Moscow, April 8, 2015
The Moscow Patriarchate’s Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Ministry is inviting families of refugees from the Ukraine for a grand Paschal celebration that will be held on Easter Sunday, April 12, in the Church of All the Saints of the Russian Lands in the Moscow district of Novokosino. Children together with their parents are invited for the family festival.
“We have already arranged a celebration for Ukrainian refugees on the feast of Nativity of Christ and have seen for ourselves that such festivities are in high demand. We will do our best on the feast of Radiant Resurrection of Christ to bring joy to people – the joy that is the central theme of Pascha,” said the church rector, staff worker of the Synodal Charity Department Archpriest Michael Zazvonov.
Children will be entertained by lively games, classes in such religious subjects as bell ringing, and will be given Paschal treats. Adults will be able to listen to Paschal chants, ballads, folk songs, sentimental love songs as well as songs of the war period. A charity fair and tea party will be arranged for the guests.
The celebration will take place from 3 to 7 PM on April 12. The address of the church is: Moscow, Suzdalskaya Street, 8Б.
A complex aid service for the Ukrainian civilians who suffered in the armed conflict in the Ukraine has been functioning at the Moscow Church of All the Saints of the Russian Lands in Novokosino since September 2014. Thousands of refugees have appealed to this centre and received food, clothes and material assistance. There is a hot line service of the Church aid for refugees; in many regions of Russia the refugees were received by Church institutions (asylums, parochial homes, monasteries and convents); there are active church centers for humanitarian aid. The largest such centers are based in the city of Rostov-on-Don and in Moscow.
In summer 2014, on the basis of the Synodal Department for Charity, the church headquarters for assistance to Ukrainian civilians was established. By April 5, 2015, the headquarters received 20,155 applications for aid: 12,938 refugees received clothing, while 15,117 people received food and medicaments. 803 refugees were helped in obtaining free tickets and 195 people waiting for departure were helped with free accommodation in a hostel. Since 2014 the Church has regularly sent humanitarian aid to Donbass – for the suffering civilians of the Southeastern Ukraine.
In total over 127 million rubles have been donated on the Synodal Charity Department’s account to support civilian residents of the Ukraine (63 million 984 thousand rubles from that sum have been expended). Reports on income and expenditure of the funds raised by the Church are available on the official website of the Synodal Department for Charity, Diaconia.ru.
Everybody can take part in the Paschal festival without preliminary registration. For obtaining sweet presents for children the parents are required to have their passport and migration card of one of parents as well as their child’s birth certificate with them.
