“The Lord is on the ground floor”: Orthodox chapels in the space of medical institutions

Abstract

The article is about the functions of Orthodox hospital chapels on the basis of field observation of ten chapels, which located in various Moscow hospitals. The article provides materials from field observation in hospitals that describe the location of chapels on the hospital territory, access to them, typical visitors, and the course of services. The observation was carried out in the chapels on the days of the conduct of regular prayers and the days when there were no worship services. The hierarchs of the Orthodox Church call medicine the area of interest of the church and allow for the possibility of intervening in some of its spheres. In this case, the chapel in the hospital is interesting because it is an example of the smallest and rather passive influence of the church to the medicine. Hospital chapels are represented by church leaders of opinion not as an alternative to hospital treatment, but as spaces where believers can attend divine services, and the same time non-believers come into contact with spiritual life as much as they themselves are comfortable. In fact, the hospital chapel becomes a space in which many different meanings intersect and people who come there with their own goals. Almost all of them feel harmonious in the hospital chapel. Perhaps because in this space they can behave themselves in the way that would be impossible in an ordinary Orthodox church. All components of the hospital chapels look appropriately next to each other and do not conflict. The hospital chapel is a typical heterotopy space, a place that is different from the usual and at the same time includes several worlds