Andrei Lemeshonok St. Elisabeth Convent and the Coronavirus Pandemic 2020
Marina Akhmedova
Today in the morning, they called me, and an unfamiliar female voice said: “Everything is a lie.” The voice was sintered, as people say when they have a fever. The callers (three of them) turned out to be nuns of the St. Elisabeth Convent in Minsk.
The nuns began to tell – Alexia’s mother was in intensive care with positive COVID pneumonia. Father Vasily is also in the hospital. Out of one hundred and thirty sisters, one hundred are sick. The patients were resettled from the still healthy from the buildings to the hotel, but they were severely punished – “The doctors will come, say that you have been resettled because the buildings are being renovated.”
Food for the sick is left in the corridor, and they go out behind it in masks. But at the same time, the monastery is working, and the flock comes in a crowd.
For example, on Easter alone, 970 people received communion from one spoon during the night. The spoon was not processed, and when one of the girls who wanted to take communion burst into tears and asked to handle the spoon, they answered her, let him go to another church and take communion there, but this is the only way here. But if doctors come, the sick are ordered to say – “You got sick after Easter. Just”.
The monastery’s leadership does not want people to understand that they went to the monastery on Easter when there were already so many sick people.
– How? I ask. – The patriarch said to pray at home.
“And the sisters say,” they answered me, “that one should not listen to the patriarch, but Father Andrey is a saint, and no one will get sick by his prayers. In his sermons, he says that grace disinfects and heals everything, and one cannot get sick in the temple. The sick can come to the temple and be healed.
– Is he crazy? I ask.
How can you not understand – they tell me – because if he says otherwise, it will cross out the idea that he carried to church for years, which he lived with. And also, Mother Agapia did not let anyone go from the Liturgy. And many nuns with a fever tried to take time off.
– What kind of idea is this?
This is the idea of standing for the purity of Orthodoxy, and it has always been like that in our monastery. We will now send you the elder sisters’ injunction for us.
Later, the following text will come to my messenger:
“For the parishioners, the monastery works, as usual, none of the acquaintances, friends, and staff of the monastery should know about the situation inside the monastery, that is, about quarantine measures. You do not need to wear masks in public, on the street, and in the temple. Mother and father are aware of all measures being taken“.
It was early morning, and it was difficult for me to perceive what these unfamiliar, feverish women from Belarus were telling me. And why are they calling me? And why did they say to me in a whisper – “Everything is not true. All. You can’t preach the Gospel and deceive people?”
Why are you listening to this father, Andrei ?! I ask.
He has a powerful personal charisma. He always says – “I prayed, and God revealed to me”. He is always right. You don’t know anything about him. He came to Orthodoxy as a hippie, he believed and worked as a church guard for ten years, then he was ordained and created a sisterhood around a psychiatric hospital, and then he was blessed to build a monastery on a vacant lot.
We do not want to denigrate him, but we understand that people should not suffer because he built a personality cult and made everyone believe his prayers helped. But now, they do not help, only to admit it is like death for him.
What kind of faith is this, I argue, listening to them, I. Where is your own person in this faith? Why don’t people know how to believe outside the temple? Why do they always need everything from faith – rituals, priests, and temples? Or maybe this is all because, left without rituals at home, alone with themselves and with God, people will understand that they do not really believe?
“Yes, now such a process of straining the believers is underway,” one of the nuns agrees.
– What is your temperature now?
I have 37, she has 38, she has 37 and 5. Do you think we called you for our sake? No, we called you not for ourselves but because we want the truth.
I informed them that I would now call the head of the Synodal Department for Church Relations with Society, Vladimir Legoida. And they told me that their phones might be taken away from them. I really called Legoida right away. He already knew about this situation. He said that doctors would come to the monastery today. They just got in. But I am writing this post because, in any case, I promised the nuns to tell the truth. And I say it.
Easter Celebration 2020 at St. Elisabeth Convent Minsk
Reported by Marina Akhmedova on April 23, 2020, via Facebook
Deputy Chief Editor at Русский Репортер (“Russian Reporter”)
Source in Russian:
https://m.facebook.com/ahmedova.marina/posts/3141781212524899?_rdr#_=_
https://www.facebook.com/ahmedova.marina/posts/3141781212524899
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