A friendly football match was held in the village of Koltsovo by representatives of the Yekaterinburg diocese and pupils of the Leisure and Sports Center for Difficult Children and Teenagers "Children of the Street".
The team of the diocese included the rector of the church of the Kaspersky Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, Priest Konstantin Mekhanoshin, rector of the Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos in the village. Mountain Shield Priest Dimitri Zadorin, senior priest of St. John the Baptist Cathedral in Yekaterinburg Priest Pavel Kononenko and representatives of the Orthodox Mercy Service. The Children of the Street Center was presented on the football field by its pupils aged from 8 to 18 years.
– During the game, – said Father Konstantin Mekhanoshin, – young football players started swearing, and we offered to remove them for swearing. It seemed too harsh to the guys, so they decided to give a red card to the team for two obscene words and remove the player for a couple of minutes, as in hockey. This gave a very powerful cultural effect: the guys began to control their speech.
In two 25-minute halves, the teams exchanged almost two dozen goals. But the final score, Father Konstantin noted, was not the main result of the mast: "the most important thing is that the guys saw the priests in such an informal setting. I hope that this will become a good tradition, and maybe we will be able to organize a national team of the diocese."
– Children and teenagers received an unrealistic amount of different emotions, and we, adults, watched and smiled, – said the head of the center "Children of the Street" Sergey Shuneev. – We have agreed with the Diocese National Team that we will hold football matches more often. This is necessary so that children and teenagers do not wander the streets, but move in sports. Father Konstantin and I are discussing another idea: in the near future we want to go fishing with the children from our organization and from Sunday school.