On June 24, 2021, a conference of social workers of the Russian Orthodox Church parishes was held at PSTGU. The conference opened with an introductory speech by Bishop Panteleimon, Chairman of the Synodal Department for Charity and Social Service of the Russian Orthodox Church. After the speech, the bishop answered questions from social workers (link).
Then Grigory Barukhov took the floor and spoke about the “Moscow Longevity” program.
Archpriest Nikolay Emeliyanov presented the report “Do social work studies make sense for practitioners? Based on the research of the ‘Sociology of Religion’ laboratory at PSTGU, PSTBI and the Synodal Department for Charity”, which clarified the difficulties associated with sociological research of parish social activities (link).
After a short coffee break, Tatiana Krihtova discussed the time management of parish priests in her report “What should be learned from the clergy in organizing their work”.
At the end of the first part of the conference, Elena Prutskova presented the results of the analysis of data from the study of the Russian Orthodox Church social work in her report “Church social activity through the eyes of social workers of the Russian Orthodox Church: results of a sociological survey”.
In the second part of the conference, the participants of the project “Social work of the Russian Orthodox Church: development factors and the problem of institutionalization” held a series of training for social workers. The method used involved a reflective discussion on the ideal image of parish social work with free group dynamics.
The participants of the training were supposed to identify the main problems in social work at the parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church and suggest ways to solve them based on the image of an ideal social worker.
The conference was held within the framework of the project “Social work of the Russian Orthodox Church: development factors and the problem of institutionalization” with the financial assistance of the grant of the President of the Russian Federation for the development of civil society, project No. 20-1-037307.
