The Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Service has launched the campaign "Time for Mercy." The campaign began on February 24, the first week of Great Lent, and will last until April 20, the end of Holy Week. On the campaign's website, you can do a good deed and support five fees for people in need — residents of Belgorod, children with disabilities from Donbass, single elderly people, as well as those who contact the church's social assistance hotline +7(800) 70-70-222.
"Lent is often called the spiritual spring," says Archpriest Mikhail Potokin, chairman of the Synodal Department for Charity, "and it really is. At this time, our efforts in prayer, fasting, and repentance are especially blessed and filled with Divine help. Then the true life that we have lost opens up to us, and a desire is born to serve our neighbor with works of mercy and thereby bring gratitude to God. Our "Time of Mercy" campaign will last throughout Lent and the entire week after Easter, and we invite everyone who wants to do a good deed these days."
The campaign's website contains words from the book of the prophet Isaiah about the true meaning of fasting: "This is the fast that I have chosen: loosen the shackles of unrighteousness, untie the bonds of the yoke, and set the oppressed free, and break every yoke; share your bread with the hungry, and bring the wandering poor into the house; when you see a naked man, clothe him And do not hide yourself from your half-brother" (Isaiah 58:6-7).
One of the five fees of the "Time of Mercy" campaign will allow you to support those who contact the church's help hotline. In five years, the line has received more than 350,000 calls. Anyone can ask for help, regardless of their religious beliefs or nationality.
The second collection is aimed at helping residents of the Belgorod region. Donations will be used to purchase sleeping bags, blankets, heating equipment, as well as to provide those in need with the most necessary things: medicines, food packages, warm clothes.
The third collection will allow you to support all areas of church charity — you can subscribe to a regular donation on the website of the Synodal Department for Charity. The Department coordinates the work of all church aid projects from Kaliningrad to Kamchatka.
As part of the fourth collection, it is proposed to help children of Donbass with vital medicines. On average, 35-40 people apply to the church headquarters for refugee assistance in Moscow for medicines every month — it takes more than 150,000 rubles a month to purchase medicines.
As a result of the fifth collection, lonely elderly people who come for a hot lunch and socializing to the social canteen at the Church of the Martyrs Flora and Lavra on the Zatsep in Moscow will receive help. The funds raised will be used to repair the social canteen, which has temporarily stopped working.
As part of the previous charity event "Welcome to Christmas", which was organized by the Synodal Department for Charity, a total of more than 1.8 million rubles were raised. More than 2 thousand people took part in the action.
Today, the Russian Orthodox Church is one of the largest organizers of charity in Russia. These are hundreds of aid projects and thousands of doers. You can learn more about them and help on the website of the Synodal Department for Charity.