With your charter to someone else's hospital
The Ministry of Health, at the request of the Russian Orthodox Church, has developed rules for visiting hospitals by clergy. According to the Russian Orthodox Church, the need for such a document became obvious during the pandemic, when a number of medical institutions refused to allow priests to see patients with coronavirus. According to the new rules, the hospital must allow clergy into intensive care and intensive care wards, but infectious diseases departments will still remain closed to them. Only clergy of “centralized religious organizations” will be able to access the believers - however, the religious scholar is confident that this condition will be an obstacle only for “marginal associations.”
Yesterday, the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation published for public discussion a draft of “general requirements for organizing patient visits by clergy.” “The amendment was initiated by the church, since at present there is actually no corresponding legal act,” Abbess Ksenia (Chernega), head of the legal department of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, told Kommersant. She expressed the hope that “with the adoption of the law, cases of obstructing the access of clergy to patients who met during the period of mass spread of the new coronavirus infection will be excluded.”
The procedure for admitting clergy to hospitals, as well as the right of patients to perform religious rites in medical institutions, have been enshrined in Art. 14 and 19 of the law “On the fundamentals of protecting the health of citizens”. However, the pandemic has demonstrated that due to the lack of uniform rules, these norms do not always work, Vasily Rulinsky, press secretary of the Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Service of the Russian Orthodox Church, told Kommersant. In March 2022, at the height of the epidemic, the Ministry of Health developed a “road map” for the admission of clergy to hospitals - then in the format of recommendations. In July 2024, the State Duma amended the law “On the Fundamentals of Protecting the Health of Citizens” regarding the patient’s right to visits from relatives and legal representatives. From March 1, 2025, this list will also include clergy. To implement this amendment, the Ministry of Health developed draft rules.
According to the document, a representative of the clergy can be invited to the hospital by a patient or his relatives, but the head of the medical organization must issue permission for the visit. Among other things, priests will be able to visit intensive care and intensive care wards. However, they are still denied access to infectious diseases departments (this is where they are treated for coronavirus); You should also not come to hospitals during quarantine. The document also emphasizes that clergy “are prohibited from interfering with the provision of medical care.”
Health care facilities are advised to appoint a staff member responsible for organizing such visits. And also allocate a room that ensures the privacy of communication between the patient and the clergyman. In addition, the hospital must provide facilities for religious rites and ceremonies. An important detail: the rules of the Ministry of Health refer to clergy of “centralized religious organizations and religious organizations included in their structure,” so when visiting the hospital they will have to present the appropriate documents.
According to the law, a centralized religious organization must consist of at least three local ones. In turn, a religious organization is considered local, to which at least ten people who have reached the age of eighteen and permanently reside in the same area or in the same urban or rural settlement identify themselves as members.
“Priests who do not belong to traditional confessions, as well as persons whose priestly rank has not been confirmed, will not be allowed to see patients for the purpose of performing religious rituals,” emphasized Abbess Ksenia (Chernega). The head of the Center for the Study of Problems of Religion and Society at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Roman Lunkin, points out: not only Orthodox and Muslims have their own centralized organizations, but also Jews, Buddhists, Protestants, Old Believers and other believers. “The law will put a barrier in the way of priests who belong to Christian jurisdictions not recognized by the Russian Orthodox Church,” suggests Mr. Lunkin. Also, according to him, “Orthodox sectarians” and certain unregistered associations of believers - from Old Believers and Baptists to Buddhists and Muslims - will not be able to get into hospitals. “Although, of course, these are all marginal groups - almost all believers are already in one or another CRO,” the religious scholar clarified.
Deputy Chairman of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Russian Federation, Mufti Rushan Abbyasov, supported the initiative of the Ministry of Health: “We are already carrying out this work and see how valuable and important it is when we visit our brave defenders in military hospitals who were wounded during the SVO.” “For many years we have been asking for regulation of priests’ visits to patients in hospitals,” Konstantin Bendas, bishop of the Russian United Union of Christians of the Evangelical Faith (ROSHVE), told Kommersant. “This is necessary to give medical institutions a clear legal criterion (who can be left out.— “Kommersant”). So that, on the one hand, the patient’s right to religion is not infringed, and on the other, so that a drinking companion does not infiltrate him, introducing himself, for example, as a minister of the cult of Bacchus.”
Hieromonk Theodorit Senchukov, a practicing anesthesiologist and resuscitator, believes that the document contains too many restrictions. In his opinion, permission from the head of a medical organization to visit a priest is an unnecessary condition: “Only the will of the patient or his relatives should be sufficient if the patient’s condition does not allow him to make a decision.” Also, the clergyman thinks the ban on entry to infectious diseases departments is wrong: “People isolated from the world especially need support. I myself visited patients in Covid departments - and I am sure that this ban limits people’s right to fulfill their religious needs.” Finally, he has questions about the rule of compulsory membership in a centralized religious organization: “I am an Orthodox priest, I have a document. But there are many alternative jurisdictions. Yes, we consider them schismatics, heretics, we do not believe in their sacraments, but, in the end, they have their own adherents. It’s not good to deprive a person of the opportunity to meet his confessor.”
“Our organization is one of the centralized ones, and until now we have not had problems with access of clergy to hospitals,” the Primate of the Apostolic Orthodox Church, Father Grigory Mikhnov-Vaitenko (included in the register of foreign agents), told Kommersant. “But I understand where it comes from.” There is a need to regulate this process: it happens that former clergy of some organizations come to medical institutions. Again, no one has canceled the risk of fraud. So in theory the initiative is correct, but let’s see how it will be implemented in practice.”
