St Elizabeth’s Orphanage

The Orthodox St Elizabeth’s Orphanage is a joint project of Martha and Mary Convent and the Orthodox Service “Miloserdie”.

The orphanage can house some 20 members. Here, ordinary girls raised in troubled families and those with the Down syndrome stay together.

St Elizabeth’s Orphanage is a blend between a rehabilitation centre and a boarding school. Its employees work not only with the child herself but also with her blood relatives so that the families could be re-united with minimum losses.

The main aim of the Orphanage is to help families. Profound work is done so that a child and her family could be successfully rehabilitated when faced with an emergency. Each graduate is kept in touch with and offered various help, be it psychological, legal, social or other. Children are sent to the Orphanage through guardianship and custody agencies and also because of their parents’ or legal representatives’ written requests when they find themselves in a state of emergency.

When a child arrives at the Home, a number of specialists (teachers, speech pathologists, children psychologists) devise a personalized complex way of working with the newcomer. Such a plan includes different aspects of a girl’s life. The charges undergo rehabilitation, due socialization, get good education, moral and spiritual upbringing, medical and psychological help.

The specialists of the place ensure social supervision of foster families and also social caregivers’ service of blood ones; provide multi-level help, including psychological and legal.

The girls are brought up in Orthodox ways: they take active part in church services, Holy Sacraments, go on pilgrimages. They also have their own confessor who helps them overcome uncertainties, fears, answers their questions about faith.

Schoolgirls go to St Elizabeth’s College at Martha and Mary Convent.

Every child must know that there’s a place on Earth where they’re loved no matter what: be they ill or healthy, jolly or sad, with all their ups and downs. To cover all with Love, to make those under their care happy is the main lesson taught by Elizabeth Feodorovna Romanova, the Grand Princess, to all our contemporaries.