From October 27 to October 30, 2026, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, the XVII Interregional Conference on Church Social Service is being held in Yekaterinburg. More than 300 people are taking part in the forum: heads of church social projects and charity departments, senior sisters and confessors of the sisterhoods of mercy, diocesan officials responsible for helping those who have returned from the front, coordinators of church volunteer services from all dioceses in the Ural Federal District, as well as high-ranking representatives of the authorities of the Sverdlovsk region and Yekaterinburg.
The opening of the conference on October 28 was led by Metropolitan Evgeny of Yekaterinburg and Verkhotursky, Chairman of the Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Service Archpriest Mikhail Potokin, head of the social department of the Yekaterinburg Diocese and the Yekaterinburg Orthodox Mercy Service Archpriest Evgeny Popichenko, director of the charity fund for the elderly "Old Age in Joy" Elizaveta Oleskina.
As part of the conference, the Synodal Department for Charity conducts an internship to help children and young people with disabilities, including orphans. Over the course of four days, the internship participants will visit church projects and social institutions in Yekaterinburg. Experts will share their practical experience in supporting children with disabilities and their families. 
"The "Church Helps" photo exhibition, the second joint exhibition of the Synodal Department of Charity and the "Kommersant" Publishing House on church social projects, will be opened near the Church on Blood on October 29 as part of the conference.
More than 30 thematic sessions and events will be held during the conference. The participants will discuss issues of support for families and women in crisis situations, assistance to the elderly, rehabilitation of the homeless, assistance to victims in Donbas, organization of pastoral care in hospitals, and support for those returning from the front. Special attention will be paid to organizing work with petitioners, helping addicts, supporting people with disabilities, organizing social activities in dioceses and parishes, creating and developing volunteer services, and sisterhoods of mercy. Separate sessions will be devoted to the popularization of a sober lifestyle, the development of social entrepreneurship, and charity in the media.
On October 30, participants will be able to visit social projects of the Yekaterinburg Orthodox Mercy Service, including the "Mercy Bus" for the homeless, the "Assumption Monastery" for lonely elderly people, the support center for women "Maria", the center for mothers with children in crisis "Unintentional Joy", the charity shop "Two Mites".