Belarusian Authorities Experimenting On Children

• 13.05.2024, 9:31

Why orphanages in monasteries are a controversial initiative.

The Ministry of Education adopted a resolution according to which the regulations “On the orphanage, children's village, children's town” are changed. From now on, it is allowed to create orphanages at monasteries, where children from 3 to 18 years old will live, writes Solidarity.

A year ago, Head of the so-called Council of the Republic Natallia Kachanava said that she was impressed by the Russian experience, where it is allowed to create shelters at monasteries. The official approached the information poured into her ears so uncritically that she proposed creating similar institutions for Belarusian children whose parents were deprived of parental rights.

It cannot be said that children are abused in all orphanages at monasteries in Russia and other countries. But the available information is enough to conclude that this is not a rare phenomenon.

More than one of their graduates have spoken about what happens in closed religious institutions, where government bodies do not have direct access. Here is information that has come to light in recent years.

A girl who lived from 6 to 13 years old in the St. John the Theologian Convent in the Arkhangelsk region spoke about her stay there with the words “we were beaten, we were not allowed to eat.” For being 3-4 minutes late for the service, the abbess beat her in the face with a rosary. At the age of 7, the girl was forced to clean a huge corridor with the threat “you will sleep on the street.” This is what ultimately happened, which, according to the girl, turned into double pneumonia and cystitis.

Director of the House with a Lighthouse charity foundation Lydia Moniava spoke about the experience of her friend named Diana, who lived in the Intercession Monastery near Moscow. There, the girls actually became servants to the nuns. They were jealous of their desire to receive higher education, wanting them to stay in the monastery.

In the Sredneuralsky Convent near Yekaterinburg, children were physically punished. Schema-abbot Sergius (Romanov), who was detained there, was then excommunicated and defrocked.

Gennady Prokhorychev spoke about his experience of living in the Holy Trinity Stefano-Makhrishchi Monastery: the teachers there did not abuse the children, but with their knowledge, a system of hazing was built, when older children “disciplined” the younger ones.

A scandal occurred several years ago in Orthodox Georgia. One of the graduates of the children's boarding school at the Patriarchate in Ninotsminda said that methods of punishment such as beating with sticks and other objects were used against children. They were also forced to stand on wheat and rice grains all day.

“It took me about two years of visits to psychiatrists and even psychotropic drugs after I left there to calm my nerves after all this,” said the graduate.

What also makes us worry about the fate of children who end up in orphanages at Belarusian monasteries is the fact that the leadership of these religious institutions includes people with radical political views.

A year ago, Kachanava discussed the prospect of creating a new type of orphanages with the abbess of the Holy Nativity of the Mother of God convent in Hrodna, Gavriila. The same notorious person who attacks those who disagree with Lukashenka’s policies, justifies Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine and frantically promotes the ideas of the “Russian world.”

The leadership of the St. Elisabeth Convent openly supports the war.

The Belarusian authorities are setting up another experiment — this time on orphaned children.