The first House for the Homeless in Russia

The idea and the initiation of creating "Houses for the Homeless" belong to Saint John of Kronstadt. With permanent care for the poor, after a certain time he realized that no matter how much he gives alms to the needy, it does not change radically their financial position.

The wisdom of God brought him to reason to arrange a "Houses for the Homeless" in Kronstadt which unemployed and idle people could earn their daily food, bed and some money in.

In 1872 he wrote a proclamation to his Kronstadt flock to help him carry out this great idea: "There are a lot of reasons for poverty, but here are the main ones: poverty from birth, the poverty from the orphanage, poverty from different cases of distress, for example, from fire, theft, poverty from incapacity for work because of old age or illness, or disablement, or tutelage, poverty from loss of place, the poverty from idleness, addiction to alcohol drinks and in most cases, from the lack of work and lack of funds, with which one could take up the work: they are decent clothing, shoes, daily bread, tools or implements.

How good it would be for all these reasons to make a House for the Homeless! Then many of them could apply to the house with the requirement to make us for a certain pay this or that work, this or that thing, and our bourgeois would live, work and give thanks to God and their benefactors. And many would go up morally. In the name of Christianity, in the name of love of fellow-men, humanity I invocate: let's help these homeless poor, and support them morally and materially..."(link to the website www.artortodox.org there are quotes by J. Krondshtadskiy and Lives of the Saints)

By that time the Kronstadt flock of father John was well aware that in Kronstadt the great light of Christ shone. The citizens of Kronstadt honored and passionately loved his good pastor and widely responded to his call.
In Kronstadt a spacious and well-equipped 4-storey building grew, this was the first "House for the Homeless" in Russia. Laying was on 23th August, 1881, and the opening on 12th October, 1882. In the House for the Homeless there was a house church in the name of St. Alexander Nevskiy. In 1888 the father John managed to lay and build up a three-story stone doss-house.

The House for the Homeless turned into a city full of the most exuberant, diverse and meaningful activities. Guardianship of the House for the Homeless consisted of persons belonging to all classes of society, from the highest to the lowest ones. Between them there was no separation. Here all men merged into a single family and worked together.

The spiritual experience of the All-Russian father had been the basis for the creation of the "House for the Homeless " in the monastery of St. John, located in the village Malaya Soltanovka of the Kiev region.

The main objective of the "House for the Homeless" being settled in our monastery is to create work places, to set up production, to involve employees and inhabitants in creative work.

Today the "House for the Homeless in the name of the Holy and Righteous John of Kronstadt" (go to page the House for the Homeless in detail) includes the whole complex of buildings and workshops: there were built two production buildings with carpentry, icons, woodworking workshops, machine shop was equipped; blacksmith shop and a sewing workshop are working. (Go to the page about the workshops). Here every employee can find work for the soul and join the creative work.