of events and people. That is, the blind learn the world through themselves. And we see too much superfluous, tinsel.
Can you give an example of such an insight?
Of course. The boy has a number of health disorders: autism, he can only distinguish between light and darkness, his musculoskeletal system is impaired. Such children often make a series of monotonous movements, such as swaying, just to feel their existence. He can, sitting by the window, flicker with his palm in front of his eyes, creating the illusion of movement.
And so I watch how one day he does not stop, as usual, in the corridor at the window, but opens the door of the temple, turns towards the altar, where there is no light at all, makes a prostration in front of the central icon, runs up to it, bows and smiles. When he realized that I was entering the temple, he again closed himself in his shell and began to make movements with his hand. But I was able to capture that smile in a photo.
Is this not proof that the child understands the special purpose of the temple and the icon? This is proof that in the temple a child can throw off the shackles of illness and behave like an ordinary person.
What activities do you conduct in the temple?
The most important thing is to give children the opportunity to feel a connection with God. For this, a temple was built - a place of special stay of God on earth.
Recently, the children felt their father in an unusual quality. I was in a bandage, did not speak and covered my ears. I perceived the world as they did. It was in Forgiveness Sunday. And received a text message. The child wrote: “It seems to me that I began to see the sun, sky and stars through your eyes when you opened your eyes after meeting us. I see it, and I rejoice in it. May my eyes be dead, but my soul lives. She cries, she sings." This is a blind girl 16-year-old wrote. In the temple, she felt the world through me.
We strive for children to feel the difference between a canteen, a doctor's office, a stadium, an assembly hall and a temple. The variety of forms that fill the temple, the variety of tactile and olfactory sensations, makes them feel something else. In the temple, every item is made to be used. Children through contact with objects can feel the presence of God on earth. We teach the child to perceive a material thing as a bridge to that sacred thing that stands behind the thing.
Blind, deaf-blind, deaf-blind-mute are completely different stages. You can easily communicate with the blind, with the deaf-blind you need some kind of adaptive alphabet, but the deaf-blind-mute is difficult, everything is at the level of conjecture.
How old is the temple?
Over 10 years. In the 90s, students of the Moscow Theological Seminary, confessors of the Lavra came and talked with children. They organized holidays and performances, gave gifts and icons. Gradually, out of a circle of 20-30 people, 2-3 remained, who made these meetings frequent and systematic. Friendship has become real. It became clear that it was necessary to have a permanent meeting place - not a corridor, not an assembly hall. This place was decided to make a temple. Created in 2000 house temple, rebuilt from three offices orphanage.
For five years we served in the house church, there was not enough space. And together with the architects, we began to dream of what a new temple could be like. The sketch lay for a year.
One fine day, the governor of the Lavra called and said: "Meet the guest." This guest turned out to be Sergei Alexandrovich Obozov, who works in the nuclear industry, who took a newspaper to read in one of the churches in Moscow, which described one day in the life of the Sergiev Posad orphanage for the deaf-blind and our church. He read, surprised that he knows nothing about the church and the orphanage, although he is the trustee of the Lavra. Arriving, he saw who works here, saw a sketch. He realized that the drawings must come to life.
And in 2006 it happened - construction began. In 2010 we already served in the new temple. Since December 2012, daily worship began. Since the autumn of last year, we have been one of the temples of the Lavra. More coming Finishing work, for example, the painting of the temple.
What is special about this temple that others do not?
There is a temple space that is maximally adapted for a sighted child, and for a blind, deaf, deaf-blind, and wheelchair user. Carved icons, for example, there are in all temples, they can be beautiful, but inaccessible: not at that height, without inscriptions. Here, almost all the icons the child can "examine with his hands." All detailing done bright color is understandable to the visually impaired.
In our church there is a teacher of the deaf (translator for the deaf) and a tiflopedagogue (interpreter for the deaf-blind). Children here are not a "herd of sheep": they brought and took away. Here they give everything to touch, explain the purpose, use, meaning.
We have a special iconostasis. Royal Doors, and on the sides of them there are windows that allow children to look inside the altar. That is, there is a connection between the temple and the altar. This is a rare design, such a "transparent" iconostasis is almost nowhere to be found, but Vladyka Theognost blessed it.
There is an open chapel of the holy blessed Matrona of Moscow. It is made so that the child can be near the throne. The service here is at a glance, in live contact. There is a sense of belonging, of belonging.
In the lower church of St. Luke of Simferopol and the Crimean font with a comfortable staircase is decorated different subjects associated with water. These are voluminous ceramic images that clearly show the history of the Church, and what significance water element In human life. The child learns the world through these bas-reliefs.
The icons are made at a certain level in height and all are signed in Braille. We try to fill the temple with three-dimensional icons. This is plaster, and stone, and wood. Children study a variety of materials, faces of saints. Martyr Tatyana with a censer, because she is her deaconess, Blessed Matrona with a rosary, because she prayed a lot, Blessed Xenia with a staff, because she traveled, St. Luke with a staff and medical instruments, because she is a doctor. Their life is told on icons. The children themselves tell about the lives of the saints.
How? Some kind of childish language?
We have children - those who can speak coherently - read sermons on the pulpit. They invest deep meaning in your monologues. Blind children sing in the kliros. The deaf serve on the altar and perform sex work in the church, helping the priest. The deaf help the blind, ring bells, open gates, carry candles. And over time, the child, being included in the divine service, learns the essence of the rites, understands why all this is being done. Previously, we went to the children from department to department and told them, but now, when there is a temple, the children themselves come or they are brought.
What age are the children in the temple?
From 3 to 18 years old. That is, some live here for quite a long time.
In order for a wheelchair user to get into the temple from the street, an extension was made. The upper temple has a separate ramp. There is a passage that connects the temple and Orphanage.
Veronika Leontyeva, one of the organizers of the festival of children's social institutions "Easter Joy", in the passage connecting the temple and the orphanage for the deaf-blind.
Not every church has both a large bell tower and a small one. We have wheelchairs can drive up to a small bell tower. There are mentors who can show them how to ring the bells and they can try it themselves.
In the transition we have a gallery where we make various exhibitions for both guests and children. For example, here are photos from the Easter Joy festival in 2012. Here are bells that each ring with their own sound, and figurines brought from different places. You can see them, touch them, call them.
Can children who participate in services, after graduation from the Orphanage, serve somewhere in the temple?
It is not known about everyone, but there is one student, a deaf person, who helps the priest near Petrozavodsk at the temple. However, not every priest knows how to deal with such people, not everyone knows the language of the deaf. The social environment is not adapted for such people. And the souls of people are not yet adapted to the perception of such people.
For example, we set up an experiment. Our graduates, blind, walked along the streets of Sergiev Posad, and at a distance from them walked a man who looked after them. And no matter who they turned to on the streets, in stores, no one refused, everyone helped. But in Alexandrov, such people could not even get to the museum. They wrote notes, but no one helped them, no one explained.
Are there only children from our Orphanage here?
No, it's for everyone. Created at the temple charitable foundation name St. Sergius Radonezh. The fund has been operating for seven years and covers all social institutions of the Sergiev Posad region. We communicate with the Buzhaninovsky orphanage, the Beryozka orphanage, and the boarding school in Zhuchki. Children love to come to us, especially on holidays. They come from Moscow.
In which architectural style temple built?
This is Pskov-Novgorod architecture, northern style. Hierodeacon Anthony began to build the temple, then under the name of Cyprian he went to the skete of St. Sergius. The construction was completed by Vyacheslav Nikolaevich Izhikov, an architect from Pereslavl, himself a wheelchair user.
But without a person, any temple remains inanimate. It all depends on the teacher who will lead to the temple, show, tell. It is important that some of the parishioners make friends with these children. Although it is a big responsibility.
The Third Festival of Children's Social Institutions "Easter Joy" is coming soon. Your children will take the stage of the Gagarin Palace. But it's stressful for them!
This can be called positive stress. Any child with a disability has abilities that can help him express himself. And this stage, the space for the meeting of different talents, gives children new opportunities to see their talent against the background of others, to learn. The child feels a holiday and feels that he is needed, that he is not alone, but with everyone together. And this makes the child happy.
How do you feel about the recent ban on the adoption of Russian children by foreigners?
It cannot be said that all the children who are adopted and all the disabled who are provided with qualified assistance abroad, unhappy. We also have many examples of mistreatment of children, not only by foster parents, but also by relatives. There are kinks everywhere. You can not solve political issues on the negative example of several children. This is not taking care of children, but manipulating children in some one's own interests.
Now the state seems to have woken up, there has been more attention to children with disabilities.
Yes, but the main thing is not decided. For more than seven years we have been working in contact with children's institutions and we understand that the most a big problem are graduates. They won't be hungry. But what should they do? How can a person with a disability live alone, when he has no family, no one needs him, when no one wants to bother with him at work? Drink? Vegetate? Therefore, we are now building a parish house where those who have reached the age of majority could live and work. But this is a separate big topic.
Igor Borisov
Father Meliton, biography facts:
1974 - was born in Brest, Belarus, secular name Sergei Prisada.
Late 1980s- interest in literature about the soul. A schoolteacher gives reading "Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future" by Seraphim Rose, a monk who experienced the world's religions and realized that the true religion is Orthodoxy.
1990s- the army, studying at the Pedagogical Institute, work at school, at the same time - work at the Sunday school.
1998 - a visit to Elder Nicholas on the island of Zalit, Pskov region, which became decisive in his fate.
1999 - admission to the Seminary in Sergiev Posad.
2004 — the blessing of the confessor of the Lavra Father Cyril on monastic vows.
2005 - appointment as rector of the house church at the Sergiev Posad Orphanage, which soon acquired its own walls.
An orphanage is a place where there are kind educators who replace mom and dad. What's next? Boarding school and life without hope for the best? What can await such children, and in the future - adults, established people? They can wait new house where they will be loved and always considered family. Compound "Grace" near Kineshma is exactly the place where people need each other, where they learn to work, participate in church life and receive "the best therapy of life."
By The court "Grace" in the Kineshma district of the Ivanovo region has existed for about ten years thanks to Hieromonk Meliton (Prisada). With the blessing of the well-known elder Archimandrite Kirill (Pavlov), Father Meliton for several years previously fed the orphanages of the Sergiev Posad region for disabled children and all this time brought the children here, to the Volga, so that they could rest and gain strength. It's no secret that graduates of such orphanages, as a rule, end up in boarding schools for the disabled, and their lives practically end there. In order to somehow correct this injustice, this farmstead was created, where children could live permanently, working and relaxing in the fresh air, in an atmosphere of love and care.
In the care of little Sonya - care for animals. In addition to cats and dogs, a horse, goats and chickens live in the shelter. Photo by Vladimir Eshtokin
In the village of Vorobyetsovo, Father Meliton bought a house and a large plot of land, and soon the first tenants moved in here - former pupils of orphanages in the Sergiev Posad district. Today, 8 people live in the shelter "Blagodat". They came here in different ways, each of them has its own destiny, its own history. Many of them are already adults, but Father Meliton calls them all children. The youngest here is 7-year-old Gleb, the oldest is 38-year-old Lyuba. Gradually, from a kind of children's camp, the shelter became a home for adults who were not needed by their relatives. A home where these people can live peacefully and happily, work and help each other. “We just do what we can,” Father Meliton says. He could shelter two dozen needy, and two hundred, but, unfortunately, now there is not enough strength and money. In the meantime, Father Meliton helps those few people whom he himself has known for a long time and whom he speaks of as his children.
Daily after evening prayer residentssmall communities make procession around its territory. Mother Paraskeva - " right hand» Meliton's father has been at the shelter almost from the very beginning. A former hairdresser, one day she decided to devote herself entirely to caring for disabled children and came to Vorobyetsovo.
Common house, common household, common prayer- all the inhabitants of the farmstead live as one family.
Lyuba exercises in the morning. She can easily exercise while sitting in a wheelchair, and her good physical shape helps her cope with household chores, from peeling potatoes in the kitchen to preparing firewood. Once Lyuba came here to visit - and stayed forever.
Evening fire is a good tradition in the shelter. It is bred right near the house on the high bank of the Volga, and guests are always welcome by its fire. Unfortunately, there is no opportunity to accommodate everyone who wants to come here yet, but the construction of another house is already in full swing.
In the shelter, as in every family, everyone has their own duties and everyone works to the best of their strength and skills. Andrew makes candles. Deaf-mute from birth, he tries to do his job well. Making candles is a laborious process and requires care and concentration.
Vika is deaf. Her main and favorite pastime in the Podvorie is horse care.
The blind Denis has an unusually developed hearing. He plays the button accordion quite well, and sometimes even tries to master other instruments.
All the inhabitants of the Metochion visit the temple of Sergius of Radonezh in the village of Dolmatovsky, the rector of which is Father Meliton.
Help the shelter "Grace":
FCB "Investtorgbank" (PJSC) "Kineshma", Kineshma
Recipient: local religious organization Parish of the church of St. Sergius of Radonezh in the village of Dolmatovsky, Zavolzhsky district, Ivanovo region, Kineshma diocese of Russia Orthodox Church(Moscow Patriarchy)
BIC 042406782
TIN 3703990195
checkpoint 370301001
f/s 30101810924060000782 at the RCC
Kineshma, Central Bank of the Russian Federation
r/s 40703810302020000009
Address: 155422, Ivanovo region, Zavolzhsky district, Dolmatovskoe p/o, Vorobyetsovo village,Compound "Grace".
An unusual family lives in the village of Vorobyetsovo, Ivanovo Region, where there are children who are blind, deaf, and lame. They run the household themselves, grow what then goes to their table, and take care of pets. Head of family - Hieromonk Meliton (Prisada). Father Meliton told Pravmir about what and how, on what means children live in his family.
The Best Therapy
Children in orphanages are brought up by consumers who believe that everything comes to them by itself. What we are doing is just rehabilitation and therapy from consumerism and idleness in the city walls. In the city, a child can be taken in a circle only once or twice a week. Here, children work in order to sit down at the table and eat something. To do this, they weed the beds, water the cucumbers, tomatoes in the greenhouse. They understand how it all comes.
We even had a practice when the blind planted potatoes. We drove in two pegs, pulled a string between them, gave a simple handle in our hands, a shovel, a basket of potatoes. And two blind men calmly made a hole along this thread, planted potatoes there, trampled it with their feet. Then we collected five sacks of potatoes from two baskets.
Sometimes a unique blind guy from Tver comes to visit us, who works with an ax on his own. Even when three volunteers came to us - a guy from Moscow to take care of our disabled people, he surpassed them, the sighted ones, in chopping firewood, doing this work faster and better than they did.
He calmly handles a drill, a grinder. When we were doing repairs, they upholstered the house with clapboard, skinned logs, and collected firewood. It is clear that everyone can master this or that work to a different extent if there is an adult nearby who can teach and show.
If the child refuses to do something, he is deprived of what this work is for. For example, we pick berries, the child is lazy, which means that he will receive exactly as many berries as he has collected, while others will eat plenty. This is how children learn to evaluate the result of their work in a visual way. You can’t even pull a fish out of a pond without effort - here they are, if they don’t put in the work, they don’t pull it out and put it on a plate.
Sometimes a bad example comes from outside. Somehow, five 12-13-year-old youths came to us, and each of them was going to help another child. And it turned out that our disabled people were more trained and accustomed to work than those who came to help them as a volunteer.
Once, two wheelchair users, practically unable to use their legs, together carried a whole stack of firewood in two days, which five healthy “home” children were unable to do. Disabled people sometimes show such an example of a feat, overcoming themselves. And children from ordinary families often turn out to be spoiled, not ready for the slightest effort. Ours, looking at them, sometimes begin to behave the same way.
This is painstaking work - to repeat the child ten times so that he fulfills the request for the eleventh time. Or ten times to repeat with him the work that he does not succeed in order to succeed in the end.
In general, this is the scourge of all modern children - their emotional-volitional sphere is weakened. And the rest - individually with each child. Some people like to care for a horse, someone likes to walk with dogs. If you walk with dogs, then after that we comb them, clean them in the aviary, and on a walk you need to make sure that they do not drag the birds.
"Moms, Dads and Grandmas"
In our small parish rural family, people serve and work who have become mothers and fathers for children, and not “visitors” who came one-time, gave them sweets, toys and left with a sense of accomplishment. They do not go away for the weekend, do not work in shifts - they are constantly with the children, as parents should. They gave the children the main gift - they gave themselves, their time.
Several people were originally volunteers, volunteers and chose to stay with the children. One such assistant, who came five years ago to work with the disabled, has already become a nun Paraskeva - We had our first monastic vows during Lent. In addition to her, we have two more sisters of mercy - Natalya Banko and Margarita Gavi - a teacher and regent in the temple.
By the way, our pupils participate in church life, in divine services. A girl with cerebral palsy sings in the kliros, a blind boy sings, serves on the altar, reads sermons.
AT Everyday life children actively help each other: they read to the blind, they accompany the one who cannot move independently. The elders look after the younger ones, the younger ones help the elders in what they are weak in.
It turns out such a big family, where the beaten one is lucky.
The material side of life
Some children and adults have their own pension - a small one, from five to eight thousand rubles. That is, these are some minimal means of subsistence. And basically we live on donations, as in principle the whole Church exists on tithing. So we exist on some kind of conditional tithing from our good friends and like-minded people who know about our activities, about our needs, help to make the living conditions for children comfortable, convenient for the disabled.
It all started with the fact that we just bought a collective farm house for two families. Although the house is loudly said, it was a barn. Gradually, over the course of about seven years, everything improved. Now we have three houses. Girls live in one. In the other, boys. In the third - friends, guests can stay. And in the temple we create an almshouse: sometimes they live with us elderly people- one or two grandmothers whose own children are alcoholics and behave inappropriately. At the time of such inadequate behavior, they move to us.
There are also three men living with us, by virtue of different circumstances who are here, who help us run the household and teach the children how to do it.
On the this moment we have got an apiary, we are trying to collect honey. We also have birds - chickens, geese, turkeys, pheasants, guinea fowls, such a poultry yard. Plus the barnyard - goats, sheep, lambs. Recently, a horse appeared - in order to be able to engage in hippotherapy in the future.
There is a garden, a garden, where children can also learn independence if they wish. In general, I believe that rural life is the best therapy. Here healthy lifestyle life that they planted, they gathered it, and put it on a plate and ate it. This is important when children see what is produced from their labors.
Grandmothers also help - one embroiders icons, the other makes candles, they cook food.
An ordinary day for an extraordinary family
We have a teacher, Natalya, who takes care of children. She and the regent in the temple. Our daily routine is as follows: get up in the morning, exercise, then morning prayer and then breakfast. Then there are some things the children have to do: walk the dogs, clean the aviary, feed the animals. Recently we were given a ferret, a hedgehog, a guinea pig. And now, a petting zoo has been created for all our goats, sheep, lambs, horses. Children are in constant communication with the animal world and learn to take care of it.
Then there are classes for adult children, for example, music. One boy is learning to play the button accordion. A girl with cerebral palsy is engaged in vocals. A deaf-mute girl learns to draw. All of them, when there are no holidays, study at the school of arts in the city of Zavolzhsk - they go to lessons twice a week. Once a week they go to a general education rural school for lessons Orthodox culture. On Sundays they attend Sunday school at the church. They read lives, interesting and useful books together with the teacher. Our children expand their horizons - read books, watch movies.
During the summer holidays, children from Zavolzhsk come to us, live with us - someone for a week, someone for a month, someone all summer. Especially the older children, as volunteers they take care of the little ones and the disabled. They walk with them through the forest, picking mushrooms and berries.
Our family goes on pilgrimage trips - to nearby and distant cities. Children participate in various festivals of children's creativity of the disabled, in concerts that we organize.
As usual in families, we receive guests. Friendly families with disabled children come to us from Sergiev Posad, from Moscow, from other cities. Also, some shelters come to us for holidays. Recently, we visited the Nikolo-Shartomskaya gymnasium, the Rozhdestvensky shelter from the Kaluga region, the Polar Star family shelter from Moscow visited us.
honey story
Ten years ago, when I had just received the obedience to take care of orphanages in the Sergiev Posad region, the cellar of the Lavra, who is now Metropolitan Aristarkh of Kemerovo, came to the Sergiev Posad orphanage. Here he, while still hegumen Aristarchus, came to visit and asked a group of children who were at that time in the temple: what kind of gifts would they like. They began to ask who what - a doll, a car, sweets and so on. And one boy said: "I want honey." This surprised the cellarer, and he suggested to me: “Come to my warehouse today, I will give a jar of honey for your child.”
On the same day, I went to another Lavra skete, where we took candles. I load candles for the temple, and after that they offer me, although I didn’t even ask: “Do you want honey, father, we can treat you with honey.” I say: “Great, I won’t have to go to another warehouse, I’ll get everything here.” I took my little bag, went to the warehouse for honey. They say to me: "Father, drive up in a car." And they loaded me with 93 three-liter jars of honey. That is, at the request of one blind man little boy On the same day, the Lord immediately sent so much honey that it was enough for all the orphanages in the Sergiev Posad region.
Interestingly, over the past ten years, honey has been coming in constantly, as soon as it runs out - parcels from absolutely different people, from different places: who is a box, who is a whole can, who is a couple of jars of honey.
When I moved to countryside, there was a dream that the honey was his own, especially the name Meliton is translated as filled with honey. We started an apiary. Now we have 10 hives. One of them was donated by local grandmothers. Eight more hives came to us from Volokolamsk - someone left, sold the parental home, there was a living apiary. They found out about us and brought her to us for as much as 600 kilometers. And we began to master the science of beekeeping.
We share the received honey, and the more we share, the more it is brought to us.
With material means the same as with honey. We do not have any permanent government subsidies. The Lord sends funds exactly as much as is necessary for the life of children. There were one or two children - there were so many funds. Seven children appeared - the Lord sends that there is enough for each child. Of course, these receipts are never possible to predict or plan a permanent budget.
For all three houses, we dug a new well, brought water, so that the children would not have to go far for water. Although children, including the blind, used to go on sleds in winter, in summer they went for water for half a kilometer on a cart. They warmed her in basins, in barrels to wash.
We use every opportunity to create all conveniences. Made bathrooms - put septic tanks.
Before starting to dig a well, a prayer service was served. When work had already begun, the workers stumbled upon three springs at once. The workers themselves were surprised - a rare case when they fall on one spring, they consider it good luck, and we have three springs at once ... That is, out of 12 rings, we have 5 rings in the water all the time.
This is how the Lord hears the prayers of disabled children.
About warm water and a ramp
I would like to find funds to better equip the life of children. For example, we have already done wooden decking around all the houses and handrails so that any disabled child: in a wheelchair, blind, lame could move absolutely independently throughout the territory.
I wanted to make a similar system between greenhouses, a poultry yard, a barnyard, summer kitchen and other buildings so that children have the opportunity to move independently.
Transport always remains an urgent problem, given our Russian off-road.
Since we have a large family, one wonderful person, imbued with the needs of the farmstead, presented us with a seven-seater car for city driving. And in the village we also use UAZ, which we constantly repair. Therefore, we are looking for some kind of opportunity, together with the children we pray that there will be another car that we could drive to the temple, to the city, to lessons, everywhere. Because if, for example, I leave by car, then everyone who lives in the courtyard - about a dozen people - remains without a means of transportation: neither to the store, nor to the temple.
We have run the water, now we need to heat it up - we need electric boilers in every house so that the children have hot water(Houses themselves are heated with firewood).
In our community, there are an average of 15 people who need to be fed every day, who need to wash their clothes (the children need to buy them), and so on. The maintenance of all people, according to our approximate estimates, requires about 150 thousand rubles a month in order to maintain the viability of the farmstead. This includes the maintenance of transport, and the salary of those people who have completely devoted themselves to this service. It's the kind of job where you don't have weekends or lunch time. You just work around the clock as mom, dad, grandma, grandpa for everyone.
Being good specialists and having the opportunity to earn much more in other conditions, here they receive 10-15 thousand rubles each. And this living wage is simply necessary to support their families - sick parents, their sick children.
We also need a refrigerator. In addition to the fact that we dug out a cellar so that we could store some supplies: now we are pickling cucumbers, we are making preparations from tomatoes, we are drying mushrooms, we are knitting brooms. For all this, utility rooms are needed. These are also resources.
There is always a need for a vacuum cleaner - such equipment in rural conditions does not last long: the vacuum cleaner only lives in the summer, then it completely clogs up. Other equipment is also needed - a chainsaw, a lawn mower. We had a chainsaw, but somewhere we hit a nail and that's it, we need to change or repair it.
And that's just household expenses. As for all the workshops that we are trying to renovate, they have completely different estimates, completely different costs. Or, for example, a man came to us and said: "I want to help you make a museum of Russian life." Here he comes to us, helps to repair the room where the museum will be, invests.
Another person comes and says: “I want to equip a classroom where Sunday School is engaged, because my children also want to go here. And he helps to renovate the Sunday class room, to buy some furniture for the children. Someone wants to help in the temple, decorate some utensils. And man decorates the temple.
You live all the time in a state: “Lord, have mercy, Lord, help, support,” because you are not on a budget when you know that a specific amount will come every month, but you live by faith and hope that the Lord will send everything you need. It is clear that you are doing something for this: you print booklets, open a window on Facebook, invite someone or organize charity concerts somewhere so that people come and raise some funds. You walk, you pray, you sigh, you worry. And this is not called fatigue, this is constant tension. No time to relax.
To say that children are not upset - yes, they are upset. Yes, they don't listen. Yes, they do what they say Holy Scripture when ten people were healed and one of them gave thanks. Everything is one to one. And Cain envies Abel, and brother sells brother for stew. All biblical thoughts you experience in real life- and disappointments, and, conversely, some joyful events.
It is clear that when adults work seven days a week, there can also be problems, tension: everyone needs some time when they need to retire, relax, change the environment in order to work further. Therefore, we try to send our employees on vacation. Here is one of our nun, originally from Yakutia, went to Kamchatka - she needs an active, missionary vacation. Another employee needs to be sent somewhere for treatment, to improve her health. Now a blind singer has come to us from Minsk, we have known her for ten years. She teaches our blind musician to play, our girl - vocal skills. I wanted to thank her for her work and work, and we made her dream come true - we took her to Jerusalem.
The children dreamed of a horse, I posted an ad on Facebook. And the minimum price for this dream is 50 thousand rubles. And it was necessary to bring this dream. Absolutely stranger I just read it, he liked this childhood dream. And he decided to make it happen. The woman made an announcement on Facebook: “Those who want to congratulate me on my 33 years, do not spend extra money on extra gifts. A gift for me will be the fulfillment of a childhood dream.
She began to raise funds, and in two weeks they raised money for a horse. And she did not come to celebrate her 33 years in France, as is customary among her friends, but to us, to a rural house, to unfamiliar children, to an unfamiliar priest, and brought funds to fulfill their dream.
Our needs can be listed for a very long time: both for two churches and for the courtyard. Better to see once than hear a hundred times. Therefore, we try to be open to the arrival of people, we are ready to receive a certain number of guests with their families or some shelters that can come, stay in good location, on the banks of the Volga, relax, work hard, pray together in the temple, travel to nearby holy places. And we can help organize such leisure and recreation. We not only talk about what we need, but also about what we ourselves can give and offer for our part to those who come to us. Therefore, we are happy to invite all caring people to visit.
after graduating from the seminary, he took care of orphanages in the Sergiev Posad district of the Moscow region, including an orphanage for the deaf-blind, where a new church was built, in which daily services began in 2010.
Two years ago he moved to the Ivanovo region.
In early December 2013, by decree of the Patriarch, with the blessing of confessor Elijah (Nozdrin), Hieromonk Meliton was appointed to the Kineshma diocese to work with the disabled. But he has known this place for ten years already, it was here, with the blessing of Father Kirill (Pavlov), that he then moved his parents.
In 2013, a church was organized here in the name of St. Sergius of Radonezh in the village of Dolmatovsky. A year and a half later, a new church was laid in a nearby village in honor of the icon Mother of God"Unexpected Joy". At the church of St. Sergius, workshops, a Sunday school, and a museum of Russian life are planned. A start has already been made, work is underway to create a ceramic workshop, a carpentry workshop, a sewing workshop, and a candle workshop. There are plans to open a bakery and a prosphora shop so that disabled children have an opportunity to find a job.
Who lives in the house
Previously, for ten years, children came here only for holidays - winter, summer, spring and autumn. They brought children from orphanages to live in family conditions. Graduates of orphanages also came to learn how to live independently.
Now children in the rural parish house of rehabilitation and social adaptation of accompanied living for the disabled, graduates of orphanages and orphans with disabilities live permanently. This is their home.
A blind boy from the Kaliningrad region lives here - he was brought by relatives who came to live with him. They just are the organizers of the carpentry workshop and art studio.
Among the inhabitants of the house is also a deaf and mute girl Victoria from the Sergiev Posad Orphanage for the Deaf and Blind. Her brother, seven-year-old Gleb, lives with her, over whom Hieromonk Meliton has custody: his parents are imprisoned, deprived of parental rights. But they asked that the child be with Father Meliton so that they would have the opportunity to visit him after his release. Because there was a strong possibility that he would be adopted and they would never see their child again.
And also 23-year-old Anya with cerebral palsy, a graduate of the Sergiev Posad orphanage-boarding school "Birch". When she was transferred to a psycho-neurological boarding school, she expressed her desire to move to Vorobyetsovo. Now her friend from the boarding school Evgeny is also going to move there.
Among the inhabitants of the home shelter is Andrey, an adult deaf and mute graduate of the Sergiev Posad orphanage. He has been living here for almost 10 years.
Six-year-old Sofia from Sergiev Posad was brought by her grandmother: she is raising five more grandchildren and simply cannot cope.
That is, in the two years that have passed since Hieromonk Meliton moved from Sergiev Posad to the Ivanovo region, seven people have appeared in the shelter who live here permanently. And two more people are going to move here in the near future.
Children in orphanages are brought up by consumers who believe that everything comes to them by itself. What we are doing is just rehabilitation and therapy from consumerism and idleness in the city walls. In the city, a child can be taken in a circle only once or twice a week. Here, children work in order to sit down at the table and eat something. To do this, they weed the beds, water the cucumbers, tomatoes in the greenhouse. They understand how it all comes.
We even had a practice when the blind planted potatoes. We drove in two pegs, pulled a string between them, gave a simple handle in our hands, a shovel, a basket of potatoes. And two blind men calmly made a hole along this thread, planted potatoes there, trampled it with their feet. Then we collected five sacks of potatoes from two baskets.
Sometimes a unique blind guy from Tver comes to visit us, who works with an ax on his own. Even when three volunteers came to us - a guy from Moscow to take care of our disabled people, he surpassed them, the sighted ones, in chopping firewood, doing this job faster and better than they did.
He calmly handles a drill, a grinder. When we were doing repairs, they upholstered the house with clapboard, skinned logs, and collected firewood. It is clear that everyone can master this or that work to a different extent if there is an adult nearby who can teach and show.
If the child refuses to do something, he is deprived of what this work is for. For example, we pick berries, the child is lazy, which means that he will receive exactly as many berries as he has collected, while others will eat plenty. This is how children learn to evaluate the result of their work in a visual way. You can’t even pull a fish out of a pond without effort - here they are this fish, if they don’t put in the work, they don’t pull it out and put it on a plate.
Sometimes a bad example comes from outside. Somehow, five 12-13-year-old youths came to us, and each of them was going to help another child. And it turned out that our disabled people were more trained and accustomed to work than those who came to help them as a volunteer.
Once, two wheelchair users, practically unable to use their legs, together carried a whole stack of firewood in two days, which five healthy “home” children were unable to do. Disabled people sometimes show such an example of a feat, overcoming themselves. And children from ordinary families often turn out to be spoiled, not ready for the slightest effort. Ours, looking at them, sometimes begin to behave the same way.
This is painstaking work - to repeat the child ten times so that he fulfills the request for the eleventh time. Or ten times to repeat with him the work that he does not succeed in order to succeed in the end.
In general, this is the scourge of all modern children - their emotional-volitional sphere is weakened. And the rest - individually with each child. Some people like to care for a horse, someone likes to walk with dogs. If you walk with dogs, then after that we comb them, clean them in the aviary, and on a walk you need to make sure that they do not drag the birds.
"Moms, Dads and Grandmas"
In our small parish rural family, people serve and work who have become mothers and fathers for children, and not “visitors” who came one-time, gave them sweets, toys and left with a sense of accomplishment. They don’t go on weekends, they don’t work in shifts – they are always with their children, as parents should. They gave the children the main gift - they gave themselves, their time.
Several people were originally volunteers, volunteers and chose to stay with the children. One such helper, who came five years ago to work with the disabled, has already become a nun Paraskeva—We had our first monastic vows during Lent. In addition to her, we have two more sisters of mercy - Natalya Banko and Margarita Gavi - a teacher and regent in the temple.
By the way, our pupils participate in church life, in divine services. A girl with cerebral palsy sings in the kliros, a blind boy sings, serves on the altar, reads sermons.
In everyday life, children actively help each other: they read to the blind, they accompany the one who cannot move independently. The elders look after the younger ones, the younger ones help the elders in what they are weak in.
It turns out such a big family, where the beaten one is lucky.
The material side of life
Some children and adults have their own pension - a small one, from five to eight thousand rubles. That is, these are some minimal means of subsistence. And basically we live on donations, as in principle the whole Church exists on tithing. So we exist on some kind of conditional tithing from our good friends and like-minded people who know about our activities, about our needs, help to make the living conditions for children comfortable, convenient for the disabled.
It all started with the fact that we just bought a collective farm house for two families. Although the house is loudly said, it was a barn. Gradually, over the course of about seven years, everything improved. Now we have three houses. Girls live in one. The other one is boys. In the third - friends, guests can stay. And in the temple we create an almshouse: sometimes elderly people live with us - one or two grandmothers, whose own children are alcoholics and behave inappropriately. At the time of such inadequate behavior, they move to us.
We also have three men living here who, due to various circumstances, ended up here, who help us run the household and teach our children how to do it.
At the moment we have got an apiary, we are trying to collect honey. We also have birds - chickens, geese, turkeys, pheasants, guinea fowls, such a poultry yard. Plus a barnyard - goats, sheep, lambs. Recently, a horse appeared - in order to be able to engage in hippotherapy in the future.
There is a garden, a garden, where children can also learn independence if they wish. In general, I believe that rural life is the best therapy. Here, a healthy lifestyle is planted, then harvested, and put on a plate and eaten. This is important when children see what is produced from their labors.
Grandmothers also help - one embroiders icons, the other makes candles, they cook food.
An ordinary day for an extraordinary family
We have a teacher, Natalya, who takes care of children. She and the regent in the temple. Our daily routine is as follows: get up in the morning, exercise, then morning prayer, then breakfast. Then there are some things the children have to do: walk the dogs, clean the aviary, feed the animals. Recently we were given a ferret, a hedgehog, a guinea pig. And now, a petting zoo has been created for all our goats, sheep, lambs, horses. Children are in constant communication with the animal world and learn to take care of it.
Then there are classes for adult children, for example, music. One boy is learning to play the button accordion. A girl with cerebral palsy is engaged in vocals. A deaf-mute girl learns to draw. All of them, when there are no holidays, study at the school of arts in the city of Zavolzhsk - they go to lessons twice a week. Once a week they go to a general education rural school for lessons in Orthodox culture. On Sundays they attend Sunday school at the church. They read lives, interesting and useful books together with the teacher. Our children expand their horizons - read books, watch movies.
During the summer holidays, children from Zavolzhsk come to us, live with us - someone for a week, someone for a month, someone all summer. Especially the older children, as volunteers they take care of the little ones and the disabled. They walk with them through the forest, picking mushrooms and berries.
Our family goes on pilgrimage trips to nearby and distant cities. Children participate in various festivals of children's creativity of the disabled, in concerts that we organize.
As usual in families, we receive guests. Friendly families with disabled children come to us from Sergiev Posad, from Moscow, from other cities. Also, some shelters come to us for holidays. Recently, we visited the Nikolo-Shartomskaya gymnasium, the Rozhdestvensky shelter from the Kaluga region, the Polar Star family shelter from Moscow visited us.
honey story
Ten years ago, when I had just received the obedience to take care of orphanages in the Sergiev Posad region, the cellar of the Lavra, who is now Metropolitan Aristarkh of Kemerovo, came to the Sergiev Posad orphanage. Here he, while still hegumen Aristarchus, came to visit and asked a group of children who were at that time in the temple: what kind of gifts would they like. They began to ask who what - a doll, a car, sweets and so on. And one boy said: "I want honey." This surprised the cellarer, and he suggested to me: “Come to my warehouse today, I will give a jar of honey for your child.”
On the same day, I went to another Lavra skete, where we took candles. I load candles for the temple, and after that they offer me, although I didn’t even ask: “Do you want honey, father, we can treat you with honey.” I say: “Great, I won’t have to go to another warehouse, I’ll get everything here.” I took my little bag, went to the warehouse for honey. They say to me: "Father, drive up in a car." And they loaded me with 93 three-liter jars of honey. That is, at the request of one blind little boy, the Lord immediately sent so much honey on the same day that it was enough for all the orphanages in the Sergiev Posad region.
Interestingly, over the past ten years, honey has been coming in constantly, as soon as it runs out - parcels from completely different people, from different places: some in a box, some a whole can, some a couple of jars of honey.
When I moved to the countryside, a dream appeared to have my own honey, especially since the name Meliton is translated as filled with honey. We started an apiary. Now we have 10 hives. One of them was donated by local grandmothers. Eight more hives came to us from Volokolamsk - someone left, sold the parental house, there was a living apiary. They found out about us and brought her to us for as much as 600 kilometers. And we began to master the science of beekeeping.
We share the received honey, and the more we share, the more it is brought to us.
With material means the same as with honey. We do not have any permanent government subsidies. The Lord sends funds exactly as much as is necessary for the life of children. There were one or two children - there were so many funds. Seven children appeared - the Lord sends that there is enough for each child. Of course, these receipts are never possible to predict or plan a permanent budget.
For all three houses, we dug a new well, brought water, so that the children would not have to go far for water. Although children, including the blind, used to go on sleds in winter, in summer they went for water for half a kilometer on a cart. They warmed her in basins, in barrels to wash.
We use every opportunity to create all conveniences. They made bathrooms - put septic tanks.
Before starting to dig a well, a prayer service was served. When work had already begun, the workers stumbled upon three springs at once. The workers themselves were surprised - a rare case when they fall on one spring, they consider it good luck, but we have three springs at once ... That is, out of 12 rings, we have 5 rings in the water all the time.
This is how the Lord hears the prayers of disabled children.
About warm water and a ramp
I would like to find funds to better equip the life of children. For example, we have already made wooden flooring around all the houses and handrails so that any disabled child: in a wheelchair, the blind, the lame, can move absolutely independently throughout the territory.
I wanted to make a similar system between greenhouses, a poultry yard, a barnyard, a summer kitchen and other buildings, so that children would be able to move around on their own.
Transport always remains an urgent problem, given our Russian off-road.
Since we have a large family, one wonderful person, imbued with the needs of the farmstead, presented us with a seven-seater car for city driving. And in the village we also use UAZ, which we constantly repair. Therefore, we are looking for some kind of opportunity, together with the children we pray that there will be another car that we could drive to the temple, to the city, to lessons, everywhere. Because if, for example, I leave by car, then everyone who lives in the courtyard, about a dozen people, is left without a means of transportation: neither to the store, nor to the temple.
We got the water, now we need to heat it up - we need electric boilers in every house so that the children have hot water (the houses themselves are heated with wood).
In our community, there are an average of 15 people who need to be fed every day, who need to wash their clothes (the children need to buy them), and so on. The maintenance of all people, according to our approximate estimates, requires about 150 thousand rubles a month in order to maintain the viability of the farmstead. This includes the maintenance of transport, and the salary of those people who have completely devoted themselves to this service. It's the kind of job where you don't have weekends or lunch time. You just work around the clock as mom, dad, grandma, grandpa for everyone.
Being good specialists and having the opportunity to earn much more in other conditions, here they receive 10-15 thousand rubles each. And this living wage is simply necessary to support their families - sick parents, their sick children.
We also need a refrigerator. In addition to the fact that we dug out a cellar so that we could store some supplies: now we are pickling cucumbers, we are making preparations from tomatoes, we are drying mushrooms, we are knitting brooms. For all this, utility rooms are needed. These are also resources.
There is always a need for a vacuum cleaner - such equipment in rural conditions does not last long: the vacuum cleaner only lives in the summer, then it completely clogs up. Other equipment is also needed - a chainsaw, a lawn mower. We had a chainsaw, but somewhere we hit a nail and that's it, we need to change or repair it.
And that's just household expenses. As for all the workshops that we are trying to renovate, they have completely different estimates, completely different costs. Or, for example, a man came to us and said: "I want to help you make a museum of Russian life." Here he comes to us, helps to repair the room where the museum will be, invests.
Another person comes and says: “I want to equip a class where Sunday school is held, because my children also want to go here.” And he helps to renovate the Sunday class room, to buy some furniture for the children. Someone wants to help in the temple, decorate some utensils. And man decorates the temple.
You live all the time in a state: “Lord, have mercy, Lord, help, support,” because you are not on a budget when you know that a specific amount will come every month, but you live by faith and hope that the Lord will send everything you need. It is clear that you are doing something for this: you print booklets, open a window on Facebook, invite someone or organize charity concerts somewhere so that people come and raise some funds. You walk, you pray, you sigh, you worry. And this is not called fatigue, this is constant tension. No time to relax.
To say that children are not upset - yes, they are upset. Yes, they don't listen. Yes, they do what the scripture says when ten people are healed and one of them gives thanks. Everything is one to one. And Cain envies Abel, and brother sells brother for stew. You experience all biblical thoughts in real life - both disappointments and, conversely, some joyful events.
It is clear that when adults work seven days a week, there can also be problems, tension: everyone needs some time when they need to retire, relax, change the environment in order to work further. Therefore, we try to send our employees on vacation. Here is one of our nun, originally from Yakutia, went to Kamchatka - she needs an active, missionary vacation. Another employee needs to be sent somewhere for treatment, to improve her health. Now a blind singer has come to us from Minsk, we have known her for ten years. She teaches our blind musician to play, our girl - vocal skills. I wanted to thank her for her work and work, and we made her dream come true - we took her to Jerusalem.
The children dreamed of a horse, I posted an ad on Facebook. And the minimum price for this dream is 50 thousand rubles. And it was necessary to bring this dream. A complete stranger just read it, he liked this childhood dream. And he decided to make it happen. The woman made an announcement on Facebook: “Those who want to congratulate me on my 33 years, do not spend extra money on extra gifts. A gift for me will be the fulfillment of a childhood dream.
She began to raise funds, and in two weeks they raised money for a horse. And she did not come to celebrate her 33 years in France, as is customary among her friends, but to us, to a rural house, to unfamiliar children, to an unfamiliar priest, and brought funds to fulfill their dream.
Our needs can be listed for a very long time: both for two churches and for the courtyard. Better to see once than hear a hundred times. Therefore, we try to be open to the arrival of people, ready to receive a certain number of guests with their families or some shelters who can come, stay in a good place, on the banks of the Volga, relax, work hard, pray together in the temple, travel around the nearby holy places. And we can help organize such leisure and recreation. We not only talk about what we need, but also about what we ourselves can give and offer for our part to those who come to us. Therefore, we are happy to invite all caring people to visit.
after graduating from the seminary, he took care of orphanages in the Sergiev Posad district of the Moscow region, including an orphanage for the deaf-blind, where a new church was built, in which daily services began in 2010.
Two years ago he moved to the Ivanovo region.
In early December 2013, by decree of the Patriarch, with the blessing of confessor Elijah (Nozdrin), Hieromonk Meliton was appointed to the Kineshma diocese to work with the disabled. But he has known this place for ten years already, it was here, with the blessing of Father Kirill (Pavlov), that he then moved his parents.
In 2013, a church was organized here in the name of St. Sergius of Radonezh in the village of Dolmatovsky. A year and a half later, a new church was laid in a nearby village in honor of the icon of the Mother of God "Unexpected Joy". At the church of St. Sergius, workshops, a Sunday school, and a museum of Russian life are planned. A start has already been made, work is underway to create a ceramic workshop, a carpentry workshop, a sewing workshop, and a candle workshop. There are plans to open a bakery and a prosphora shop so that disabled children have the opportunity to find a job.
Who lives in the house
Previously, for ten years, children came here only for holidays - winter, summer, spring and autumn. They brought children from orphanages to live in family conditions. Graduates of orphanages also came to learn how to live independently.
Now children in the rural parish house of rehabilitation and social adaptation of accompanied living for the disabled, graduates of orphanages and orphans with disabilities live permanently. This is their home.
A blind boy from the Kaliningrad region lives here - he was brought by relatives who came to live with him. They just are the organizers of the carpentry workshop and art studio.
Among the inhabitants of the house is also a deaf and mute girl Victoria from the Sergiev Posad Orphanage for the Deaf and Blind. Her brother, seven-year-old Gleb, lives with her, over whom Hieromonk Meliton has custody: his parents are imprisoned, deprived of parental rights. But they asked that the child be with Father Meliton so that they would have the opportunity to visit him after his release. Because there was a strong possibility that he would be adopted and they would never see their child again.
And also 23-year-old Anya with cerebral palsy, a graduate of the Sergiev Posad orphanage-boarding school "Birch". When she was transferred to a psycho-neurological boarding school, she expressed her desire to move to Vorobyetsovo. Now her friend from the boarding school Evgeny is also going to move there.
Among the residents of the home shelter is Andrey, an adult deaf-mute graduate of the Sergiev Posad orphanage. He has been living here for almost 10 years.
Six-year-old Sofia from Sergiev Posad was brought by her grandmother: she is raising five more grandchildren and simply cannot cope.
That is, in the two years that have passed since Hieromonk Meliton moved from Sergiev Posad to the Ivanovo region, seven people have appeared in the shelter who live here permanently. And two more people are going to move here in the near future.
Kirill and Paraskeva
People gathered at the seminar different ages and professions. They were all united by one general idea- the desire to revive Orthodox family traditions. Looking ahead, I’ll say that the conversation turned out to be very interesting, thanks to the main character and speaker of the seminar, Father Meliton, and the sincere desire of those present to understand what traditional Orthodox family values are.
The evening was hosted by the famous public figure Hope Yushkina. She said that thanks to the efforts of Father Meliton, the farmstead “Blagodat” was organized in the village of Vorobyetsovo, Ivanovo Region, which became a home and a large Orthodox family for orphans, wheelchair users, graduates of boarding schools for children with disabilities. Nadezhda also shared her impressions of visiting the farmstead. Then the father took the floor.
Father Meliton told his vision of how to create an Orthodox family and what important aspects At the same time, attention should be paid to how to build a family according to the commandments of God, about the responsibility of parents before God, about morality in the Soviet and modern era. Father also told how to avoid collisions in family life, resolve conflict situations, how to achieve peace and understanding in marriage.
According to him, the Lord determined the headship of the husband in the family. “Because the husband is the head of the wife, just as Christ is the head of the Church, and He is also the Savior of the body: But as the Church is subject to Christ, so are wives to their husbands in everything” (Eph. 5:23-24). Therefore, Father Meliton stressed, the Orthodox family hierarchy looks like this: God the Father is the Creator, the father, the creator of the son, the mother who is "behind her husband." That is, the main dad in the house, he honors God, and mom listens to dad, she is married. When we instill in a child the basics of family life from childhood, which begin with a clear family hierarchy, when everything is in its place, then the child organically takes its place in the family. If we give a child freedom of choice: to respect or not to respect his father, to honor or not to honor his mother, whether to accept his sick sister - we have a violation of the highest moral moral value, honoring elders. And therefore, unfortunately, those who build our society without these moral traditional basic values lead society to the fact that brothers and sisters, if they turn out to be sick, they become unnecessary.
According to Father Meliton, hierarchy is the beginning of a healthy family tradition. God, husband, wife, children - in the system of such a hierarchy, the correct knowledge of the world, worldview begins to form.
At the end of the seminar, the priest answered numerous questions from those present.
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