Description of the attraction
The Martha-Mariinsky Convent is located in the center of Moscow, on Bolshaya Ordynka Street. The charter of the community of sisters of mercy is as close as possible to the monastery charter.
The monastery was founded in 1909 by the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna. Elizaveta Fedorovna, the wife of the Moscow governor-general, after the death of her husband, sold all her jewelry. She transferred part of the jewelry belonging to the Romanov dynasty to the treasury. With the rest of the money, she bought an estate on Bolshaya Ordynka. The estate consisted of four houses and a large garden. The monastery of mercy was opened in it. She combined charitable work, medical work and a monastery. A cathedral church was built in the monastery. The project was carried out by the architect A. Shchusev in collaboration with Freudenberg and Stezhensky.
The sisters of the monastery took vows of chastity, obedience and non-covetousness. The difference from the monastery was that after the agreed period, the sisters could leave the monastery. They were freed from their earlier vows and could start a family. In the monastery, the sisters received the professional training necessary for their activities. The best doctors in Moscow lectured them on medicine. They received serious psychological training. Conversations with the sisters were conducted by the monastery's confessor, Father Mitrofan Serebryansky.
According to Elizaveta Fyodorovna's plan, the monastery was supposed to provide assistance to those in need. At the monastery were opened: a hospital, a pharmacy, a good outpatient clinic. Some of the medicines were given to patients free of charge. The monastery provided shelter and treatment, as well as free meals to all those in need.
In 1918, Elizaveta Fyodorovna was arrested, but the monastery existed until 1926. After the closure of the monastery, its premises were alternately a polyclinic, a cinema and a health education house. The church housed Prof. Rein's dispensary. After the Great Patriotic War, the restoration workshops of the I. E. Grabar Center were located in the building of the Intercession Church. In our time, since 1992, the Martha and Mary Convent belongs to the Moscow Patriarchate. Since 2006, the Intercession Church has been transferred to her.
The monastery has an orphanage for girls, a patronage service and a charitable canteen. The sisters from the Martha-Mariinsky Convent work in the Sklifosovsky Research Institute and in military hospitals. In 2010, a medical center "Mercy" was opened in the monastery, which deals with the rehabilitation of disabled children with severe diagnoses, including cerebral palsy. In 2011, an outreach service appeared here, providing assistance to parents caring for children who are terminally ill.
The Martha and Mary Convent has about twenty branches, working according to the same charter. They are located in the Urals, Siberia, the Far East, the European part of Russia, as well as Ukraine and Belarus.
