The Ministry of Health heard prayers – Newspaper Kommersant No. 208 (7409) dated 11/10/2022

The Ministry of Health of Russia will develop rules for the admission of clergy to patients in hospitals. Appropriate amendments are planned to be made to the law “On the basis of health protection”. As explained to Kommersant in the Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Service of the Russian Orthodox Church, the problem escalated during the coronavirus pandemic: believers asked to invite a priest to the chamber, but they were refused due to “the lack of established uniform rules for admission.”

The Ministry of Health has proposed amendments to the law “On the Fundamentals of Health Protection” that give the department the authority to establish “general requirements” for the admission of clergy to patients in medical institutions, including intensive care units and intensive care units, as well as the provision of conditions “for performing religious rites, conducting which is possible in hospitals. What those requirements are is not specified. As the Ministry of Health explained to Kommersant, they will be determined after the adoption of the bill. It is emphasized that the norms will apply only to the clergy of a religious organization that has passed “state registration in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation.”

The general procedure for the admission of a clergyman to a hospital ward and the patient’s right to provide conditions for the performance of religious rites are already enshrined in articles 14 and 19 of the law. However, the “lack of established uniform rules for admission” in practice causes difficulties in the implementation of these rights, the explanatory note says.

“The issue of admitting priests to hospitals became acute during the spread of the coronavirus,” Vasily Rulinsky, spokesman for the Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Service of the Russian Orthodox Church, told Kommersant. According to him, priests were not allowed to see believers, despite their requests and appeals from relatives, ignoring the right enshrined in law. The Moscow Patriarchate says priests have begun visiting coronavirus patients in Moscow since April 2020. A round-the-clock telephone was organized for the believers’ appeals and a special group of priests was formed (today there are 40 people in it). In May, the head of the Synodal Department for Charity, Bishop Panteleimon of Orekhovo-Zuevsky, told the RIA Novosti news agency that calls were received daily from patients and their loved ones, but “since the beginning of the epidemic, there have been only isolated cases when individual doctors, at their own peril and risk, allowed priests to come to the believing patient. Then, on behalf of Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, with the participation of representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church, developed uniform rules for admitting clergy to hospitals. It was argued that on the basis of these methodological recommendations, the regions should have established their own procedures for visiting patients by priests.

These recommendations dealt with the introduction in hospitals of the position of employees who would help the clergy, the heads of medical institutions were instructed to determine certain hours for visits. According to the recommendations, the priest could come to the intensive care unit, to the palliative department or to the patient on the verge of life and death, when necessary. The Office allowed admission to the chambers of priests who are vaccinated against coronavirus or have a negative PCR test. But, if the life of the patient was in danger, this requirement could not be met. It seemed to the “reasonable” authors of the rules that the clergy visit the patient no more than once a day, but it was still not recommended to limit the number of visits. The physicians (the attending physician, the doctor on duty, the ward nurse) had to inform the responsible officer about the desire of the patient to invite a priest within a day, and in case of a threat to life – two hours.

“This was also a step forward,” Vasily Rulinsky comments on the recommendations of the Ministry of Health. “We are currently in contact with the ministry and are consulting, including on possible legislative regulation of this issue.”

The Synodal Department clarifies that since the spring of 2020, priests have visited 57 hospitals in Moscow and the Moscow region. Following the example of the capital, such groups of priests “gradually” appeared in other dioceses. Since July 2021, short-term courses have been organized in Moscow for Orthodox volunteers from the “red zones”. 640 people were trained, about 500 volunteers were sent to serve in the departments with coronavirus patients following the results of the courses.

Natalya Kostarnova, Pavel Korobov