The Black-and-white sisters
The Black-and-white sisters: "The Community of St. Elizabeth in Minsk spiritually ministers to the patients of Europe’s largest hospital for the insane, rehabilitates alcoholics in its metochion, and at the same time earns money by its own independent activity. Our report from Minsk is about this unique Sisterhood, where black and white sisters of charity – nuns and the laywomen – work."
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The metochion has its own band. Nun Irina (Denisova), the conductor, practices music with the brethren
In 2000, one kolkhoz donated land to the community thirty kilometers from the convent, in Bald Mountain village. It had not been ploughed for ten years; it was just clay and stones. There was also a dilapidated cowshed where accommodation was arranged. Two fragile nuns – “mothers superior of the metochion” – settled in the attic of the cowshed.
“The brothers’ obedience probably will always be a riddle, a miracle both for me and for the other sisters,” Nun Thamar says, who directed the metochion for three years. “But anything could happen here – murders, arsons, and skirmishes between inhabitants. This is no joke – a hundred alcoholics, drug addicts, murderers, and only two nuns to control them? We are still scared. But nothing bad has happened, by God’s grace.”
The brothers take part in building, work in the cowshed, in the garden, in the piggery, and assist in the kennel of the central Asian sheepdogs. All employees are paid a small salary for work. Though there are those who do not conceal their intention of passing the winter at somebody else’s expense.
Recently a new cottage, a refectory, and a church had been completed. Once a week at the Liturgy there is Confession and Communion, and a general meeting and a talk with the spiritual father takes place. The brothers incessantly read the Psalter by turn. And at the end of the day, in all weathers the inhabitants make a sacred procession around the metochion, saying the Jesus Prayer by turn, and then ask for each others’ forgiveness, as on Forgiveness Sunday.
An important condition of living in the metochion is abstinence from alcohol and drugs. At first the spiritual “therapy” was of little service: if one of the wards failed and began drinking, then very soon the majority of inhabitants of the metochion drank.
“Of course, failures happen; anything may happen,” Father Andrew admits. “One can not expect that people who spent their lives drinking or being behind bars will suddenly reform and start creative work. They will fall, will fail. The most terrible and painful thing for me is when there is suspiciousness and mistrust in my heart to those who lie again and again. But do we not do the same – come to repent, but then fall again and again? God forgive us, so do we.”