Moscow, January 30, 2025
Photo: turemnoe-sluzhenie.ru
The Russian Orthodox Church has created a platform for inmates to take a 3-month course on Orthodox fundamentals, Scripture, and Church history.
The project is a joint venture of the Synodal Department for Prison Ministry, St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University in Moscow, and the I’m With You organization. The pilot project is intended to be implemented in three prisons in the Vladimir, Ryazan, and Tver Provinces, the Synodal Department reports.
The head of the Synodal Department for Prison Ministry, Fr. Kirill Markovsky, and the director of I’m With You, Marina Kalacheva, have been involved in prison ministry for many years, visiting penitentiary institutions and helping inmates by delivering gifts and food. Fr. Kirill frequently serves in churches at detention centers and colonies, hearing confessions and giving communion to those in places of confinement, and knows how much they need spiritual help and support.
The Department writes about spirituality in prison:
Imprisonment is one of the most difficult trials for a person, but at the same time, it’s a crucial life stage that helps realize true values, rethink your past, learn to value every moment, come to faith in God, and try to find strength to fight against passions and vices. Paradoxically, it’s in prison that many first come to God, begin attending Church services, and reading religious literature. As the convict themselves admit in their numerous letters, without the Lord and His help, enduring the trial of prison would be very difficult.
The course costs $2,000 (200,000 rubles) per inmate. The I’m With You organization is working to raise funds for as many inmates as possible.
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