31 August 2021

2021-08-31 The Heir of the Head of the House of Romanoff attends the consecration of the Church of St. Alexei Metropolitan of Moscow on the grounds of the St. Alexei Clinical Hospital in Moscow

On August 31, 2021, on the feast day of the Icon of the Mother of God “Most-Holy Queen of All,” the Church of St. Alexei Metropolitan of Moscow, on the grounds of the St. Alexei Central Clinical Hospital, was consecrated. The church is under the omophorion of the Moscow Patriarchate.

 

The Great Consecration service and Divine Liturgy were officiated by His Grace Bishop Panteleimon of Vereya. He warmly greeted all those in attendance at this solemn event.

 

Attending the services was the Heir of the Head of the Russian Imperial House, His Imperial Highness The Tsesarevich and Grand Duke George of Russia, who took communion of the Most Holy Mysteries of Christ.

 

It is symbolically significant that present at the first consecration of this church in 1904 were Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and his wife the Holy New Martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna. “This day is one of the most important in my life,” said Grand Duke George.This is my first visit to the St. Alexei Clinical Hospital, which my family helped to build long ago. So to attend the Great Consecration of the Hospital Church is for me double the celebration and double the joy. I am deeply moved spiritually to be here After all, this place is directly connected with my roots.”

 

After the services, His Imperial Highness spoke warmly with Bishop Panteleimon and with the chief of medicine of the hospital, A. Yu. Zarov, and presented them both copies of the commemorative book Continuity in History.

 

The hospital was originally built in 1903 near the city limits of Moscow. In 1899, the Medvednikov and Rakhmanov merchant families donated 2 million rubles for the construction of a hospital “for terminally ill patients of the Christian faith and for the establishment of a shelter for the mentally handicapped and epileptics.” The hospital took in seriously and incurably ill patients; there was also an almshouse with two chapels, or house churches, on the grounds, in honor of the Kozelshchanskaya and Tikhvin icons of the Mother of God respectively. The ensemble of buildings was designed by the architect S. U. Solovyov, employing the New Russian Style with additional elements reminiscent of the Pskov-Novgorod architectural school of the 12th-16th centuries.

 

In 1923, the churches were closed and the hospital buildings were taken over by what became known as City Clinical Hospital No. 5.

 

On May 26, 1992, the Moscow city government decided to transfer ownership of City Clinical Hospital No. 5 to the Moscow Patriarchate, which then renamed it the Central Clinical Hospital of St. Alexei Metropolitan of Moscow of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church. At that time, and for the first time in 70 years, an intercessory prayer service, or moleben, was served in the church and, a few months later, a Divine Liturgy. The church was renamed in honor of St. Alexei of Moscow, the heavenly patron saint of His Holiness Patriarch Alexei II of Moscow and All Russia. In 2019, the Kozelshchanskaya Icon of the Mother of God was returned to this site.

 

The hospital was visited on May 12, 2013, by the Head of the Russian Imperial House, Her Imperial Highness The Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna.

 

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For more information, see: https://pravbolnitsa.ru/info/news/novosti-i-sobytiya/300.htm, and:

http://imperialhouse.ru/en/allnews-en/news/3634.html.

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