Monastery against sick children

DECEMBER 2, 2010 SVETLANA SOLDOVNIK

It became known that on January 12, 2011, the arbitration court was scheduled to consider the claim of the Holy Cross Convent (village of Lukino, Domodedovo district) against the “Childhood” rehabilitation center. The conflict between the children's rehabilitation center and the monastery has been going on for several years. Now the monastery is trying to seize the premises from the center through the court.

In Soviet times, on the monastery territory there was first a military hospital, then a tuberculosis sanatorium, later the only federal rehabilitation center for children in the country was opened nearby, which meets all the requirements of modern medicine (children with Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, mental retardation, schizophrenia, autism and other diagnoses). In 1992, 32 hectares out of 34 that belonged to the Ministry of Health were received by the monastery. Twelve out of fourteen buildings were transferred to him. Two buildings, a hospital and a clinic of the rehabilitation center, remained under the control of the current Ministry of Health and Social Development. The territory of the center turned out to be divided in two by monastery lands. In a straight line, it is very close from the hospital to the clinic, but the monastery does not allow walking on its territory - sick children have to walk a roundabout path of almost a kilometer.

In October, parents of sick children once again told Rossiyskaya Gazeta about this. In addition, the monastery is preventing the renovation of the hospital building, for which budget money has already been allocated: the monastery is an architectural monument, according to the law there must be a security zone around it, where the hospital building is located.

Church representatives insist on removing the center from the monastery territory and transferring the building to the monastery. The Ministry of Health claims that the rehabilitation center does not have space to accommodate the institutions located in this building. Tens of thousands of sick children pass through the center every year, and about 30 nuns at the Holy Cross Monastery.

The other day, Patriarch Kirill expressed his concern that positive changes in relations between the Church and the state are causing “an unfriendly reaction in many public circles.” The Patriarch called on the employees of the Synodal Department for Relations between the Church and Society to focus on neutralizing “these attacks against the Church.” But if things continue like this, it will be difficult for the employees.