The TASS News Agency and the Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Service have prepared a special project "From a Sailor's daughter to the Empress. Who were the first sisters of mercy — and who are they becoming today?" The release of the material is timed to coincide with the International Day of the Nurse.
"Compassion is one of the manifestations of our humanity, inherent in many. It manifests itself in different ways in people, but there are those who devote most of their lives to the service of mercy. Among them are the sisters of mercy," says Archpriest Mikhail Potokin, Chairman of the Synodal Department of Charity. — We are grateful to the TASS news agency for the joint project with the Synodal Department of Charity for the International Day of the Nurse. In this project, we managed to tell about the history and the modern ministry of the sisters of mercy. In the Gospel, the Lord tells us to be merciful, just as our Heavenly Father is merciful, helping all those in need equally. We are pleased to see that there are more and more people willing to devote their time to care in hospitals and social institutions. They take care of the seriously ill, orphans, and the elderly, take care of the wounded in hospitals, and help injured civilians in Donbas. They listen and comfort those who need it most. And by giving, they gain much more."
The project begins with the story of how the institute of sisters of mercy was born in Russia. Different people became sisters of mercy. Among them are the sailor's daughter Daria Sevastopolskaya, who created the first mobile dressing station, the aristocrats Ekaterina Bakunina and Yulia Vrevskaya, who left social life to help the wounded at the front, as well as Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, who personally cared for the injured in the Tsarskoye Selo palace infirmary during the First World War.
The project also presents the personal stories of three modern sisters of mercy: Maria Basilova, a graduate of the Philological Faculty of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov, who became a sister of mercy and a volunteer at the church Central Clinical Hospital of St. Alexy, Metropolitan of Moscow at the age of 23, Yulia Tovsta, who left her banking career in Moscow and headed the St. Luke of Crimea branch of the St. Alexy Church Hospital, as well as sister of mercy of the Patriarchal Humanitarian Mission Irina Khudyakova, who, after a serious illness, began helping injured civilians in the conflict zone.
Today, there are more than 900 sisterhoods of mercy in the Russian Orthodox Church. The sisters take care of the seriously ill in medical, social institutions and at home, help the elderly, women in crisis, people with disabilities and the homeless.
You can support the hospital ministry of the Russian Orthodox Church on the website dobrohospital.ru .