A shelter for Russian-speaking homeless people, the St. John of Kronstadt House of Labour is attached to the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary “The Inexhaustible Chalice” in Brighton. The inhabitants come and go... Some, having left a bad habit - back to sober normal life, some, having snapped, return to the street and their old friends - to vodka and drugs.
And it so happens that the inhabitants - both present and former, including those who return to a vagrant life - still remain like family for those who knew them in the church, with whom they prayed together. Parishioners, meeting them in the park or on the embankment, sincerely rejoice at their social successes or grieve and sympathize, seeing a brother in a terrible condition, try to help them as much as they can.... After a while, they see their brother sobering up, returning to the House of Labour, standing at the Liturgy.... This is always very joyful!
But often, unfortunately, it happens otherwise. The body can't take the trial of sobriety! The heart remains attached to alcoholic or drug poisoning... that's what happened to Kolya (Nikolai). We buried him in the cemetery of the Novodiveevsky monastery, and the other day we made a memorial service for him at the Sorochiny.
Nikolaj Lapich, age over fifty, came from near Grodno (Belarus), had a construction specialty, good at laying tiles, marble.... he tiled the floor in the kitchen under our house church.
He went to the Labor House several times, had a breakdown, started drinking again and ended up on the street again.... The last time he had a breakdown was on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He spent the night at home of one of his friends, where they found him breathless on the floor in a small room.
The inhabitants, sturdy men who had been through fire and water, who can't squeeze out a tear - they cried! For the first time in the history of the House of Labor before the funeral, the Psalter was read before the funeral all night until morning (many had to go to work in the morning). The brothers made a cross out of wood. A picture of Nicholaj was pressed into it. This Cross stood in the kitchen, like Golgotha, on the floor that the deceased had tiled.
The House of Labor has an inner life of its own. Complex characters collide and clash here. One can only guess what passions each inhabitant brings, how much suffering each soul bears in itself, subjected to various habits and passions. How sincere and strong must be the prayer here! And if the brothers prayed all night long, how fervent was their sorrow!
Since 2002, this is the 87th deceased of the Russian-speaking alcoholics and drug addicts of Brighton, for whose souls the Labor House fought, for whose souls St. John of Kronstadt invisibly prays.
May the Lord rest your soul in the place of the Just....
Fr. Rector, clergy, parishioners of the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary “The Inexhaustible Chalice”, brothers of the House of Labor in the name of St. John of Kronstadt in Brighton, editorial staff of the magazine “Rodnik”.
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