Life is on the move. New Life: drug rehabilitation or sect? Life in motion rehabilitation center

Archpriest George Joaffe - a critical understanding of the “rehabilitation” activities of the neo-Pentecostal sect “New Life”...

Subject of conversation

The Church of the Holy Prophet Elijah, where I serve, is located on the northeastern outskirts of St. Petersburg. This is practically the only temple in the huge residential area of Rzhevka-Porokhovye, notorious for its drug dens. When visiting the sick and elderly who cannot get to church, I myself often see abandoned syringes in the entrances and on the stairs. And the wall paintings of modern troglodytes are replete with so-called drug symbols.

In recent years, crying mothers and grandmothers, dejected fathers and abandoned wives often come to our temple, whose grandchildren, children or husbands were caught in the merciless octopus of drug addiction. Since 2002, with the blessing of the ruling bishop, Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and Ladoga Vladimir, weekly prayer services have been held in our church for those suffering from the disease of drug addiction. Parents are also present at these prayer services.

After the service we hold conversations in the parish school building. Gradually, learning about God and the Church, reading the Gospel, children and parents realize their place in the world, gain faith and the meaning of life, and take the path of repentance.

Getting to know my clients better, I learned that some of them had previously tried to be healed at the New Life rehabilitation center near Kingisepp, but escaped from there. One of my church obediences is to work in the missionary department of the diocese.

And such a phenomenon as a Christian rehabilitation center could not help but interest me.

I began to purposefully study the literature available on this issue, communicate with people who had gone through this organization, and find out the positions of various specialists. I found a number of materials and eyewitness reports in the archives of our Diocesan Information Center for Combating Drug Addiction in the Holy Trinity Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Some indicative extracts from this information, their analysis and the conclusions I have drawn are offered to the attention of readers in this article.

Several necessary certificates

One day, a phone call rang at my house and an acquaintance who knew about my work with drug addicts advised me, putting everything else aside, to turn on the TV to one of the low-frequency TV channels that broadcast mainly music videos. The following picture was broadcast there: a certain young man was giving a rather long speech about how only by believing in God, he left drugs and came to the grace of the Holy Spirit.

From his vocabulary, it became clear to me, as a priest, that all this was being said by a non-Orthodox person. Moreover, the speech was composed in such a way that it was impossible to determine the confessional affiliation of his religious organization. However, the video itself was accompanied by illuminated contact phone numbers, which everyone who wanted to get rid of drug addiction was asked to call.

***

Thus, after showing a fair amount of persistence, I was able to finally find out that what was being broadcast on television was an advertisement for the so-called New Life Church, offering drug addicts referrals for healing in a rehabilitation center. However, what this church is and what are the methodological principles of work on the rehabilitation of drug addicts, the people who answered the contact numbers refused to explain.

I think the reader can get the most approximate idea from several excerpts of different nature that I have selected. This is what the head of the center writes. Hieromartyr Irenaeus of Lyon Alexander Dvorkin: This movement came to us through the Swedish organization “Word of Life”. The neo-Pentecostal or neo-charismatic Faith Movement, which originated in the United States, is also known as Prosperity Theology, Prosperity Gospel, and Faith Preaching. The most characteristic names of groups belonging to this movement are: “Word of Life”, “Living Water”, or “New Life”, “Living Spring”, “Word of Truth”, “Church of the New Generation”, “Church of the Covenant”, “ Praise Church", "Living Faith", etc.

The “movement of faith” is not built in the form of a rigid structure, but within each sect, each founded in its own city, control is no less than if they were part of a centralized structure. Local sects maintain contact with each other, exchanging preachers and providing mutual assistance. The entire northeast of our country is literally flooded with sects belonging to this movement. However, in the European part of our country there are quite enough of them and they successfully lobby their interests in the corridors of power.

I will immediately note that not only in special articles and the church press, but also in ordinary public publications, alarm has been expressed for a very long time in connection with the multiplication of sectarian organizations of this kind. In the archives of the Information Center, I found a newspaper clipping that had already faded - a letter to the Petrozavodsk newspaper Karelia from a very ordinary reader. The note was called “Road to Nowhere”:

How often do people think that they have found the path to Faith - and they are mistaken. This happens especially often in our time, when freedom is given to organize various sects, when certain magicians and psychics openly collect tribute at “healing sessions,” and on TV they “give us instructions.” Unfortunately, almost all figures of this kind bring a lot of harm, and among the sects there are both openly satanic ones and those that serve darkness, hiding behind... the name of Christ! On another Sunday, a service of the so-called Church of Christ ("New Life") took place in one of the city's Houses of Culture. The pastor began by reading the Bible. Gradually people entered a state of ecstasy. I have no doubt that the pastor was a psychic and it was he who brought the crowd into an ecstatic state. At some point, at a sign from the pastor, everyone stood up, and I felt that some kind of wave passed through the hall - not wind, but like an electric shock.

Everyone began to pray loudly, many in incomprehensible languages (which they themselves, as they later explained, did not know). Many cried, some took a crucified pose, fought in convulsions, wailed, mindlessly submitting to an incomprehensible force. Why do people seeking God end up in such “Christian” organizations? Apparently, because they cannot distinguish evil from good... (Newspaper Karelia, Petrozavodsk, May 1997).

The letter does not note an important circumstance: often those people who are looking for a way of salvation from drug addiction in religious knowledge cannot distinguish good from evil. Unfortunately, there are many helpers to find such deliverance from drug addiction (the road to nowhere).

Here, for example, is an excerpt from a short guide to organizations and institutions involved in the rehabilitation of drug addicts, information for which was provided, as indicated in the text, by RBOO AZARIA (Mothers Against Drugs):

BEE Magazine. Special issue-booklet. (Distributed for free)
Information about organizations and institutions.
Section: Non-profit organizations.
REHABILITATION CENTER NEW LIFE
Consulting and rehabilitation services.
Meetings: Thursday - 18.00; Sunday - 11.00
Ave. Shaumyan, 22, in the premises of the Okhta cinema.
Head: Sergey Asaturovich Matevosyan.

(Published by St. Petersburg. Russian-German Exchange, project Local self-government and NGOs: strengthening cooperation and transfer of experience. Help for drug addicts. Circulation 4000 copies. Signed for publication on 04/07/2000)

Information about what kind of church this is that is engaged in the rehabilitation of drug addicts near the city of Kingisepp, Leningrad Region, quickly appeared in the Orthodox church press. Another excerpt - from the brochure Vaccination against Drug Addiction - is directly related to this form of expansion of the said church:

On the 50th day from the Resurrection of Christ, the Holy Apostles received the ability to preach in other tongues. So that everyone heard their own dialect from them. From this testimony of the Holy Apostles, today's Pentecostals have concluded that during divine services they should make meaningless sounds (in other languages) at their discretion and, while dancing, fall into a kind of prayerful ecstasy.

Here's how they operate: a film about a "Christian community and a church (!) drug rehabilitation center is aired on TV." Address: Leningrad region, Kingisepp... People go there with hope from all over the country, sometimes giving their last funds. And they end up in a sect. Head - S. Matevosyan. Of course, “honest journalists” did not give a word or a frame about these rituals and the religious uniqueness of the said “church”.

Finally, to treat the subject more clearly, I will present two more passages. The fact is that the active work of the New Life Church could not help but come to the attention of Orthodox organizations dealing with issues of combating drug addiction. Until the end of the 90s. The Orthodox brotherhood New Pilgrims worked in St. Petersburg, whose wards also encountered the influence of sectarian formations.

An excerpt from the brotherhood’s report and a fragment of a memorandum compiled by the Diocesan Information Center on Combating Drug Addiction for the publishing house Danilovsky Evangelist (Moscow), contain references to the fact that representatives of the New Life Church often and actively use references to blessings and support from our clergy and the Church .

I will dwell below on the origin of such references, as well as their validity.

Information center

According to the registration lists of the Orthodox charitable anti-drug brotherhood "New Pilgrims", during the entire period of the organization's work, 617 people were registered as conditional members (as wards).

According to available information, about 20% of them were, to varying degrees, subjected to various attempts at influence from various kinds of sectarian organizations based on their involvement in drug use (from invitations to meetings to offers of “treatment and rehabilitation”). At the same time, representatives of the “New Life” sect are the most active.

The register contains reliable information about 4 wards who became active members of this sect. There was a case of arrival at the monastery on the island. Konevets of three young people who fled from the “rehabilitation center” in the village. Preobrazhenka, who explained the escape with complaints about the unbearable demands for agricultural work, the savage nature of the “worship services,” the lack of medical care and the general system of suppression of the individual in the sect hierarchy.

In total, the register noted 15 cases of wards of the brotherhood getting into the sect, mainly for the following reasons:

Representatives of the sect hide the non-Orthodox and sectarian nature of their activities and even refer to the blessing and support of the Orthodox clergy.

In drug treatment clinics (city, regional and interdistrict drug dispensaries) advertisements are posted with addresses and contacts of “rehabilitation communities”, incl. sect "New Life", without indicating the religious-sectarian orientation of its activities. Commercial clinics offer referrals for such “rehabilitation” as a form of paid drug treatment services.

Some wards were recruited through the insistence of their parents, among whom the activities of this sect are advertised (for example, through meetings of the Azaria society...).

Secretary of the Board: (signature)

Information center

REPORT (excerpt)

We do not have any copies of the sect’s statutory documents at our disposal. There is information that the initial base for the New Life sect was the buildings and land plots of a former psychiatric hospital in the village. Preobrazhenka. In addition, in St. Petersburg, according to our data, there is, in addition to the base in the Okhta cinema, a network of emergency apartments for the initial placement of patients from other cities and regions of the Russian Federation. Arrival and accommodation fees are also charged.

There is information that some parish priests at the contact addresses of the New Pilgrims brotherhood, as well as other Orthodox organizations, were repeatedly contacted by people who left the sect or such apartments with requests for money for the journey home. There is the use of videotapes with advertisements for the sect, etc.

We received a telephone request from the deputy corps of Petrozavodsk with a request to characterize representatives of the St. Petersburg “church-rehabilitation” organization “New Life”. It is also known that representatives of the sect turned for support to the regional and city governments, as well as to the leadership of the UBNON (the head of the Department, police colonel G.V. Zazulin).

In the summer of 2000, negotiations took place between infectious disease doctors in St. Petersburg, representatives of one of the Swedish foundations and the New Life sect on the launch of a special bus (a mobile fixed point for the exchange of used syringes for drug addicts) with Swedish funds for the purpose of “preventing HIV infection ".

The representative of the sect referred to the blessing she received from an Orthodox priest from Moscow, Archpriest Alexy Baburin (see also the book “Drug Addiction: Sin or Disease.” Moscow: “Danilovsky Evangelist,” excerpts.).

In connection with these negotiations, with the blessing of the curator of the information center, Archimandrite Nazariy (Lavrinenko), the chief infectious disease specialist of the city, prof. A.G. A letter was sent to Rakhmanova with the warning information we have....

It is possible that the mentioned Orthodox collection Drug Addiction: Sin or Disease, intended in format for drug addicts and their parents, could arouse interest among many specialists. In particular, it clearly and intelligibly outlined the issues of the Orthodox attitude to a number of evil phenomena in the field of drug treatment and methods of rehabilitation of drug addicts.

Among other materials, warnings were sounded about sectarian organizations operating in this area. However, in a book published by a reputable Orthodox publishing house with a circulation of 10,000 copies. with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus', information was discovered that clearly contradicts both this blessing and the very contents of the collection.

Since we are talking specifically about the New Life Church, I will take the liberty of disavowing these passages here. Here is a quote from the article by Archpriest Alexy Baburin “Unite Our Efforts” from the collection “Drug Addiction: Sin or Disease:”

Since May 1995, in the village of Preobrazhenka near Kingisepp, a rehabilitation center for drug addicts called “New Life” has been operating on a charitable basis. It is headed by Sergey Matevosyan. Seryozha, unfortunately, is not an Orthodox person by religious affiliation. But we Orthodox Christians can learn a lot from him.

He works with the hardest drug addicts that everyone else refuses to work with. He pulls abandoned children who are near death out of basements, washes their wounds, treats them, feeds them, gives them shelter, work, and returns them to a full life. In our country, no one except him deals with such advanced drug addiction. And we must give Sergei his due; he does not call anyone to leave the fold of the Orthodox Church.

The reader will find out how true all this is just below, from the stories of people who received such excellent help. Well, I also found out the question about the very origin of this text - just in a personal conversation with Father Alexy Baburin.

The fact is that this highly respected priest who puts a lot of effort into working with drug addicts was misled, or, more simply put, deceived, that is, he was informed about the activities of the New Life organization from a promotional video shown to him by S. Matevosyan, and from advertising information for external ones, where the product is shown face to face and where nothing was said about the religious affiliation of the organization or about internal methods of rehabilitation of drug addicts. Of course, Archpriest Alexy Baburin did not give any blessings to the New Life Church for its activities.

At the very end of the mentioned collection we find a special section: Addresses of professional treatment and rehabilitation programs, centers and communities related to solving drug addiction problems.

And here we also read: “New Life”, a rehabilitation center (community) for drug addicts. Leningrad region, Kingisepp district, pos. Preobrazhenskoe. Interviews at the Okhta cinema (addresses, telephone numbers, etc.).

This message may be supplemented with the following information.

Having examined the received memorandum, the director of the publishing house Danilovsky Evangelist V. Malyagin sent a special letter to the curator of the Diocesan Information Center for Combating Drug Addiction to the vicar of the Holy Trinity Alexander Nevsky Lavra, Archimandrite Nazariy. In it, the head of the publishing house sincerely thanked for the information about the New Life sect, said that the compilers of the collection were victims of unreliable sources, and also apologized to Orthodox readers (especially those in St. Petersburg).

It remains to add: any references by any of the representatives of the New Life Church to the blessing of priests or support from the Orthodox Church should be considered as fraud and deception. Moreover, the victims of such deception most often become ordinary people who, instead of supporting them, risk being involved in a destructive sect.

This problem has to be posed much broader than the consideration of a separate sectarian organization. In this regard, I would like to say about one more book.

At the XI International Christmas Readings in Moscow (late January 2003), I purchased an interesting book published in 2002 by the Catholic Charitable Foundation Caritas: A Practical Guide. Drugs and drug addicts. The reference book is also subtitled Hope in Trouble. In terms of content, it is composed quite correctly; it also reflects the Christian view of the problem. However, in its recommendatory part, it is not much different from all similar publications that focus on the so-called Minnesota model, that is, the 12-step program (Narcotics Anonymous - NA).

At the same time, Appendix No. 3 of the directory (help centers) provides a list of 111 organizations involved in helping drug addicts in the post-Soviet space. Of these, 45 organizations use the already mentioned American 12-step NA program, 19 organizations are engaged in social assistance and 47 are engaged in religious types of rehabilitation.

Of these 47, only 6 are Orthodox. Other organizations are basically what corresponds to the following extremely polite name: neo-charismatic religious communities.

Possible objections

One often hears the opinion: the result is important, but who achieved it - Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant - is not important. All this, they say, is your interfaith competition, and the main thing is that there are fewer drug addicts. How can one respond to such statements? Let's try to start with the main thing.

What is chemical addiction and how similar is it to psychological addiction? Let's turn to the Practical Guide mentioned just above.

In the chapter What is addiction? it is rightly pointed out that if we are logical and consistent, then addiction to chemical substances can also include dependence on completely legal medications prescribed by a doctor: sleeping pills, sedatives or painkillers, many patented drugs and diet pills.

Chemical dependence probably includes alcoholism, nicotineism (addiction to smoking), dependence on stimulants (including coffee and tea), as well as food dependence (meaning distortions in relation to food, for example, gluttony or, conversely, almost complete refusal to eat for fear of gaining weight).

All these types of addiction have long been classified as drug addiction (in the broad sense) in those countries where approaches to the treatment of such diseases have been developed. Moreover, the same approaches for treating classic drug addicts, the same concept of addiction as a disease, apply to such types of addictions as unhealthy dependence on other people, addiction to sexual relationships, addiction to work, gambling, computers, uncontrolled spending of money and Ave.

In a sense, people use various drugs like drugs that change their emotional state, help relieve mental pain, distract or escape from internal problems. Such a means can be some kind of chemical narcotic substance, but it can also become something else. For example, excitement, sex, power and money. A relationship with another person, a job, or even a misunderstood religion can turn into a drug.

All these types of addiction only seem different. In fact, they are almost the same in their essence, causes and consequences. Consequently, people suffering from these diseases are not so different. In other words, there are no fundamental differences between a person who uses illegal drugs and a person involved in a destructive religious organization.

All these types of addiction carry a terrible danger both for the person himself - for his physical, mental and spiritual health, and for society as a whole. Will replacing one addiction with another lead to positive results? Of course not.

Several years ago, I also encountered the situation mentioned in the Information Center report: near the church I was stopped by a young man who was clearly, as psychologists say, in a borderline state. He asked for money for his way home.

During the conversation, it turned out that he was being treated for drug addiction in the New Life community near Kingisepp, having stayed there for several months, and now he could not get home to the Urals. When the conversation concerned his stay in the rehabilitation center, his speech became confused and he answered indistinctly. Apparently, this was due to some traumatic circumstances.

I strongly advised him, upon returning home, to go to an Orthodox church, since, quite obviously, he needed spiritual rehabilitation after his stay in the sect, and possibly psychiatric rehabilitation.

The representatives of New Life themselves, as an argument in the debate, when it comes to internal treatment methods, ask the question: What is better - a living Protestant or a dead drug addict? This way of asking the question is completely incorrect. Firstly, it is unethical to speculate, playing with the words life and death, - after all, both the life and death of every person are in the hands of God. Secondly, it seems that only Protestants, and especially New Life, are involved in saving drug addicts, but this is far from the case. And thirdly, this will be discussed below, neo-charismatics do not belong to Protestantism confessionally.

What is the neo-charismatic movement?

At the end of April 2001, an international scientific and practical conference “Totalitarian sects - a threat of the 21st century” was held in Nizhny Novgorod. At this conference, the opinions of not only representatives of the Church were heard, but also the opinions of specialists in the field of law, medicine, the opinions of government officials and teachers. A special definition of neo-Pentecostals says:

We, the participants of the conference “Totalitarian sects - a threat of the 21st century” gathered in Nizhny Novgorod, draw attention to the serious danger posed by the neo-Pentecostal charismatic “Faith Movement”. This movement is represented in our country by different sects, for example: “New Generation Church”, “Word of Life”, “Church of the Covenant”, “Living Faith”, “Living Water”, “Church on Stone”, “New Life”, “Dew” ", "Grace", "Potter's House", "Church of the Love of Christ", various "full gospel churches", etc.

Some of them are included in the “Russian Union of Christians of the Evangelical Faith”, others are in the “Russian United Union of Christians of the Evangelical Faith”, others are in the Association of Christians of the Evangelical Faith “Global Strategy” (also known as “Harvest of the World”), and others are not registered at all.

But all of them are actively conquering living space in Russia, declaring themselves as a real factor in the modern life of our society. Today in Russia the number of their adherents has already exceeded 200 thousand people (according to 2003 data - more than 250 thousand). Along with Jehovah's Witnesses, they are the largest and fastest growing sects in our country.

Neo-Pentecostal sects suppress any criticism addressed to them: increasingly, they initiate lawsuits against journalists, justice authorities, and even ordinary citizens who dare to speak negatively about them.

Neo-Pentecostal sects often resort to confessional anonymity, not indicating the religious affiliation of their preachers on their advertising posters, which is a gross violation of the Law “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations.” By luring people to their meetings, they promise those who come mass healings and all kinds of miracles, thus speculating on the problems and troubles of citizens. Naturally, no one bears responsibility for unfulfilled promises and deliberately dishonest advertising.

Neo-Pentecostals also use confessional pseudonymity: often when asked about their religious affiliation, they call themselves “just Christians.” This position is an outright lie used to mislead recruited citizens. In their official documents and statements, neo-Pentecostals call themselves Protestants and a traditional denomination both in the world and in our country.

Unfortunately, this advertising tactic turned out to be effective: now in Russia Neo-Pentecostal associations are universally called Protestant, and many Russians form their attitude towards Protestantism on the basis of personal impressions from meetings with Neo-Pentecostals.

We, the specialists gathered at the conference: theologians, religious scholars, teachers, law enforcement and government officials, psychiatrists and psychologists, testify that the neo-Pentecostal “Faith Movement” never belonged to Protestantism. Moreover, it has moved so far away from the original Pentecostalism (which arose at the beginning of the 20th century as an alternative to Protestantism) that it can no longer even be called Christian.

Its main components are the occult “Positive Thinking” that originated in the second half of the 19th century in the USA (revealed in the “Faith Movement” by the doctrine of “positive confession”), widely used in the neo-pagan movement “New Age” - a method of visualization, an unhealthy craving for various supernatural experiences and experiences, the primitive pagan doctrine of “small gods”, the crudely magical doctrine of the power of the believer and the frankly materialistic “Theology of Prosperity” (emphasis. - Author).

According to criteria accepted in international practice, a destructive cult is a religious association that uses deception when involving and controlling the consciousness of its adherents without their consent. The deception of involvement consists of confessional anonymity or pseudonymity and the promise of indispensable miracles and healings at the organization's meetings, as discussed above. Mind control is about controlling behavior, controlling information, controlling thinking and controlling emotions.

Many members of neo-Pentecostal religious groups suffer from depression, and suicide attempts are extremely common among them. This is confirmed by international statistics. There is a conclusion from the head of the Department of Psychology of the State University of Education and Science of Novokuznetsk, V.A. Kubasov. about the use of hypnosis by neo-charismatic missionaries, about introducing people into a state of deep trance, during which any suggestive programs can be introduced into the subconscious.

The danger of the techniques of mental suppression of the individual used in this charismatic movement is confirmed by Swedish statistics, according to which the percentage of former members of the sects of the movement who turned out to be patients in psychiatric clinics is much higher than the average. We can also cite Russian data, for example, from the clinical practice of the 3rd psychiatric hospital in Novosibirsk, where doctors had to treat patients who were adherents of the Church of the Covenant.

According to experts, due to the active influence on the psyche of adherents after several sessions of worship, they develop a near-narcotic dependence on sensory experiences that arise during the glorification of Christ, joint prayers, and speaking in tongues. Speaking in tongues very often resembles an epileptic seizure, accompanied by screaming, squealing, inarticulate muttering, often loss of consciousness, falling to the floor, and is interpreted by sectarians as a manifestation of the grace of the Holy Spirit in them.

Each service begins with the glorification of Christ, which is carried out through the repeated repetition of any one simple phrase like I praise you, Christ, to the deafening accompaniment of rhythmic music that hits the adherents from powerful speakers.

The worshipers are led by several people specially allocated for this purpose, most often young girls who are on stage (such services most often take place in theaters or cinemas), repeat the words of praise many times in a chant, dance and raise their hands. They act as a visible object of imitation for newly converted sect members and guests who do not yet know how to behave at this moment in the service.

The rhythm of the musical accompaniment during worship changes several times from fast to calm, soothing, evoking in the new person a reaction of a benevolent, uncritical perception of what is happening. Some of those on stage, towards the end of the worship, fall into a state of trance (or imitate it), which is manifested in exalted poses and movements, kneeling, sensual prayerful whispering and other similar actions. Apparently, glorification is a meditative technique designed to put a person into a state of controlled trance.

Adherents of the sect are in an information vacuum, since television, radio and the press allegedly carry a demonic charge. Many of them leave their parents, as the attitude is formed that a parent who has not accepted the teachings of the sect is also a tool in the hands of the devil. Adherents regularly contribute tithes (a tenth of their income) to the maintenance of the local community and its leadership. In addition, numerous other ongoing fees are provided, designed to significantly ease the burden of managing their own money for ordinary sect members.

Mass religious meetings with healings are practiced, which are sometimes organized in stadiums, which resemble similar events of healers and psychics.

The name of the Faith Movement - Prosperity Theology - is due to the fact that, according to the teachings of this movement, a true Christian must succeed and prosper in earthly life, which is considered as confirmation of his salvation, as evidence that he has sufficiently mastered the laws operating in the spiritual world, and can now demand from God whatever he wants and receive what he demands, since God, according to sectarians, simply does not have the right to refuse a person who has firm faith and is confident in his salvation.

Charismatic leaders teach that God's presence can be felt through abnormal physical manifestations and sensory shocks. For them, all so-called relationships with God come down to physical sensations, emotional agitation and mental ecstatic states, when a person does not control himself and often does not even remember what happened to him. These sensations become a kind of drug for charismatics, and if they disappear, the sectarians experience a kind of withdrawal syndrome.

It is quite obvious that many leaders of neo-Pentecostal groups use occult and magical practices of influencing people at their meetings, resorting to methods of mass hypnosis and mind control, leading those present to many hours of mass hysteria.

Such widespread and often obligatory practices of neo-Pentecostals as tongue-speaking, the Toronto blessing (prolonged senseless laughter), surrender in spirit (fainting), prayer of birth pangs (convulsions), etc., are destructive means of influencing the psyche.

The so-called doctrine of theocracy, understood by neo-Pentecostals as the undivided power of a pastor who can manipulate his parishioners, completely control their lives, manage their time, give them any orders, impose any obligations on them, cannot but cause concern. There are many known cases where pastors used believers for selfish purposes and personal gain.

Pastors seek unquestioning obedience from members of the sect, including by referring to prophecies and revelations that they allegedly receive directly from God. Members of the sect, under the guise of paying tithes, are subject to exorbitant taxes and often give everything they have to the sect. Thus, in sects that subscribe to prosperity theology, it is mainly the leadership of those sects that is actually thriving.

***

For more detailed information about this religious phenomenon, I refer the reader to the monograph by priest Igor Efimov, The Modern Charismatic Movement of Sectarianism. But to clarify the issue of the practice of speaking in tongues among neo-charismatics (this practice is present in New Life), I would like to give a short excerpt from the Textbook for the course on Sectology:

If you ask them why they mutter in meaningless tongues and roll on the floor in hysterical ecstasy, doing something that was definitely condemned by the Apostle Paul, they will answer that Paul was just a man who could make mistakes, unlike Jesus , Who was God and could not make mistakes. Therefore, they treat the legacy of the Apostle Paul very selectively: accepting what suits them and rejecting as “undivine” everything that they do not like about it.

In fact, the phenomenon of “glossolalia,” that is, the semi-conscious hysterical muttering of inarticulate sounds (what charismatics call “speaking in tongues”), has been known since ancient times and is an indispensable feature of many ecstatic pagan cults. Let us recall the shamanistic dances with shouts, the transcendental shaking of Shaivite monks, the muttering of dervishes falling into ecstasy, or the inarticulate prophecies of the ancient Greek Sibyls and Pythias. In fact, it is rare that a pagan cult can do without glossolalia. Converts from paganism brought glossolalia to early Christian communities, where it was opposed by St. Apostle Paul, who with pedagogical wisdom pointed out the need to preserve order and order during worship (1 Cor. 14). By the end of the 1st century, as former pagans became churched, the phenomenon of glossolalia completely outlived its usefulness in Christian communities.

Charismatics who claim that “speaking in tongues” is a sign of the real presence of the Holy Spirit can be reminded of these facts and ask how the Holy Spirit can manifest itself in pagan anti-Christian cults and why the sacrifice of Christ was necessary if one can be saved by the Holy Spirit through, say, Shaivism or shamanism?

If they begin to refer to the fact that the apostles spoke in tongues on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:4-11), then this can be easily explained: the apostles, not knowing other languages, preached the Gospel in such a way that they were understood by natives of various nations , and did not mutter inarticulate sounds that no one could understand.

The Holy Spirit - the Spirit of Truth - gives the gift of understanding. And speaking in inarticulate languages that no one understands is not a gift, but a punishment from God, which is sent to proud, arrogant people who consider themselves equal to God. Let us remember the biblical story about the builders of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9).

Eyewitness testimony

As I already said, some of my drug addicts who come to our church of the Holy Prophet Elijah have previously encountered or even tried to undergo rehabilitation at the New Life center.

After explaining that I was working on material for a publication about this rehabilitation center, I asked them and their loved ones to tell about their impressions. With the consent of my respondents, I present some of the testimony below.

Temple of the Holy Prophet Elijah

Respondent T., mother of a drug addict, church parishioner, attending prayer services in the Church of the Holy Prophet Elijah. At the end of February - beginning of March 2002, my son and I went to the Okhta cinema for interviews so that my son could get into Sergei Matevosyan’s “New Life” center. After taking the tests, he talked with those drug addicts who had already been there to find out what living and working conditions were there, and he lost the desire to go.

For my part, I went to parent meetings, which were well organized. Every time new guys performed on stage and told how they were cured or why they left there and why they would go there again. But at the end of these meetings, the leader began to turn to God so frantically loudly (into the microphone), calling on Him so often and obsessively that for me personally it caused a feeling of embarrassment for the leader and an unpleasant aftertaste.

My son, having once come there with his girlfriend (also a drug addict) and listening to this, said that only abnormal people could have such howls and screams, and called them sectarians. He completely lost the desire to go to the “New Life” center and work for them.

Trying to somehow help my son, I learned about various organizations that are involved in the rehabilitation of drug addicts and visited them. In my opinion, the organization “Sons of Thunder” on Tyushina Street, 9, is also not much different from “New Life”.

Now the son is under investigation, before the trial he will go to Melnichny Ruchey (there is a rehabilitation center under the care of the Orthodox Church). I hope that with God's help my son will be healed and repent

Recorded on 02/11/2003.

Temple of the Holy Prophet Elijah

Respondent B., a parishioner, attends prayer services in the Church of the Holy Prophet Elijah, is in stable remission, and recently received Orthodox Baptism with his mother.

I am 25 years old. I was addicted to drugs for over 7 years. I tried to get rid of addiction for the first time at the age of 23. The parents were admitted to the hospital on the commercial ward.

I stayed, or rather, slept there for about a week. The withdrawal symptoms were lifted and with the parting words that now everything depended on me, they sent me home without providing any spiritual or psychological support. As a result, after 3 days I got stuck again. Mom, having invested a lot of money in treatment, did not lose hope. What could be more valuable than a child?

A year later - again in the hospital; however, after the course of treatment they offered psychological help. It was that I would spend the night at home, and during the day I would be in a hospital under the supervision of a psychologist and a doctor. Of course it cost a lot of money. Mom agreed, but I didn’t. Probably, I haven’t “got enough” yet, as they say now, there was no motivation.

One day, when I was driving to work (I was, so to speak, “drugged”), some guys approached me. They said that “God loves me” and I “have a chance to be human.” To do this, I must go to the New Life rehabilitation center for a period of 1 year. They gave the address of the Okhta cinema, where meetings and conversations with people “in trouble” are held.

On Sunday, my mother and I went to a meeting where I was told that I had to come to meetings 3-4 times on Sundays and each time confirm my intention to go to a rehabilitation center. For the fourth time I went to Kotly. To do this, I collected a bunch of certificates (all tests are paid), two healthy trunks with things, including a blanket, pillow, bed linen and 650 rubles.

Naturally, before the trip I asked the guys who were there about living conditions in the center. Everyone unanimously argued that the food was better than at home, and the work was not hard. And simply, what is there - “super”. But what actually turned out to be, I couldn’t even dream of in a nightmare.

The morning began with a sermon, the basis of which was “testimony.” A former drug addict, and now an employee of the center, talked about his fate: how he found the “true God.” Then work until late evening. And again "testimony". The food was very meager: empty soup, half a piece of bread and no meat. When we got up from the table, we always felt hungry.

I remember how one guy had a temperature of 38 in the morning and could not work. A center worker approached him, put his hand on his head and said: “In the name of Jesus, you are healthy, go to work.” The guy had to go, otherwise he would have remained hungry. Being late for any event (lunch, dinner, meeting, work) - penalty: 2 additional hours of work. Any communication with the opposite sex is a 2-hour penalty. The penalty must be served before lifting.

From the first day, everyone is convinced that the Orthodox faith, to put it mildly, is wrong. Churches and icons are the same as wooden idols. You cannot wear Orthodox crosses in the center. When I saw how they began to pray “in tongues” during the sermon, I realized that I had ended up in a sect. A few days later I ran home...

Recorded on 02/15/2003.

It must be said that all the stories of people who have somehow encountered this rehabilitation center are, as a rule, very similar. However, the following story of a young woman, an experienced drug addict, is distinguished not only by its integrity and some very, in my opinion, mature assessments, but also by the feeling of real human pain.

Therefore, it seemed important to me to use it to complete the material about the New Life organization and its rehabilitation activities.

Information center

Respondent N., 23 years old, 7 years of drug use experience. Baptized in Orthodoxy at the age of 9. She did not receive a church education. My grandparents came across an advertisement for a rehabilitation center. At their insistence, I visited the specified church - the Okhta cinema.

At first I thought these people were just going crazy. They run around the stage, jump, wave some kind of scarves, make strange sounds, etc. In general, I somehow didn’t like it all. But on the other hand, I didn’t care anymore, that is, there was nowhere to return, there was no reason to live, and so on... I just listened to their speeches about “healing”, “salvation” and thought - what do I have to lose? I'll try this option as well. There they also pressed a lot on stories about miracles: someone was healed of AIDS or hepatitis, someone shone with holiness and all that... Entire crowds gathered at this “Ohta” every Sunday: drug addicts and their parents, relatives who thought they were that there is nowhere else to go.

I remember someone’s mother spoke: they say that her son became good and was “cured” of drug addiction. They also hold some kind of meetings and prayers for parents and relatives, I don’t know exactly where, it seems, in the Leningrad cinema. In general, it’s time for everyone to understand that sectarians gather in cinemas. But I didn't understand this.

After the meeting they said: those who want to get into this “rehabilitation center” must stay! They asked if I was baptized, in the sense - in the Orthodox Church. The questions are the same for everyone. They also asked if I was on too much. She said yes. But at first no conditions were set, except for mandatory attendance at their meetings for at least two weeks.

I remained on the dose, because I was afraid of withdrawal symptoms, and there was nowhere to get money for a paid clinic. I haven’t contacted the GND anymore; they just stuff me with neuroleptics, which make me crazy, and all sorts of useless rubbish. The kind that's better than heroin. Which, by the way, takes place in this GND (some drug addicts even went there specifically to sell this misfortune).

Well, in general, I somehow managed to “get better” every day and at the same time went to their “worship services.” A whole 4 weeks. I prepared, hoped and slowly got used to all this. I also received a referral for tests. They must be done within a week, and if you don’t have time, do it all over again! There seem to be 7 tests: there is a “flush”, blood for AIDS, for hepatitis, for RV, a gynecologist, a dermatologist. In general, all this even looks official, as if you are entering somewhere and preparing according to the full program.

Then they informed us about the upcoming costs. They gave me a list of what I needed to have with me: things, medicines - worth 2 thousand. Then - donate 650 for “medical needs” and another 80 rubles for the return trip. This is for St. Petersburg residents. For some reason, for out-of-towners it costs 750 for “medicine”, plus the cost of the return trip. By the way, the purchased items are not returned, even if you have served the required six-month period. Collection with these certificates and things is on Sundays.

After the meeting the bus is at 7 pm. And everyone is taken to a village called Preobrazhenka. This is towards the Estonian border, the Kingisepp area, not far from Ust-Luga. The buildings of some former mental hospital; they bought it all. From there they can also be sent to Kotly, this is a former military unit. There is not much land in Preobrazhenka. And basically all agricultural work is done in these Cauldrons, in fields belonging to the sect. There is also a base on the bay, only men go there to fish. I already knew a little about all this.

Well, and upon arrival, suddenly - a search. All personal items are stored in storage, except for personal clothing and personal hygiene. They search you like in prison: you have to strip naked, squat down, bend over, and all that. Those who are found have their cigarettes, lighters, matches, pills, books, even Orthodox books taken away - all this goes on like a crime. They take down crosses and take away icons. They say that crosses and icons are idolatry.

They took off my cross and took away my grandmother’s old icon; it all disappeared. And everyone is given Bibles or books of the New Testament. Only later did I find out and understand - in non-canonical versions, that is, where everything was translated either in Protestant or heretical.

And then everyone is separated - men from women. Not in the sense that living separately, but it is even forbidden to talk to the opposite sex or come closer than one and a half meters. This may result in penalties. For passing notes, for example, they generally threaten to expel you immediately, regardless of the content of what was written. The fact itself is important. Or for a couple of spoken words - for three days in a row you get up two hours earlier than everyone else or stay to work overnight. Under the regime, this is a very serious punishment, like torture with insomnia. And all this is called humility.

Formally, for such a crowd of drug addicts, this seems to be even necessary, otherwise how to manage them? In general, I allowed the cross to be taken off me and found myself among people who internally agreed with everything that was happening or tried, like me, to do so. It is still necessary to say something about the regime. At the Okhta cinema they didn’t talk much about these subtleties. They simply said that everything was strict and pious with them.

And piety looks like this: in every room and in the “conference room”, instead of an icon, they hang in a frame “10 rules” that must be strictly followed. All letters that arrive are opened, sometimes they are simply not returned. Parents are allowed to visit only those who have lived in the sect for at least 4 months, that is, they have become its adherent and active member. Such a person will no longer complain to his mother that he is being brainwashed, but on the contrary, he will begin to involve his parents in the sect.

Each newcomer who arrives (they are called “juniors”) is immediately assigned a “senior” - someone who has lived in the sect for at least 2 months. This is a convoy. You even go to the toilet accompanied by an elder (or “elder”) and with his consent. He makes sure that the newcomer does not stop working all the time. Disobedience is punishable by increased time and workload.

They all work like this: in the summer from 8 am to 12 midnight, in the winter - from 9 to 10. Breaks of 15 minutes twice a day: at 12 noon and at 6 pm. Lunch also falls out of this time: 15-00, with a “sermon” and (Forgive me, Lord!) “prayer”. And breakfast and dinner - before and after work. There are only 5-6 hours left for sleep. All punishments are based on this.

All management is based on coercion and encouraging the feeling of power over those who are “younger”. I had a moment when I also wanted to make a “career” within the framework of this sect, to quickly become a “senior”, gain power, and work less. I think now that such darkness is possible only under the influence of others, when everyone thinks like this and behaves like this. But the most important thing is different.

The thing is that everyone comes there with “breakdowns”. But there is no medical care there, although they take money “for medicine.” There is only one remedy for “withdrawal”: complete submission and constant, wear-and-tear physical work. If my back suddenly hurt, I leaned on the shovel and the attendant (the one above the “seniors”) saw it, I would be punished: work at night or in the morning until I got up.

Unfortunately, I had a large dose at that time: one and a half grams per day. I remember I was vomiting, my liver and kidneys were failing, I almost lost consciousness, I tried to rebel - all this was useless. They say that no one has ever died in withdrawal, but this is far from true. For some reason, no one here talks about such misfortunes.

I tried to understand the meaning and sense of this blind torment, and they explained it to me like this: then it will be very good, just be patient for two weeks! Today I say: never and nowhere should the absence of mercy be an instrument of power, subordination, suppression of will and consciousness. You can only suffer voluntarily and meaningfully, that is, understanding something greater than such promises.

Now I think that for them all this cruelty is a way of drawing people into their system. The one who accepts this also accepts everything else, any nonsense. Here, perhaps, I should tell you how I began to pray in “other tongues.”

One day one of the ministers took us on stage in the “conference room” and said: there will be a “baptism of the holy spirit.” Now, if the “holy spirit” comes upon you, “other tongues will flow out of you.” Accept it, don't be afraid of it, don't reject the "holy spirit"! In general, this is roughly what he said. And he himself began to “pray in other tongues” and “lay” his hand on everyone’s head. At the same time he “helped”: come on, come on, pray! I remember that he himself was wet with sweat from such “work”.

And I couldn't do anything else. Because refusal meant denial of the “holy spirit,” blasphemy and rebellion against everyone. And I had to step over it: just to make it easier. I think the same thing happened to others. Then, of course, there was a general psychosis: everyone was happy, jumping, screaming. An addict would say it's a collective euphoria. And it’s easier to say - madness. That's it. Probably, this is why it was necessary to remove the cross from me.

Of the 10 people who came to Preobrazhenka with me, three remained. The rest escaped on the 2nd and 3rd days. But this is no longer very easy to do there. Firstly, according to their rules, you must notify about your desire to leave 3 days in advance. Otherwise, they will not give you either money for travel or documents. In general - illegal deprivation of liberty, of course, in order to save and lead to the “holy spirit”. These three days everyone will treat you as best they can. But they can also lock you in a “kapterka” (punishment cell). With the best intentions: to give you time to come to your senses. And radical rebels are expelled in disgrace - with a meeting and study. They say that a black sheep spoils the flock.

But I thought about some things after, as if “in hindsight,” and after conversations with different people on this topic. For example: what does this “organization’s” funds consist of? Of course, by squeezing free work out of “patients”. The sect is at the same time a large and profitable agricultural enterprise. Kotly already has a huge farm (they raise cows, pigs, ducks, chickens, goats), its own fish farm on the Gulf of Finland and huge fields under cultivation, its own tractors and other equipment, and also a pasta shop, a bakery, in a word, almost communism.

And no one has to pay anything for the work. This is probably why they talk not only about “their own work”, but also about donations from individuals or some organizations. They even say that the Orthodox Church approves of their “good works.”

Only, it seems to me, there are darker things here. Here, for example, is the “arrival fee” and all these fees. For those who come “for rehabilitation” from all over the country, ending up in a sect is a complete surprise. I think no one knows how many people actually just brought them their money and rushed home in horror, in general - to their old life. Usually, neither drug addicts nor their parents complain about being deceived, they are just afraid of everything themselves. And it turns out something like a money pyramid.

I guess I should try to forget all this, but so many people get into this trouble. Now I have a cross, it’s new. And the fact that I did not stay in this “New Life” - this, in my opinion, is also God’s Providence.

I grew up only with my mother, without my father, and did not see him, and a few years ago he died. So: I recently found out that he also used drugs for a long time, and then went to a monastery and lived there for the last years of his life. Maybe it is he who intercedes for me before God? I think everything that happens to us is a miracle, but we don’t see it well.

Who am I? A drug addict whose husband is imprisoned for robbery and selling drugs. I tried to commit suicide, became a panel prostitute, I have hepatitis C and HIV infection, and in the end I also ended up in a savage sect. I repent.

Recorded 09/25/2001.

One caveat must be made: these records, of course, are not given in full. But all the texts presented basically retain the original vocabulary, with editorial amendments made only based on additions, comments and under the control of the respondents themselves.

Let's try to draw conclusions

The conclusions that should be drawn about the activities of the New Life organization can be briefly formulated based on the facts presented and the conclusions of experts:

Both when recruiting into the organization and to attract financial or other means of development, the leadership of New Life uses clearly illegal actions: fraud and deception (confessional anonymity or pseudonymity, unlawful, medically and legally unfounded offers of treatment for drug addiction, etc.) , as well as obviously unethical methods of self-promotion (for example, promises of miraculous cures for AIDS), etc.;

The New Life uses an extensive arsenal of immoral forceful methods of influencing human consciousness: mental manipulation, unreasonable coercion, strict, violent control of behavior, information, etc.;

New Life, like the entire neo-Pentecostal movement, develops outside the cultural society and exists in isolation from civil and patriotic consciousness: its adherents are far from culture, both Russian, national, and universal (they not only reject classical literature, painting or music, they generally not interested in anything other than their own internal sectarian affairs);

The leadership of the organization, in the internal practices of classes and worship, instills in its adherents intolerance towards other religions, primarily towards Orthodoxy, although outwardly they emphasize complete tolerance towards any confession;

For the leadership of the organization, its ordinary adherents are initially slaves, human material that is physically and financially exploited.

Thus, we can conclude: all of the listed signs are already sufficient not only for a spiritual, religious or moral definition, but also for the legal qualification of the New Life organization as a socially dangerous destructive cult (we hope that the concept of a destructive cult will be introduced into the domestic legal system practice, as happened in Germany and France).

Postscript

Recently, the activity of New Life has increased noticeably. On the radio and on some TV channels, programs are regularly broadcast where former drug addicts testify to their healing. In fact, this is recruitment into the organization. Neither religious affiliation nor treatment methods in the organization were announced in any of the programs. The author tried to call live telephone numbers, but the speakers publicly denied belonging to the Faith Movement, and the question of treatment practices was hushed up. The author invited representatives of New Life to the Church of the Holy Prophet Elijah, where, during a conversation with a group of drug addicts and their parents, they also failed (or did not want) to clarify these issues.

In this article, we touched only on the activities of New Life, but there are many neo-charismatic organizations of this kind not only in Russia, but throughout the entire post-Soviet space, as mentioned above. When the article was almost ready, I was invited to a conference dedicated to the 15th anniversary of the regional public organization Return, which is engaged in the rehabilitation of drug addicts and HIV-infected people. There I met a priest from Kyiv who was giving a report on neo-Pentecostal organizations in Ukraine and their rehabilitation centers. The methods of recruitment, exploitation and mind control of adherents, as well as the consequences of such rehabilitation, are no different from those described in this article. At the same conference, I was shown a leaflet that suggested treating drug addiction in the Scientology organization (also classified as a destructive cult by a State Duma resolution of December 15, 1996, an information letter from the Ministry of Health and Medical Industry of August 21, 1996, and an analytical bulletin of the State Duma of March 1998) using the Narconon program, prohibited for use in the healthcare system by order of the Ministry of Health and Medical Industry back in 1996.

The problem of drug addiction and related diseases, which became an epidemic in Russia in the 90s of the 20th century, is becoming one of the issues of national security. But issues of national security undoubtedly include the problem of manipulating the consciousness of people in destructive cults, which is also becoming widespread, as representatives of traditional faiths in Russia and many unbiased scientists and specialists have repeatedly warned about (see,). We call on honest officials, lawyers, doctors and everyone who cares about the future of our country to take a sober, objective look at these problems and the path to solving them.

Georgy Ioffe, priest
missionary officer
St. Petersburg Diocese
Anti-sectarian center of the cathedral
St. Prince Alexander Nevsky, Novosibirsk - 09/04/2007

Literature used

1. Dvorkin A.L. Sectology. Nizhny Novgorod: Publishing house. Brotherhood of St. Alexander Nevsky, 2000.

2. Materials of the international scientific and practical conference Totalitarian sects are a threat of the 21st century. Nizhny Novgorod: Publishing house. Brotherhood of St. Alexander Nevsky, 2001.

3. Drug addiction: sin or disease? M.: Danilovsky Blagovestnik, 2000.

4. Practical guide. Drugs and drug addicts. M.: Caritas, 2002.

5. Vaccination against drug addiction. St. Petersburg: Tsarskoe Delo, 1999.

6. CD-ROM directory of Religions and sects of modern Russia. Novosibirsk, 2003.

7. Materials from the website of the Information and Consulting Center named after. sschmch. Iriney of Lyons http://www.iriney.ru

8. Efimov Igor, priest. Modern charismatic movement of sectarianism. M., 1995.

"Territory of Life" in the Moscow region

Have you tried all the available ways to combat your loved one’s alcoholism? Nothing helps? Try to undergo rehabilitation in Moscow! Or in the near Moscow region - in a quiet place, surrounded only by forest, silence and the caring staff of the Territory of Life clinic.

Most of our patients were in no hurry to contact us. At first, their loved ones tried many accessible and cheap, but rather dubious methods - for example, going to a healer and talking about the disease. But, unfortunately, this doesn't work.

What then works?

Modern medicine. Namely, an integrated approach. Psychotherapy in combination with physiotherapy gives an amazing effect! Humanistic, body-oriented, laughter, art, hydro, and other types of therapy, including transactional analysis, really work. Our specialists have been working using these methods for more than 8 years, so the programs are thought out and refined to the smallest detail. There are both individual and group programs.

One of the clinic's features " Territory of life"is an ongoing group therapy. The fact is that our patients live in wards of 2 or 4 people during treatment. This means that they can support each other around the clock in difficult situations, share experiences and, possibly, continue mutual support after the end of treatment. If you do not want to communicate, there are separate rooms. There is a separate bathroom in each room, regardless of its status. Anonymity is guaranteed with any choice.

On the territory of the clinic itself there is a swimming pool and a gym - these are important elements in the recovery of your loved one.

Rehabilitation of alcoholics should take place under the strict supervision of experienced specialists. We guarantee you such specialists with at least 8 years of practice and internships abroad. We have collected all the best from European, Eastern and Russian techniques here on “ Territories of life».

Our drug rehabilitation program includes working with loved ones, that is, with you. It is important not only for the patient to adapt to the new reality, but also for you. Experienced psychologists will tell you how to create comfort and coziness for a person, but at the same time not put pressure on him or overload him with excessive care.

But that's all later. Right now, your loved one most likely will not admit his illness even to himself and categorically refuses all types of treatment. We will help with this! Our clinic offers such a service as motivating the patient for treatment. As a rule, after it 9 out of 10 people agree to an initial free consultation. And then an experienced doctor will convince them to take the second step and agree to undergo a course of treatment. After which you receive a guarantee for recovery. That is, in case of relapse, you can contact us free of charge. We can afford such expensive guarantees because we keep statistics. Of the 28 patients discharged, only 1 may relapse.

For emergency cases, we offer home visits with an IV.

Modern medicine works wonders. Call us at any time of the day or night - and a miracle will come to your home. Your loved one will change. Voluntarily.

Our center uses modern psychotherapeutic techniques aimed at correction and social adaptation of clients:

Humanistic psychotherapy
Transactional Analysis
Body-oriented therapy
Art therapy
Laughter therapy
Hydrotherapy
Group psychotherapy
Individual counseling

To fully recover from drug and alcohol addiction, you need to go through several important stages. First, it is necessary to cleanse the body of accumulated waste and toxins - this is done with the help of medications. At the same stage, concomitant diseases are treated and the optimal type of further therapy is selected.
Then the rehabilitation course begins. First, you should find out why the patient started using drugs or alcohol. Then the person begins to consciously study his life and work through various situations. This allows you to restore healthy self-esteem and develop the skills of a successful personality. During the rehabilitation process, the patient chooses the right position in life, where there is no place for addictions, and learns to take responsibility for his actions.
And finally, the patient consolidates in practice the acquired knowledge about a healthy life in a social environment. This stage is already taking place on an outpatient basis: a person learns to live independently, but continues to be monitored remotely by specialists.

Dear mothers and fathers, grandparents, a child has been born in your family! This is great joy! And suddenly, like a death sentence, a diagnosis: cerebral palsy! The family is perplexed, panicked, and begins visiting various medical offices and the most famous specialists. Time passes, it’s time for the child to walk and run, but he doesn’t crawl or even raise his head.What to do?

First of all, you need to understand that in a sick child, like in a healthy child, in the first years of life the foundation of his psychophysical development is laid, and an active motor mode plays an important role in this, since the normal development of a child is determined by motor activity that corresponds to the characteristics of the child. organism in this age period.

If a child is inactive from childhood and does not acquire the necessary motor and social skills and abilities, it is difficult for him to adapt to the social environment from the first year of life, since this requires significant neuropsychological and motor stress. All this causes functional inferiority of the neuromuscular system and leads to deformation of the limbs and disruption of the most important motor and static reactions, which limits the full development of the child. Lack of physical activity or its absence leads to negative changes in the body, which reduces the level of adaptation of the body to the environment and leads to a significant lag in social development. Today, 60–80% of children with cerebral palsy have the potential for significant restoration of impaired functions, but this requires investment of work and knowledge.

Parents who have a child with motor impairments in the family are rushing around in search of a more effective and faster method of restoring motor functions, and very little attention is paid to the most important thing - movement - in these searches. As a result, after suffering for ten years, some parents, in despair, say: “We tried everything, nothing helps,” others realize that they have lost time. Why? There is no systematic approach to rehabilitation and the role of rehabilitation of disabled people through physical culture and sports is underestimated. But to form a movement there must be a movement itself.

At the Russian Scientific and Practical Center for Physical Rehabilitation of Disabled Children, together with the laboratory of physical culture and sports for disabled children of the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Physical Culture (VNIIFK), research was conducted to determine the level of social development of children with cerebral palsy. The study used the W. Strassmeier test, which assessed the development of self-care skills, gross and fine motor skills, speech and thinking from 0 to 5 years (monthly) in children with limited motor abilities. Analysis of testing showed that children with cerebral palsy are far behind healthy children in terms of development. The greatest lag is observed in general motor skills (55%). High values of indicators were identified in the lag of self-service skills (42%) and fine motor skills (48.5%). A significant percentage of the lag is observed in speech indicators (70%), to a lesser extent in thinking (30–40%). This suggests that parents of disabled children, unfortunately, pay very little attention to the physical development and development of self-care of the child. A sedentary child does not strive for independence; he increasingly relies on parental care.

In a family, a child often develops under conditions of hyper-custody on the part of his parents, who perceive him as weak (does not walk or walks poorly, speaks poorly, etc.), so they try to do a lot for him. Children's movements are very slow and awkward, so it takes a lot of time and patience to learn the necessary skills. While the children are small, it seems unimportant to parents, they do everything for them, but in the end, this develops into a big problem, which becomes more and more difficult to solve over the years. If the mother constantly replaces the child’s actions, his development stops, the fear of helplessness and dependence on outside help grows, and in such an environment the child loses independence. All this ultimately leads to social passivity. Physical disabilities lead to isolation of the child from the outside world and communication with peers and adults. A vicious circle is created - the link of “physical disabilities” replaces the link of “mental disabilities”. Growing up, such a child turns out to be incapable of independent life not so much because of his defect, but because of the untimely formation of personal development.

The task of parents (and specialists) is to break this vicious circle and create conditions for adequate development and personality formation of disabled children. But we must realize that learning motor skills takes time, practice and repetition. It is possible to achieve high-quality and effective physical activity only if parents are involved in the activity process in close interaction with the child. We consider the inclusion of parents in the lesson program and their participation as an important component of the psychophysical development of children with cerebral palsy and their preparation for everyday activities.

An analysis of an oral survey of parents of disabled children revealed that a small percentage of parents understand the need and importance of painstaking daily physical exercise using a special method, only 11% of parents work with their child daily using a special method, 13% think that they do a lot, practicing occasionally, but cannot show the methodologist what specific exercises were performed. More often this happens from time to time, spontaneously, as if by the way. This activity is more of a self-soothing activity for parents. And 76% of parents do not know how to exercise with their children at home and that this must be done daily, regardless of the treatment methods used in parallel. Only 17% of parents purposefully teach their child self-care techniques! Parents also do not understand the importance of play for a child. They often believe that the child does not understand anything and have no idea how to play with him. Only 33% of parents constantly play with their child.

Usually, for movement disorders, medication, massage and physical therapy are prescribed. However, physical therapy is carried out, as a rule, in a passive-active form and in a horizontal position. But the main limiting link in physical development is the limitation or absence of independent movements in an upright position, which interferes with the maximum realization of the child’s motor capabilities. It is known that the development of the musculoskeletal system in a healthy child is formed in a vertical position, and the development of a child with cerebral palsy should also be formed in a vertical position.

If a baby was born with some kind of motor impairment and lies motionless almost continuously, without turning over on its side, has difficulty raising its head and experiences difficulties with every movement, then it is very likely that the musculoskeletal, autonomic and vascular systems involved in ensuring a vertical posture , i.e. the entire complex of the anti-gravity muscle group, will not form correctly. If a child in an upright position is not able to independently develop his movements or these movements are accompanied by many erroneous reactions, then the development of his motor skills does not occur at all, or occurs incorrectly. In addition, when taking a vertical position, locomotion becomes more complicated due to the transfer of body weight to the feet.

The staff of the Center have developed a methodology consisting of the selection of various forms and sets of physical exercises, which represent a single process of developing the motor and functional capabilities of the child’s body and preparing him for social life. The general focus of the classes is focused on stimulating the natural vertical position of the body in space and independent walking. The Center, first of all, creates conditions for the normal physical development of disabled children, their approach to the physical activity of healthy children. And since healthy children are always active, sick children should also move a lot. In addition, a child with motor impairments must work on his own so that not only the functions of individual organs, but also the entire organism as a whole, develops. This applies to even the heaviest bedridden children.

To perform physical exercises more effectively, the Gross Trainer is used, which allows, in case of insufficient muscle function, to create easier conditions for their work, dosing the load on the musculoskeletal system, thereby ensuring normal mobility in the joints. The simulator allows you to create conditions, even for those children who do not fully master motor functions, to perform various types of exercises in a natural vertical position and make movements in all planes of space (forward, backward, sideways, up, down), and the ability to rotate around their axis, without hindering the movement of arms and legs, and also insures against falling. Using the simulator, you can train the ability to measure and regulate spatial, temporal and dynamic parameters of movements and develop coordination abilities: crawling, sitting, standing, jumping, walking, spinning, riding a bicycle, moving and roller skating, and performing elements of sports games. Activities that are close to natural conditions enable the child to quickly adapt to physical activity and the environment.

Active exercises have a positive effect on a number of morpho-functional parameters of the heart, regulation of the circulatory system at rest and during physical activity. In addition, the deep back muscles that support the entire spine begin to work, a straightening reflex, a support reaction, and spatial sensations are developed, which significantly accelerates the process of developing motor abilities, in a word, everything that is necessary for a child to live a full life. The effectiveness of classes depends primarily on the motor and functional capabilities of the child and the tasks that are set for him. Thus, for children who can walk, take and hold a pose, the main task is to correct postures and expand the volume and number of movements close to the norms of healthy children, according to the principle of sports circuit training, of different directions, with increased density and intensity of activities.

For children with limited motor activity who do not move independently, the main tasks are the correction of postures and movements of a local nature and performing them with an expanded range of motion, learning walking skills using the Gross Trainer, cycling and roller skating. For children who cannot assume and hold poses, the main task is to: stimulate motor activity, teach the ability to assume and hold poses, walk on all fours, knees, and learn walking skills. The use of the proposed method of complex exposure to physical exercises using the “Gross Trainer” and other training devices and adherence to the principle of long-term and continuous exposure in an upright position throughout the entire rehabilitation period showed that in all children with cerebral palsy it was possible to achieve a practical solution to the main tasks of physical development. The most pronounced changes in physical development were observed in children who were able to assume and hold poses, but were unable to walk, and one cannot fail to note as significant the emergence of the ability to carry out a whole range of movements that were previously impossible for children with no vertical support. Using the developed methodology, we obtained the following results: in 78% of cases, a decrease in the pathological activity of tonic reflexes, 98%, an activation of independent movements that had not previously been observed in the child; improvement in motor coordination was observed in 80% of children, in 70% there was an improvement in the child’s general mental state, in 50% there was activation of emotional and verbal communication and motivation to master movements. To summarize, it should be emphasized that physical rehabilitation classes for children with cerebral palsy should not be conducted in courses, but continuously for many months and years until maximum movement compensation and social adaptation are achieved, when the child will no longer depend on adults and will be able to actively engage in life. Success in the physical and social development of children depends on the joint work of specialists in various fields - pediatricians, neurologists, psychiatrists, speech therapists, speech pathologists, educators, teachers, orthopedists and, first of all, on parents. Parents and specialists must achieve mutual understanding and continuity at different age stages.

Photo project “Life in Motion” Not even a year old, but he has already attracted the attention of society.

The photo project was created by Yevgeny Mironov’s charitable foundation “Artist”, Honored Artist of Russia Maria Mironova and director of the Happy Families charity center Natalya Shaginyan-Needham. Its main goal is to attract viewers' attention to the problems of children with disabilities.

We rarely think that our whole life is movement. But for each of us these words have their own meaning. For some, movement is spiritual or professional development, for others it is travel, and for others, movement is the dream of walking.

The exhibition exposition is divided into two parts. The first part included photographs taken by 10 photographers from the School of Photography and Multimedia. A. Rodchenko and the International Center of Photography of New York. Led by world-renowned photographer and World Press Photo winner Ed Kasha, they traveled across Russia to document the daily lives of children in rehabilitation centers and orphanages. By spending time with them, they tried to penetrate their world, learn to understand the “other” life and the “other” movement.

The second part of the project is “A Day in the City”. And she tells how famous actors, journalists and athletes (among them Leonid Parfenov, Valery Panyushkin, Dmitry Nosov, Vladimir Shirokov) spent one day in Moscow with children with disabilities, helping them to believe in their own abilities, instilling in them confidence in that a big city can be open and friendly.

A small block of the project is dedicated to artists - veterans of the stage, whose care is taken care of by the Artist charity foundation for supporting artists.

The “Life in Motion” project is carried out within the framework of the “I Want to Walk” program, the goal of which is to help orphans achieve their main dream - to take a step towards entering the big world outside the orphanage.

And let’s add: the exhibition “Life in Motion” is held at the Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow - the only Moscow museum accessible to people with disabilities. MAMM is equipped with a special ramp at the entrance and a convenient elevator, from which you can access any hall of the museum in a wheelchair.