Activity

The department for church charity and social service of the Moscow Patriarchate (DCCSS MP) was established according to the decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church (January 31, 1991; cf. Minutes, no. 29).

The DCCSS deals with organising, co-ordinating and developing the social service of the Church in parishes, dioceses and the whole canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The Department is chaired, ever since its establishment, by Sergei, Metropolitan of Voronezh and Borisoglebsk.

During the first period of its work, the Department was chiefly concerned with distributing the humanitarian aid (food, clothing and medicines) from Europe and USA. Later, it started to carry out its own social and charity projects aimed at helping the most vulnerable members of society, such as the homeless, the unemployed, refugees and forced migrants, large families, the elderly, disadvantaged children, orphans and the disabled irrespective of their political or religious beliefs.

At the same time, the Department's tasks presuppose more than just carrying out particular projects and allotting funds. Its main task and object is to become a centre of revival for the social service in parishes, dioceses, monasteries and of the Church as a whole. Therefore, since the very early stages of its work, the Department is in active co-operation with synodal institutions, diocesan administrations, monasteries and parishes, as well as inter-Church and charity organisations both at home and abroad.

The following projects have been organised by the Department:

1. Medical programmes:

   1.1 the Moscow Patriarchate St. Alexis Central Clinical Hospital (226 beds);
   1.2 alcohol misuse prevention programme (together with the diocese of Trento, Roman Catholic Church);
   1.3 visiting nurses service for the elderly;
   1.4 hospital churches.

2. Child-oriented programmes:

   2.1 boarding school for 80 disadvantaged children;
   2.2 aiding the orphans and disabled children though the Sts. Cosmas and Damian Charity Society and the St. Seraphim International Charity Centre;
   2.3 workshop producing surgical footwear and prosthetic appliances for disabled children;
   2.4 Children of Chernobyl programme, involving diagnose and treatment of 837 children in Italy (1993-1998)
   2.5 Shoes for Children programme, aimed at the wards of children's homes in 11 regions of Russia (2000-2002, $24,000)
   2.6 Helping Hand for Children programme (2004), aimed at supporting church and state children's homes in the cities of Saransk, Kostroma and Yaroslavl ($17,350);
   2.7 yearly Christmas parties and Easter celebrations in children's homes.

3. Hospice construction (24 beds).
4. Restoration of a wheelchair-friendly church.
5. Helping refugees and victims of natural disasters:

   5.1 the join project in Chechnya, Ingushetia and North Ossetia (in cooperation with International Orthodox Christian Charities, $1,974,000);
   5.2 helping the victims of the 1995 flood in Sakhalin ($5,000);
   5.3 helping refugees and forced migrants from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Moldavia, Chechnya;
   5.4 helping the victims of the 1998 terrorist attacks in Moscow and Volgodonsk ($3,000);
   5.5 distributing of 60 tons food among the victims of the 2001 flood in Yakutia ($67,000);
   5.6 helping the victims of the 2002 flood in the Krasnodar region (together with Renovabis, $25,000);
   5.7 financial and medical help to the victims of the 2004 Moscow Metro terrorist attack ($7,000).

6. Distributing humanitarian aid (food, clothing, shoes, medicines etc) together with International Orthodox Christian Charities:

   6.1 7500 tonnes of food in 11 regions of Russia among 1,500,000 people (1993-1994);
   6.2 90 tonnes of load in Chechnya (1995-1996);
   6.3 53,000 tonnes of food in 19 regions f Russia (1999-2002).
   The total cost of 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3 is over $60,000,000.
   6.4 Winter 2003-2004 project, involving distribution of blankets among the state and church social institutions in the dioceses of Barnaul, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Vologda, Saransk, Kostroma, Moscow, Chita, Birobijan, Murmansk, Vladivostok, Petropalvolsk and Petrozavodsk, planned to include the diocese of Kamchatka (total cost $200,000).

7. Development programmes:

   7.1 supplying equipment for mini-bakeries in the dioceses of Moscow and Kostroma and the Mordovian republic (2002-2003, $25,000).

8. Within the framework of long-term programmes involving the distribution of humanitarian aid, more than 90 people in 30 dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church were provided with jobs and stable salaries (1993-1996, 1999-2002).

In carrying out a range of projects, the Department leans for support on foreign church and ecumenical organisations, such as the World Council of Churches, Renovabis, Kirche in Not, the Lutheran World Federation, International Orthodox Christian Charities, Action Churches Together, the Episcopal Church in the United States of America etc. The Department distributes humanitarian aid among people irrespective of their confessional identity.