In March of this year, the priests of the Russian Orthodox Church began to be on duty at the hotline for cancer patients. We decided to find out how this happens and what the calling priests most often ask about from Archpriest Andrei Bliznyuk, curator of the group of priests on duty, cleric of the Moscow Church of St. Nicholas in Kuznetsy.

Archpriest Andrey Bliznyuk

A toll-free helpline for cancer patients and their relatives (8-800-100-0191) was opened by a group of individuals in June 2007, and since 2009 it has been operating within the framework of the non-profit organization “Project SO-Action”. After four years of work, specialists working on the project concluded: 20% of callers ask for answers to spiritual questions - about the meaning of life, the meaning of their illness, the meaning of suffering and faith in God. Then the decision arose to turn to the Russian Orthodox Church for help.

By blessing His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, a group of priests (20 people) was created who underwent special training and now receive calls from the hotline.

“The scheme of our work is simple,” says Father Andrey. — A hotline specialist contacts the priests who are on duty on a certain day and asks if we can now talk to the person who has a question. Then he connects us, and that’s it – the conversation takes place. Usually there are three priests from the group on duty, but if for some reason one of them cannot speak at the moment, the call goes to other priests.

You can call the CO-Action hotline from anywhere globe: according to Father Andrey, calls were received from America, from Africa, from Siberia: Bratsk, Irkutsk, and others remote from the capital settlements, - in general, from everywhere. The phone call is absolutely free - conversations can last a very long time, the issues discussed are very serious.

“It’s not just the patients themselves who call, their relatives also need help, who don’t understand what’s happening, feel sad, and don’t have the opportunity to talk to someone who will share their pain.

People are looking for consolation - that's what they call for the most part. Some people can’t come to church for some reason - they’re embarrassed, they don’t know when it’s best to do it, or where to start a conversation with a “live” priest - but it’s psychologically easier on the phone. It happens that people call who simply don’t have a place nearby Orthodox church and who are interested in specific questions: for example, how to prepare for confession, Communion, how to properly conduct the deceased on his last journey or ease the transition from life to death.

But most often the priests explain to callers how to correctly perceive death and departure loved one beyond the unknown:

— People are often in a panic that a quick separation is coming and communication with loved ones will stop - we explain that communication may be different, that there is no death, it is like a dream. Basically, this is what people are talking about,” says Father Andrey. — There are times when you just need warm participation, and not a story about the basics of Orthodoxy. Simple words comfort to people (according to them own confession) are very helpful. Modern man so closed and lonely that even a short heart-to-heart conversation can become relieving and life-affirming.

There are several million cancer patients in Russia. Every year, several tens of thousands die from cancer and many die in despair, unable to reconcile with the disease or with God. And the Church can help avoid this.

“Many people think that illness is a punishment, but in fact illness is a visit from God,” explains Father Andrei. “When a person is struck by a serious illness, he rethinks his life one way or another. Those who go to God for help, to the temple, reconcile with themselves, with loved ones, stop sinning. Illness is a blessing, but many cannot even think about it. And to bring people to an understanding of this, to prevent a person from going to hell and leaving in anger and sin, is our mission.

As Father Andrei reported, at the moment, with the blessing of Bishop Panteleimon of Smolensk and Vyazemsk, Chairman of the Synodal Department for Charity and Social Service, the church is preparing to open hotline, which will operate within Moscow. The final organizational issues are currently being resolved. People will be able to call here to resolve any of their spiritual issues, and not only those related to illness:

- For example, a person with some kind of trouble came to the temple at the wrong time, when the temple was already closed - and what to do? In this case, you can simply dial the number and talk with a priest and a church psychologist.

In fact, the helpline is a Christian invention. The first helplines appeared in the United States at the beginning of the last century. On a spring night in 1906, Protestant minister Harry Warren, who lived in New York, was awakened by a bell. He heard on the phone: “I beg for a meeting, I have hopeless situation“, but answered: “Tomorrow the church is open in the morning.” In the morning the priest learned that the caller had hanged himself. Shocked by what happened, Harry's father advertised in the newspaper: "Before you die, call me at any time of the day."

In the middle of the 20th century, the first helpline opened in London. It was opened by Anglican priest Chad Vara, who read in the newspaper about the increase in suicides and thought that the dead people had no one to talk to and therefore they decided to take such a desperate step. Then he advertised in the newspaper with his phone number and an invitation to talk. Soon his phone was heating up from the huge number of calls. Since then, helplines have been operating all over the world, supporting people in various difficulties and difficult situations. There is also a helpline for cancer patients, which can become a hotline for reconciliation with God for anyone who calls.

Priest's phone number.

Priest phone number

Kirill Milovidov, Mikhail Ustyugov

Every Muscovite can now consult with a priest without going to the church and without looking for the priest. All you have to do is call. 28 priests and 8 deacons are ready to answer your questions. The organizer of the hotline is the Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Service.

The “duty confessors” do not gather together, they are located in different parts of Moscow, on different phones, and the operators of the “Mercy” service switch those who seek advice to a free priest. “There are a lot of calls, from the very first days the phones were hot,” says Vasily Rulinsky, press secretary of the Synodal Department for Church Charity. “Operators don’t always cope with such a flow, so sometimes a person has to wait until his call is answered.”

The hotline allows many to overcome the psychological barrier that sometimes arises among non-church people. They want to communicate with the priest, but it’s a little scary to even go into church: how should I, an unbeliever, behave there? Wouldn’t it be blasphemy?

“Sometimes, due to all sorts of embarrassment and fears, people put off their conversation with a priest for years,” says project participant Archpriest Andrei Bliznyuk. “We ourselves took a step towards such people. It's easier to be frank over the phone. In addition, during confession there is often no time to talk heart to heart, and many at the beginning of their spiritual life need a confidential conversation.”

Father Andrey already has experience of spiritual communication over the phone. Since March of this year, he, along with a group of volunteer priests, has been on duty at a helpline for cancer patients. During this time, two things became obvious: first, such help is in demand, second, clergy could help more people. As a result, the idea was born to organize a special Orthodox hotline.

“We wanted to make it all-Russian, but then we decided to first test the project at the capital level,” says project curator Polina Yufereva. — Information about this appeared in the press, on television, we post it in the centers social adaptation, hospitals, oncology clinics - everywhere where people suffer and are sometimes left alone.”
The clergy who answer the calls are people prepared not only by their pastoral practice. They took part in the seminar “Listening Therapy in Acute Situations,” which was conducted especially for them by oncological psychologists from the “CO-Action” project, and also listened to lectures on psychology emergency situations within the framework of the Ministry of Emergency Situations courses.

The new initiative was supported by specialists from the Moscow Service psychological assistance to the population. “We separate mental and spiritual help,” says Innokenty Postnikov, deputy head of the “Emergency Psychological Helpline 051” department. — If a believer has thoughts of harming himself, it turns out to be easier to turn him in the other direction than a convinced atheist. However, sometimes I have the feeling that the questions that are addressed to me are beyond my competence. We are psychologists and are not specialists in spiritual help.”

According to him, if service employees feel that a person needs to be referred to a priest for a conversation, then they try to use this resource: they invite him to go to the nearest church. There are about ten percent of such calls. But whether the person will reach the temple, whether the priest will have time for a leisurely conversation on this particular day, is unknown. Therefore, according to service employees, a telephone number where the priest will answer “here and now” is more than in demand.

— You can contact the priest with any question. Just don’t ask for the sacraments (you can’t absolve sins over the phone) and don’t try to order services (to do this, it’s better to go to the nearest church), says press secretary Vasily Rulinsky.

— Is there any point in calling this phone number for completely non-believers?

— It always makes sense to call, because any non-believer can become a believer. If a person who has never even entered a church needs to talk to a priest, they need to call.

“Mercy” helpline phone number 542-0000, opening hours from 12.00 to 22.00 seven days a week (with a break on Saturday evenings)

More than 20 Moscow priests have recently been on duty at the helpline 8-800-100-0191. According to the plan, the service is designed to help cancer patients and their relatives, but people often have a need to talk not only about their illness, but in general about the meaning of suffering and everyday troubles, and therefore about faith and God. Four years after the creation of the CO-Action hotline, psychologists called priests for help: it was difficult to maintain dialogues about spiritual life. Moreover, today the helpline is called not only by patients of oncology clinics and their loved ones, but also by people with a variety of problems.

Priest Igor Palkin, one of the “Helpline” volunteers, told Izvestia that calls from unchurched people and little familiar with Orthodoxy are most often transferred to him. Before connecting the subscriber to the priest, the dispatcher finds out who is calling and from where. Residents of different cities are contacting me - Irkutsk, Ulyanovsk, Voronezh (by the way, the Voronezh diocese has a local helpline where priests answer).

For example, the daughter of a deceased woman asks: Mom was a believer, went to church, prayed for recovery - why did she die anyway? The priest will try to explain that the Orthodox believe: God calls everyone at the best time for a person, and one day everyone will have to cross this threshold. The main thing for the priest is not to alienate the person who called with unnecessary edification or awkward words.

Recently, father Igor Palkin was talking with a 12-year-old boy, and he mentioned that he had recently come to his mother from a boarding school.

How did you end up in boarding school?

Mom was sick, and her husband took only my brother to live with him, because I have a different father. My grandmother was deprived of parental rights, so I was sent to a boarding school,” the boy explained.

“These two phrases contain a whole life,” says the priest. “We talked for 40 minutes.”

The boy's mother is undergoing difficult treatment, and he decided to call the priest to find out how to pray so that she does not die. But it’s difficult to start right away with such a serious question, and first the boy asked if the priest knew anything about his hometown - Ulyanovsk.

Yes,” answered the priest, “my car was made in your city - a UAZ.”

“I thought that priests have a lot of everything and they don’t ride like that,” the boy was surprised.

“But I really have a lot of things, for example, five children,” the priest consoled him.

They actively use the helpline in Voronezh. Sometimes there are several dozen calls a day. Priests are approached for advice, and sometimes even asked financial assistance. They call and educated people, both old people and teenagers. For example, one woman did successful career, but missed her son, Archpriest Pyotr Petrov from Voronezh told Izvestia. The teenager became a drug addict, and the mother unsuccessfully turned to all the doctors and even sorcerers until she called the priest. Together with the church, she managed to “get her son off the needle.”

In St. Petersburg, you can talk to a priest via the helpline operating at the Orthodox Center “Life”. The center's main clients are pregnant women who find themselves in a crisis situation and are considering an abortion. Here, a telephone call becomes only the first contact, and then the expectant mother can be provided with the most various help- both psychological and material, as long as she saves the child. They help all women, regardless of their religious affiliation.

In Ivanovo, a helpline operates at the monastery. You can ask questions, including about the problems of HIV and AIDS. In Kazan they say that at least Orthodox priests Muslims and atheists call.

As for calls to muftis, a helpline for Muslim women opened in Moscow three years ago, but lasted only a few months. As Galina, moderator of the women's Muslim forum, told Izvestia, there is simply no money to operate the hotline. But as soon as they appear, not just one phone will be in demand, but an entire consultation center. In May of this year, it was announced that a Muslim helpline would begin operating in North Ossetia-Alania, but today the specified number is also unavailable.

The “duty confessors” do not gather together, they are located in different parts of Moscow, on different phones, and the operators of the “Mercy” service switch those who seek advice to a free priest. “There are a lot of calls, from the very first days the phones were hot,” says Vasily Rulinsky, press secretary of the Synodal Department for Church Charity. “Operators don’t always cope with such a flow, so sometimes a person has to wait until his call is answered.”

The hotline allows many to overcome the psychological barrier that sometimes arises among non-church people. They want to communicate with the priest, but it’s a little scary to even go into church: how should I, an unbeliever, behave there? Wouldn’t it be blasphemy?

“Sometimes, due to all sorts of embarrassment and fears, people put off their conversation with a priest for years,” says project participant Archpriest Andrei Bliznyuk. “We ourselves took a step towards such people. It's easier to be frank over the phone. In addition, during confession there is often no time to talk heart to heart, and many at the beginning of their spiritual life need a confidential conversation.”

Father Andrey already has experience of spiritual communication over the phone. Since March of this year, he, along with a group of volunteer priests, has been on duty at a helpline for cancer patients. During this time, two things became obvious: first, such help is in demand, second, clergy could help more people. As a result, the idea was born to organize a special Orthodox hotline.

“We wanted to make it all-Russian, but then we decided to first test the project at the capital level,” says project curator Polina Yufereva. “Information about this appeared in the press, on television, we place it in social adaptation centers, hospitals, oncology clinics - wherever people suffer and are sometimes left alone.”
The clergy who answer the calls are people prepared not only by their pastoral practice. They participated in the seminar “Listening Therapy in Acute Situations,” which was conducted especially for them by oncological psychologists from the CO-Action project, and also listened to lectures on the psychology of emergency situations as part of the Ministry of Emergency Situations courses.

The new initiative was supported by specialists from the Moscow Service for Psychological Assistance to the Population. “We separate mental and spiritual help,” says Innokenty Postnikov, deputy head of the “Emergency Psychological Helpline 051” department. — If a believer has thoughts of harming himself, it turns out to be easier to turn him in the other direction than a convinced atheist. However, sometimes I have the feeling that the questions that are addressed to me are beyond my competence. We are psychologists and are not specialists in spiritual help.”

According to him, if service employees feel that a person needs to be referred to a priest for a conversation, then they try to use this resource: they invite him to go to the nearest church. There are about ten percent of such calls. But whether the person will reach the temple, whether the priest will have time for a leisurely conversation on this particular day, is unknown. Therefore, according to service employees, a telephone number where the priest will answer “here and now” is more than in demand.

— You can contact the priest with any question. Just don’t ask for the sacraments (you can’t absolve sins over the phone) and don’t try to order services (to do this, it’s better to go to the nearest church), says press secretary Vasily Rulinsky.

— Is there any point in calling this phone number for completely non-believers?

— It always makes sense to call, because any non-believer can become a believer. If a person who has never even entered a church needs to talk to a priest, they need to call.

“Mercy” helpline phone number 542-0000, opening hours from 12.00 to 22.00 seven days a week (with a break on Saturday evenings)

From October 18, any Muscovite will be able to receive spiritual help by asking questions to a clergyman by calling the Mercy helpline.

“Many non-church people have a certain barrier in communicating with a priest, and they put off their first conversation or confession for years,” says archpriest Andrey Bliznyuk, a participant in the project. — Communicating with clergy by telephone is a step towards meeting such people. It's easier to be frank over the phone. In addition, during confession there is usually no time for a heart-to-heart talk, and many at the beginning of their spiritual life need just such a confidential conversation.” Since March 2011, Father Andrei, together with a group of volunteer priests, has been on duty at a helpline for cancer patients; on average, each priest receives about two calls a week. During this time, the priests realized two things: first, their help is in demand, and second, they can help more people. Thus was born the idea of ​​organizing a special Orthodox “hotline” that any Muscovite could call.

A new opportunity within the Mercy help service will appear on October 18. At first it was planned to make the phone nationwide, but then it was decided to test the project at the city level. “We will post information about the phone in social adaptation centers, hospitals, cancer clinics - in all those places where people suffer and are left alone,” says project curator, head of the Synodal Department for Charity Polina Yufereva. “Then we will study incoming calls and determine in which direction to develop the project and who needs us most.” Announcements about the new phone will also be posted in universities - the project is not only social, but also missionary. Young and well-educated priests (some of them have two or three higher education) will try to answer questions about spiritual life. On October 18, 28 priests and eight deacons will begin to be on duty on the phone; many of them already have experience communicating on the helpline with cancer patients. All clergy were interviewed either by the Chairman of the Synodal Department for Charity, Bishop Panteleimon, or with the person responsible for the care of hospitals in the Church Commission social activities Archpriest John Emelyanov. Most of them also attended lectures on the psychology of emergency situations as part of the Ministry of Emergency Situations courses. In addition, all clergy took part in the seminar “Listening Therapy in Acute Situations,” which was conducted especially for them by oncological psychologists from the CO-Action project.

Specialists from the Moscow Service for Psychological Assistance to the Population supported new initiative. “We separate mental and spiritual help,” says Innokenty Postnikov, deputy head of the “Emergency Psychological Helpline 051” department. “We are not experts in spiritual care, and I personally certainly sometimes feel that the subject being discussed is beyond my area of ​​expertise.” However, service psychologists know that faith in God is an “internal resource” that can be relied upon when solving personal problems. “If a believer has thoughts of harming himself, it turns out to be easier to turn him in the other direction than a convinced atheist,” explains Innokenty Postnikov. Therefore, according to him, if psychological consultants feel that a person can be referred for a conversation with a priest, then they try to use this resource and invite the person to go to the nearest church. There are about ten percent of such calls. But whether the person will reach the temple, whether the priest will have time on that day is unknown. Therefore, according to Innokenty Postnikov, a telephone number in which the priest will answer “here and now” will be more than in demand.

The “Mercy” helpline telephone number will not serve as a “helpline” in the full sense of the word. Firstly, due to technical features If you have a multi-channel number, a telephone call is paid - the city operator charges it as a call to a mobile phone. (Negotiations are currently underway with the provider to make the phone free). Secondly, the caller does not get to the priest right away. First, the operator of the “Mercy” help desk picks up the phone and pre-filters the questions. Thus, to requests for financial assistance and fulfillment of needs, questions of a reference nature, the operator answers independently, or switches the caller to the appropriate unit of the “Mercy” service.