Report on church relief aid to people affected by hostilities in Kursk region as of 11th August 2024

DECR Communication Service, 12/08/2024

On 11th August 2024, forty-seven calls from the Kursk region were made to the hotline of the Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Ministry (8-800-70-70-222). Twenty of the callers offered assistance; twenty-seven asked for help. While the day before most of the callers had expressed no wish to evacuate, in the morning of 11th August, after the night’s shelling, many people asked for assistance in moving to other towns and cities.

One of the callers was a mother of many children. She cried telling that her family had spent the night in a bathroom while the bath had kept bouncing because of explosions. She asked for help to move to another region. The Synodal Department for Charity found a flat for the family in Voronezh.

Some people had simpler requests. For instance, one of the callers said she was going to stay in Kursk to look after her home, but her mother and two grandchildren were leaving for St. Petersburg. The Synodal Department for Charity helped them to purchase the tickets.

The Department also managed to find accommodation for several families who had phoned the hotline at St. Elizabeth House of Mercy in Livny, Oryol region. One of the couples has a 21-year-old son with autism. Livny is ready to receive one more family.

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On 11th August, staff members of the Synodal Department for Charity met with Metropolitan German of Kursk and Rylsk to discuss accommodation options and establishment of an integrated church centre for relief aid to people affected by the hostilities.

Together with the ruling hierarch, the Synodal Department’s specialists visited a humanitarian aid collection and distribution centre in Kursk set up under the Youth Department of the Kursk Diocese. Metropolitan German and representatives of the Synodal Department for Charity inspected the premises used for collecting, sorting and distributing relief aid for the residents of the border areas who had to leave their homes due to the hostilities at the border of the Kursk region. The archpastor and the Department’s officials talked with those who came to the humanitarian aid centre. Every day, the centre receives around five hundred people applying for help. Working there are over two hundred volunteers.

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The Patriarchal Humanitarian Mission sent foodstuffs to the centre operating under the Kursk Diocese Youth Department. They were delivered by Archpriest Dimitry Krotkov, head of the Special Humanitarian Centre of the Crimea Metropolia. The foodstuffs will be given to people affected by the hostilities in the region.

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Staff members of a refugee assistance centre in the city of Belgorod led by its head, Sister of Mercy Yelena Khimchenko, brought humanitarian aid for the families evacuated to the Kursk-Root Hermitage and for monks of the Gornal Monastery.

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To find the most suitable premises for the future integrated church centre for relief aid, on 11th August representatives of the Synodal Department for Charity visited several humanitarian aid stations established at the Church of St. Niketas in Kursk, the Church of St. Seraphim of Sarov and the Cathedral of the Kursk Saints, as well as the Holy Trinity Convent in Kursk.

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Staff members of the Synodal Department for Charity visited one of the largest temporary accommodation centres, established in the dormitory of the Kursk State Agrarian University. Functioning there is also a humanitarian aid collection station. The church representatives talked with people about their needs. Paying regular visits to this temporary accommodation centre is the rector of the nearby Church of the Royal Passion-Bearers, Archpriest Oleg Chebanov.

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Archpriest Sergy Klintsov, rector of the Church of the Meeting of the Lord, visited the Kursk Regional Tourist Centre which temporarily accommodated ten families with children and elderly persons (30 people altogether). Fr. Sergy offered pastoral assistance and brought humanitarian aid from his parish (dairy products, hygiene items, clothes, footwear, kitchenware – amounting in total to 50 thousand roubles).

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On 11th August, some of the families that had left the Kursk region applied for help to a church centre for refugee assistance in Moscow. Churches and individual donors send foodstuffs, hygiene items and new beddings to the Moscow centre to help the refugees. Seventeen people delivered the aid on their own; in addition, there were 38 courier deliveries and 11 deliveries to pick-up points of Ozon and Wildberries marketplaces. The aid also comes from other dioceses and countries, for example, from the Convent of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple in Belarus.

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On 12th August, staff members of the Synodal Department for Charity and Social Ministry are planning to resolve practical matters regarding the establishment of the integrated church centre for relief aid in Kursk, as well as to visit the wounded in the Kursk hospital and a large temporary accommodation centre.