The city council of British Winchester decided that the Saint Elizabeth Monastery from Minsk will not take part in the annual local Christmas fair this year.

Residents and public organizations approached the city authorities with such a proposal.

The fact is that the Saint Elizabeth Monastery supports Russian military aggression in Ukraine.

Moreover, he does it not only at the level of rhetoric, but also collects money for equipment for the Russian military.

Earlier, the local Belarusian community tried to ban the participation of the monastery in events in Norway, but failed.

In the case of Great Britain, it succeeded.

Svaboda spoke with the priest of the Russian Orthodox Church

Alexander Shramko

about how the Saint Elizabeth Monastery learned to earn money and also became one of the centers of the "Russian world".

"Well, are you interested?"

Alexander Shramko says that he has known Father Andrei Lemyashonka since the end of the 1970s.

In those days, Lemyashonak was a guard in the Cathedral in Minsk.

"Many people came to the church thanks to him.

Andrei was watching when someone young came to the cathedral.

This was rare.

Then he approached him, turned the keys on his fingers and began: "Well, what are you interested in?" If he answered positively, then he offered literature, including a church self-published book.

It's surprising that he didn't catch it."

Priest Alexander Shramko, 2018

The spade passed through the hippie subculture.

He is from the family of a nomenklaturnik, he lived in a house near Gorky Park together with Pyotr Masherov.

Father Shramko says that he visited him, but they still did not become friends.

"Lemyashonak raised the topic of drunkenness"

Andrey Lemyashonak became a priest quite late - in the early 1990s.

By this time, he had been with the Cathedral for thirteen years, but he was engaged in other things - he worked as a watchman, bell ringer, sang in the choir.

Alexander Shramko says that at this time Lemyashonak became friends with Father George Latushka.

Together, they achieve the return of the believers of the Petropavlovsk Cathedral.

"Then Lemyashonak became a priest to help the abbot of the Petropavlovsk Cathedral, Father Latushka.

Lemyashonka's popularity as a priest began with conversations with believers in cathedrals in the early 1990s.

He organized talks under the icon "The Unabsorbable Cup".

It was believed that this icon helps in the fight against drunkenness.

And the appropriate audience gathered there - unhappy women, whose husbands and sons were drinking.

Lemyashonak got up on such a "popular" topic," says Shramko.

As a result, these women became the core of the sisterhood of Princess Elizabeth, which was founded in 1994.

The sisterhood was named in honor of Elizabeth Feodorovna, grand duchess of the Romanov family.

Her sister Alexandra was the wife of Emperor Nicholas II.

In 1992, the Russian Orthodox Church added Lizaveta Fedorovna to the ranks of saints.

The monastery is also named after the princess.

"If I listen to what he says, I was even surprised.

I remember that cassettes with Lemyashonka's sermons were sold in my church.

There was a stream of pious discourse, and something caught people in it.

For me it is a mystery to this day.

He never prepared for sermons," says Alexander Shramko.

"Women rushed into battle"

Soon the sisterhood began to help the staff of the psychiatric hospital in Navinki.

Then it was decided to build a temple and a monastery there.

"Many devoted women gathered around Lemyashonko, who obeyed him in everything.

In those days, temples were built only with the help of sponsors - rich people or organizations.

It was unrealistic to build a temple at the expense of people's donations, because there was barely enough money to support the activities of the parish.

But Lemyashonak took a different path, he placed women from the sisterhood all over the city, who "rushed into battle".

They accepted notes asking for prayers for money."

Archpriest Andrey Lemyashonak is the priest of the Elizabethan Monastery, 2020

Apparently, many have seen such women at the entrances to the subway, in shopping centers, at train stations, and in other crowded places.

They wear long white scarves, so many people mistake them for nuns, but this is not the case.

"Many priests did not like it - people do not even need to go to church to leave a note, they raised this issue, but in vain.

Every day, these women from the sisterhood went straight to the temple to Lemyashonka, where they gave a report on how much money they earned."

"Abroad they tell about the poor monastery"

The sisterhood managed to raise money for the construction of a temple and a monastery.

After some time, special trays began to appear in Minsk, selling the products of the monastery workshops.

"They have everything focused on making money.

They are often brought together by top management to discuss where else to make money.

They make money from everything - selling icons, other Orthodox paraphernalia, spiritual literature, breeding horses and dogs, selling honey, they have a cafe, a medical center, and a school.

When a person comes to them, the first question is what he can do and how to make money from it," says Shramko.

When many people with knowledge of foreign languages ​​began to come to the monastery, it was decided to master foreign markets as well, says Father Alexander.

The priest says that a lot of things are done in the Saint Elizabeth Monastery, but the main criteria are expensive and not very high quality.

Foreigners are often bought for such things - say, poor nuns from Belarus.

They tell everyone what a very poor monastery they have.

Then there were cases when people from abroad came to Navinki and grabbed their heads, because they thought that there was absolute poverty there.

They are received abroad by the Catholic Church, Protestant communities, they are fed, they are almost never wasted.

They sell the same as in Belarus, but for more money.

They even reached the USA and Australia."

In fact, the Saint Elizabeth Monastery has become one of the most profitable Orthodox businesses in the world, Alexander Shramko is convinced.

The priest believes that it would not have been possible to achieve such a scale without the support of church and secular authorities.

"He is a consistent imperialist"

Aleksandar Shramko says that Andrey Lemyashonak is formally nobody in the Saint Elizabeth Monastery, the main person there is the abbess, but everything is subordinated to him.

"Once upon a time there was the abbess Lizaveta, the closest associate of Lemyashonka, so she raised a rebellion that Father Andrei should not command them.

As a result, Elizabeth was sent to a small monastery in the province.

Everything there is built on obedience to Father Andrew."

Shramko says that Lemyashonak never hid his pro-Russian, imperialist views.

"There were few liberal Orthodox then.

The Russian Orthodox Church abroad had a great influence on the Orthodox in the USSR, it sent its literature.

They had such a very imperial orientation, they already canonized the royal family.

The Russian imperialism of the time was being pumped up by the Orthodox.

There were few believers, we all opposed the communists and did not pay attention to the fact that some have one bias, others have another, that's why we left.

How now we all oppose Lukashenka's regime regardless of beliefs.

Lemyashonka never had any sentiment towards Belarus.

I think he, like Putin, believes that there are no Belarusians.

He is a consistent imperialist."

Against the vaccine and for Putin

Andrei Lemyashonka's son Dmitri was once a famous fan of "Dynamo" Minsk, under him Russian imperial flags were hung on the sector.

When "Dynamo" fans took a more pro-Belarusian position, Lemyashonak left the movement.

He admitted in an interview that he used to have fascist views.

Appeared in the courtyard of the monastery wearing "Russia" and "DPR" T-shirts.

During the coronavirus pandemic, crowded services were held in the Saint Elizabeth Monastery.

The sisters of the monastery dissuaded believers from getting vaccinated.

"We pray for Lukashenka, and for Putin, and for Shaiga, and for Lavrov (laughs) - I always remember at the liturgy, but we are all soldiers, we don't need this "free world" where everything is turned upside down." - said Lemyashonak in one of his sermons after the start of the war.

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