"It looks subjectively bad. It's actually wonderful."

On the day that Vladimir Putin signed the “anti-orphan” law , Patriarch Kirill announced at a diocesan meeting that an agreement had been reached with the capital government to allocate places in the cemetery for orphans. “Currently, a plot of 0.45 hectares has been allocated at the Alabushevskoye cemetery in Moscow, which opened in October 2012. At the moment, the necessary documentation is being drawn up and a project for landscaping the plot is being developed,” the patriarch said.

The patriarch's statement caused an emotional response, especially on social networks. The law that prohibited the adoption of orphans by US citizens is already called “cannibalistic”, since it condemns many children to unbearable living conditions in Russian orphanages and deprives them of the chance for a normal family and a full life. The patriarch’s statement on the day the law was signed for many, judging by the responses of users and media on social networks (for example, Kommersant’s Facebook ), sounded like this: they say, look, but they have already prepared the land in the cemetery for orphans. Especially often, in connection with the patriarch’s statement, Facebook users quote a poem written in 2002 by Mikhail Gronas from the collection “Dear Orphans,” (see inset).

PublicPost asked Patriarch Kirill’s press secretary, deacon Alexander Volkov, why the church announced the availability of cemetery space for orphans on the day the “anti-orphan” amendments were signed.

— Why was the allocation of places in the cemetery for orphans announced on the day the law prohibiting the adoption of Russian orphans by Americans was signed? It looks as if these are places for those who will now not be adopted and will die in Russian orphanages.

You can take it any way you like. But I would like to emphasize that no one except the church is worried about such tragic and extraordinary, in fact, unpleasant and shameful for our society, which stands up for orphans, situations when our Russian orphans are left without the last debt of society, when they are thrown out literally in the trash, and no one thinks about how to bury them and care for their graves*. Therefore, to say that the statement may look like mockery is absurd.

It is a mockery that very important, pressing initiatives of the church in the social sphere are discussed in such a manner. Initiatives are being taken, but no one talks about them regularly. And only when a certain problem seems very significant to certain layers (not very large) of our society, do they have a desire to attribute the church to their inadequate ideas about what is good and what is bad. The Church, regardless of the state, regardless of what day the president signs certain laws, regularly, every day, is engaged in social work on a huge scale, including related to orphans, including those who are so unpleasant and shameful for our society in situations where no one except the church, none of the people who advocate for this law, cares about existing problems, including this one.

— How long ago was the decision made to allocate places in the cemetery for orphans?

From the government side, I cannot say when the decision was made, but the decision to initiate this process was made last year, at the last diocesan meeting, when social services raised this issue. Because no one except the church thinks about dead orphans and where to bury them. Of course, this question was raised and supported by the patriarch and the Moscow clergy. Throughout the year, the relevant services of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Moscow Diocese have been coordinating these issues with the Moscow government. The issue was resolved positively; it would be strange if it were resolved negatively. Yesterday, His Holiness the Patriarch announced this to the diocese. Indeed, a burial place has been allocated, and the social services of the church will help in such a sad but necessary matter for orphans, for children who have no parents in our society.

— You say that the initiative was proposed a year ago, why did everyone know about it on the day the law was signed? Somehow it doesn't work out well.

This looks subjectively bad. In fact, this is wonderful, precisely because it has nothing to do with the law. It refers to those unfortunate orphans who need to be buried. There is another aspect to this. It is due to the fact that the setting of the date for the diocesan meeting, the procedure for conducting it and the agenda are in no way coordinated with anyone, including the actions of the President of Russia. If the president signed some laws on this day, the church does not need to coordinate its actions, the announcement of certain accomplished things with what is happening now in the Kremlin. There is no need for this. I repeat once again that this is an artificially invented connection that actually does not exist. The diocesan meeting for this day was scheduled long ago.

More than one and a half thousand clergy gathered in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. It was they who supported the request last year to allocate a burial plot. It is completely natural and understandable that on this very day, precisely to these clergymen who asked him about it, the Patriarch informed that this issue had been resolved. It would be strange if, because of the signing of this or that law, the patriarch was forced to somehow hide the good deeds of the church and not report them to his clergy.

*In one of the orphanages in Moscow, PublicPost was told that money for the funeral of orphans is allocated by the Moscow Department of Social Protection of the Population as a separate line in the budget of the orphanage, and the funeral takes place in accordance with the Orthodox rite.