Archimandrite Longin (Zhar): Father, who adopted... 253 children

Archimandrite Longin (Zhar): Father, who adopted... 253 children

— ...A priest in some monastery in western Ukraine adopted 253 children.

- How many? — I ask my interlocutor again.

“Two hundred and fifty-three,” he repeats separately. “He also built houses for them, founded two monasteries and is building a shelter for the disabled. And yet he never asks anyone for anything.

At this point my brain completely stopped working. Either this is not true, or everyone should know about it. Or this: too beautiful to be true. And it's a shame if it's not true. There is only one way - to find out and see everything for yourself.

Banchens - where is this?

The Patriarch preceded me. Back on October 2 of this year, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, during his visit to the Chernivtsi region, visited the house at the Holy Ascension Monastery in the village of Bancheny.

“Comrade Ribbentrop, let’s cut evenly here!”
- they say that in August 1939, Vyacheslav Molotov proposed to his German colleague to straighten the border of the USSR, which went around the protrusion of Polish and Romanian lands, with precisely these words. He didn't particularly mind. This is how the very unusual Hertsaevsky district was formed in the Chernivtsi region, where the absolute majority of the population are Romanians. In those parts lies the village of Bancheny, and the Holy Ascension Monastery not far from it. “This is a completely unique part of our country and the Church,” says the vicar of the Chernivtsi diocese, Bishop Meletiy of Khotyn. — The locals live in their own way, in the Romanian tradition. There are still people in the villages who do not understand the Ukrainian language, although the region has been in Ukraine for 70 years. In churches, services are officially celebrated in the new style and in Romanian. There is a special blessing for this from His Holiness Patriarch Alexy I. The fact is that the Romanian Church is new-calendar, therefore, when the Hertsaevsky district became the canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate, in order to prevent possible schisms, the parishes retained the right to serve as they were accustomed to. But in the Banchen Monastery, probably the largest non-Slavic monastery in the Russian Church, they also serve in Romanian, but still according to the old style.”

The monastery is headed by Archimandrite Longin. The same one whom two and a half hundred children call dad. This is a truth that is stranger than fiction.

Monastery on a vacant lot

“Our story began only 17 years ago,” says Father Amphilochius, a resident of the monastery. He speaks in a Russian-Ukrainian-Romanian mixture of languages. Almost all locals talk to visitors this way. Between each other - how it is convenient for someone to speak and understand. This is your kind of little Babylon. “When Father Longinus came here with the first four monks, there was a wasteland here. But the locals knew and loved the priest well - before he was tonsured, he served in the neighborhood, in the church in the village of Boyany. Therefore, when construction of the monastery began, many helpers gathered. Those who lived in the surrounding villages came to the construction site and worked. Those further away helped in any way they could: bricks, logs, food, and money.

Now on the territory of the monastery there are already seven churches, a refectory, fraternal buildings, a bell tower, a fountain, an enclosure with peacocks, a stable for ponies...
“Well, we have children, that’s why we have ponies,” Father Amphilochius, like an experienced guide, anticipates my question. — At first the shelter was in the monastery. Father Longin took his first children back in Boyany, and they moved with him, one might say, to a construction site. When there were more children than monks, they began to think about building a separate building for them. A convenient place was found four kilometers from the monastery, in the village of Molnitsa. And in Boyany at that time, a women’s monastic community was formed on the basis of the parish. The sisters began to take care of the children. And so it happened that now there is a monastery in Bancheny (it now has 86 monks), in Boyany there is a women’s monastery (it has 120 nuns), and in Molnitsa there is an orphanage. Father Longin is the confessor of both monasteries and the adoptive father of all the children in the orphanage.

“We need to love our children!”

Longinus is a monastic name. In fact, his name is Mikhail. Mikhail Vasilievich Zhar. He is only 46 years old, 20 of which he has been raising orphans.

— Whose idea was it for the shelter?
Yours? “God’s,” he says so that you believe. Faith, in principle, does not require any evidence. And what difference does it make who was the first to decide to gather children that no one wants, feed them, nurse them, treat them, teach them literacy and faith?

The story of the appearance of the first children in the monastery has already become a local legend. Longinus's father (then still Mikhail's father) had cows in Boyany. In the early 90s there was a time of famine. And he began donating milk to a local orphanage. In gratitude, the nurses decided to show the priest who this milk was going to. The conditions the children were in shocked Father Mikhail. He grabbed two kids in his arms and took them with him. This was the beginning of a “family-type orphanage,” as the monastery orphanage is now officially called, and the father of three children born in marriage became the father of five. Then Father Mikhail adopted 27 more. And then his passport ran out of pages where children were registered. He took custody of the next 224 children. I collected them throughout the region. If he goes somewhere on business, he will definitely bring it.

“I once held a funeral service for a young woman,” recalls Father Longin. - It was winter. I saw that after the funeral service, four boys remained at the grave. Everyone has left, and they stand completely frozen, wearing rubber boots on their bare feet and not going anywhere. It's frosty outside - 20 degrees. And the smallest of them was still tiny. I ask: “Why aren’t you going home?” And they tell me: “We won’t go without mom. We have nowhere to go." Their father left them, and their mother died. “Your mother is in heaven now,” I say. “Will you come and live with me?” They nod. Well, I brought them to the monastery.

Once a newborn girl was thrown to the gate in a banana box.

“Mom gave birth to her on New Year’s Eve, threw her in a box and brought her to us. I don’t know how long she lay there in the cold,” says Father Longin with a soft, melodious Romanian accent. “I took her in my hands, she was as cold as a stone.” Completely frozen. We quickly took her to the hospital. All the doctors said there was no chance. But with God's help the girl was saved. The doctors themselves gave her the surname Happy. And we named her Katenka.

Father met Styopka at a boarding school for disabled children. The armless boy jumped forward and read his own poems to Father Longin. Then he followed on the heels of the priest and the mothers, and when he was about to leave, Styopa pressed his face to his cassock and asked: “Please take me away from here!” Father burst into tears, hugged Styopa and took her with him. Here, in the orphanage, the boy began to read books. A lot of books. Now he likes to argue. Mother Elizabeth affectionately calls him “a philosopher.”

And his friend Romka is called a “musician” because he plays the synthesizer, which was placed - on purpose - next to his bed. This boy has difficulty moving. He has cerebral palsy.

But here the atmosphere is like this: no one feels unhappy or unnecessary.

What else do children need? Only to love you for who you are.

- At first we thought: well, we’ll take 50. Then - 100. Then we decided - we’ll be able to see through 150 children, but... They, poor people, have suffered so much in their still short life that I don’t have the strength to know how much they hurt, and don't take it to yourself! And when there were already 200 of them, I thought - well, that’s all! But what about “everyone”?.. Now I say, probably there will be 300.

This is Father Longinus making plans for the future. Yours and your children’s, future ones too.  

“Yakbi could hug all the orphans on earth, I wouldn’t give a damn,” when he gets very excited, his words in Russian and Ukrainian come out mixed up. - They are weak. You have to love them. All children need to be loved. And let’s help them, so they can see. I can't live without them! Stinks are my medicine. If they weren’t with me, I would have lived on earth in vain then.

For some reason, he is not afraid to adopt children with cerebral palsy. Strange, isn't it? Then he began to collect those whom even the doctors gave up on: they say, they are not residents. Yes, yes, I'm talking about AIDS.

When AIDS recedes

There are 49 such people in the shelter today (six of them have now been diagnosed). Father collected them from orphanages from all over Ukraine. “Due to” the special contingent of priests, the statistics of “childhood AIDS” in many regions of Ukraine decreased, and in Chernivtsi region they increased. These are statistics, numbers, commas. What does he or we all care about her, right?

At the shelter, children receive all the necessary therapy; there is separate medical staff and enhanced nutrition for them.
A regional AIDS center has been opened at the shelter, which cooperates with the Anti-AIDS Foundation of Elena Franchuk. Father, by the way, collaborates with a huge number of people. Not only in Ukraine. For example, to someone who has visited any orphanage in Ukraine, here in the orphanage something seems strange in the clothes of the children. And the clothes are new, unwashed, true to size. After all, children in orphanages usually wear so-called “charitable aid,” that is, “second-hand clothes.” And here the priest entered into a contract with a Turkish company to supply clothes for children. New and true to size! How did children with a terrible diagnosis end up in the shelter?

Very simple. In the baby's house, Father Longin saw a beautiful girl. Her mother abandoned her because her daughter was HIV-positive. The nurses also shied away from her. In the patriarchal Western Ukrainian society, the words “AIDS” and “death” are somewhere nearby.

“When I saw her, I felt very painful,” the priest recalls. “She looked at me so sadly, and I was afraid to touch her so as not to bring an infection to my children.”

I think that Father Longinus did not sleep that night, remembering this two-month-old girl. And in the morning I asked the brothers in the monastery to furnish the room as best as possible, to put an elegant crib there, because a child, a girl, would live here.

Little Larisa - that was her name - was baptized, now she is Philatea. Here, at the shelter, the girl underwent a course of retroviral therapy. Doctors were very surprised when they recently saw her tests: there were no traces of HIV infection in her blood. Now Philatea lives with the rest of the children, she has entered the fifth grade.

How it's done?

Father Longinus is idolized in Bancheny. He gives people hope. Live like people. And not only by raising children.

Well, imagine, God knows where, a monastery appeared, and then - or rather, almost simultaneously - a children's town, and the villages nearby began to be supplied with gas.
The gas line to the shelter was thrown across the Prut River. At the same time, the village also benefited.

- I know that you are not asking for help. “It’s fundamental,” I tell Father Mikhail. - But how is it that you and your children have everything?

“I think the Lord himself puts it on our hearts, who want to earn good things.” There are so many kind people in Ukraine... who are next to us.

He remembers how one day the kitchen ran out of oil. And there is no money to buy, but you have to cook for so many souls! At one time, only salads (about 15-20 kilograms of vegetables) are used up.

And suddenly one of the local businessmen appears: “I want,” he says, “to help your children, I have my own tank, I promise I’ll bring it for you, take it.” It's from the heart."

Father blessed him and kissed him. To celebrate, he then brought almost a tank of oil.

Father does not say that the first brick in the foundation of one of the bell towers of the monastery was laid in 2004 by the then Prime Minister of Ukraine Yanukovych. Then he came again, brought gifts for the children and a home theater. And President Yushchenko awarded him the order. It is easier for an order-bearing priest to resolve issues. Gas was supplied to the shelter with the help of Yuri Boyko and Igor Bakai. You also need to be able to reach that high.

The nuns say that “another woman, who wanted to help the children, brought a cow, and gave a friend a whole share, two hectares.”

On these hectares, the nuns grow potatoes for the children's town.

By the way, on the grounds of the monastery there is everything: fields, orchards, vegetable gardens, a farm, flower greenhouses. The monastery and shelter have enough of their own products. The surplus is distributed to nearby social institutions free of charge. Children work on monastery farms along with adults.

What happens?

Three-story buildings, bright windows, marble stairs, and equipped lifts for those children who find it difficult to move independently. This is a family-type orphanage. Each house is a different color. Pink, yellow, blue...

Inside the parquet is covered with carpets. Not carpet, but real soft carpets.

The walls are covered with paintings: nature, religious subjects. There are aquariums with fish everywhere. Birds are singing. Lots of greenery. And around the buildings there is an incredible amount of flowers.

Children live four to six people in a room. There is a sister assigned to each room. In total, 104 people care for children in the shelter, of which 65 are nuns, the rest are paid employees: nurses, cooks, teachers. The shelter itself looks like a gingerbread town. The facades of buildings, windows, entrances - everything is decorated with flowers. There are figurines of fairy-tale characters on the lawns. In the backyard there is a playground and a stadium. One day, the younger children asked their dad - Father Longin - for roller skates. Father bought skates for the children. Everyone. More than 200 pairs. But it turned out that there was no place to roller skate in the village. Then the monks from Banchen came to the rescue and laid asphalt in the backyard of the orphanage. Now you can ride a bicycle there, roller skate, or walk with a stroller.

“Is it a monk’s job to entertain children?”

“The monastic path and the family path are very different,” agrees Father Longin. “And our shelter is separate from the monastery. But I look at my monks and see a lot of goodness in their souls. They know when the children’s birthdays are, they buy them gifts, and even ask them to come and congratulate them. And I don't think that's a bad thing. Heaven rejoices if someone brings joy to an orphan. A monk will not depart from his monastic life, but he must also give goodness to others. It's not a sin. Do you know, when the children lived in the monastery, it used to happen that people would come to services and ask where Father Longinus was? And I play football with the children. Can you imagine what a temptation this must be for people! Rector - and football instead of service. So what to do? “Dad, let's play football!” - How can you refuse? I think the Lord will forgive me this sin, if it is a sin. Without mercy no one will be saved. Nobody.

What will happen?

The eldest pupil, “Donya”, was the first to marry about four years ago to a good guy, by the way, from a neighboring village. The tables were set, guests were invited - probably about a thousand came. Or more. The whole area was walking.

A year later - another wedding: he gave away another daughter. Then again...

And how many more weddings are to come, where “that Mikhailo” will sit in a place of honor, as befits a father, and be proud of “his children”!

“Then I will be calm, as soon as they all become family.” And look at the saint before me!.. Oh happiness! - the priest says dreamily.

Of course, a skeptic will say that the doctors could have made a mistake with the diagnosis of little Larisa. As in five other cases. Of course, children who have recovered from cerebral palsy by swimming in a real pool on the territory of the family home do not prove anything. And it goes without saying that faith in the Lord and the prayers of Father Longinus, the monks and nuns of his monastery, whom the children call “mothers,” and the help of everyone who has been helping them for almost 20 years have nothing to do with it. I won't argue. Then don’t argue that Father Longinus, who indiscriminately takes in feeding and raising children with “bouquets” of diseases - from cerebral palsy to AIDS with congenital hepatitis - and even if he does not save them from death, then prolongs their life in care and love, - Holy man. Agreed?

By the age of 46, Father Longin had suffered three heart attacks and two heart surgeries. Someone is holding it on our sinful earth... Do you happen to know who?

Awards and titles[ | ]

Church awards

• Order of the UOC of St. Nestor the Chronicler, II degree (09.29.2004)
• Order of the UOC of Saint Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir, II degree (09.29.2009)
• Order of the Russian Orthodox Church of Saint Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir, III degree (08/29/2011). Presented by Patriarch Kirill after the Divine Liturgy in the Trinity Cathedral of the Ascension Banchensky Monastery[7]
• the right to wear a second pectoral cross with decorations (09.24.2011)
• Order of Distinction of the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for Church Merit (09.20.2011)

• Order of St. Anthony and Theodosius of Kiev-Pechersk
• Order of St. Agapit of Pechersk

State awards

• Order of Merit, III degree (01/20/2006)[8]
• title of Hero of Ukraine (with presentation of the Order of the State, November 24, 2008) - for outstanding personal services to Ukraine in the implementation of the state policy of social protection of orphans and children deprived of parental care, many years of charitable activities
• Cross of St. Panteleimon the Healer (06/16/2009, by decree of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine)
• national award “Pride of the Country” (2010)
• Order "Patriot of Ukraine" (04/06/2011)
• Order of Independence of Ukraine (08/19/2011)

Links

• Ruling	Augustine (Markevich) · Agapit (Bevtsik) · Agafangel (Savvin) · Alexy (Grokha) · Alexy (Shpakov) · Alipy (Kozoliy) · Ambrose (Polykope) · Anatoly (Gladky) · Anthony (Pakanich) · Anthony (Fialko) · Bogolep (Goncharenko) · Bartholomew (Vashchuk) · Vissarion (Stretovich) · Vladimir (Melnik) · Vladimir (Orachev) · Evlogiy (Gutchenko) · Eusebius (Dudka) · Elisha (Ivanov) · Efrem (Kitsai) · Efrem (Yarinko) · Hilarion (Shukalo) · John (Siopko) · Joasaph (Guben) · Jonathan (Eletskikh) · Joseph (Maslennikov) · Irenaeus (Semko) · Irineus (Sredny) · Lazarus (Shvets) · Luke (Kovalenko) · Mark (Petrovtsy) · Meletiy (Egorenko) · Mitrofan (Nikitin) · Mitrofan (Yurchuk) · Nathanael (Krikota) · Nikodim (Baranovsky) · Nikodim (Gorenko) · Nikolai (Kapustin) · Onufriy (Legky) · Panteleimon (Lugovoy) · Panteleimon (Povoroznyuk) · Pitirim (Starinsky) Platon (Udovenko) Roman (Kimovich) Sergius (Gensitsky) Simeon (Shostatsky) Sophrony (Dmitruk) Tikhon (Chizhevsky) Feodor (Gayun) Feodor (Mamasuev) Filaret (Zverev) Filaret (Kucherov) Philip (Osadchenko)
  Vicars	Alexander (Drabinko) · Alexander (Nesterchuk) · Alypiy (Pogrebnyak) · Anthony (Borovik) · Anthony (Kripak) · Arkady (Taranov) · Arseny (Yakovenko) · Varnava (Filatov) · Varsonofy (Vinnichenko) · Varsonofy (Stolyar) · Veniamin (Pogrebnoy) · Victor (Bykov) · Vladimir (Moroz) · Damian (Davydov) · Diodorus (Vasilchuk) · Evlogiy (Kid) · Ilariy (Shishkovsky) · John (Vakhnyuk) · Jonah (Cherepanov) · Cassian (Shostak) · Clement (Evenings) Longinus (Heat) Nikolai (Grokh) Nikolai (Postal) Pavel (Swan) Panteleimon (Bashchuk) Seraphim (Demyaniv) Sergius (Zaliznitsky) Sergius (Mikhailenko) Feodosius (Snigiryov)
  At rest	Vasily (Zlatolinsky) · Gury (Kuzmenko) · Dionysius (Konstantinov) · Innokenty (Shestopal) · Ioannikiy (Kobzev) · Hippolytus (Khilko) · Niphont (Maloduha) · Panteleimon (Romanovsky)
  Former bishops *
  Translated	Anthony (Moskalenko) · Gleb (Savin) · Job (Smakouz) · Job (Tyvonyuk) · Nektary (Frolov)
  Defrocked	Filaret (Denisenko) · Andrey (Gorak) · Jacob (Panchuk)
  Deceased	Anthony (Vakarik) · Vasily (Vasiltsev) · Vladimir (Sabodan) · Evfimy (Shutak) · Kronid (Mishchenko) · Leonty (Gudimov) · Macarius (Svistun) · Methodius (Petrovtsy) · Nikanor (Yukhimyuk) · Nikodim (Rusnak) · Savva (Babinets) · Sevastian (Pilipchuk) · Tikhon (Zhilyakov) · Feodosius (Dikun)
  Since the transformation of the Ukrainian Exarchate of the Moscow Patriarchate into the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) in October 1990.

Notes[ | ]

1. ↑ 1 2
   The archbishop of the canonical UOC called the unification council a satanic gathering
   (undefined)
   . Ukraine.ru (12/15/2018). ““I return your invitation to the schismatic council, refusing to participate in it,” he concluded.” Access date: December 19, 2021.
2. List of participants in the Council of the UOC (8 June 2011) | UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH Archived August 1, 2012.
3. Journals of the meeting of the Holy Synod of the UOC on May 8, 2012, Journal No. 47. (Ukrainian)
4. His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr conferred the rite of naming Archimandrite Longinus (Heat) from Bishop Banchensky. (Ukrainian)
5. His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev led the consecration of the abbot of the Holy Ascension Monastery of Banchensky, Archimandrite Longin (Zhara), as Bishop of Banchensky, vicar ... patriarchia.ru.
6. “The US is enjoying the bloodshed in Ukraine.” Pravoslavie.ru.
7. The Primate of the Russian Church consecrated the Holy Trinity Cathedral of the Ascension Banchensky Monastery and the Divine Liturgy in the newly consecrated church.
8. DECREE OF THE PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE No. 36/2006 - On the establishment of the organization of the Chernivtsi region Archived copy of January 28, 2014 on the Wayback Machine (ukr.)