The nomination "Responsible for those ...": over the years, Mother Arsenia has cured and sterilized several thousand animals.
The male Zadonsky Nativity of the Virgin Monastery is located in the town of Zadonsk, Lipetsk region. It is there that you can find a human who has been taking care of stray cats and dogs since his tonsure. Almost everyone knows Mother Arsenia here," the Lipetsk Newspaper writes.
Outside the monastery gates there is a large house for cats with a heater, bowls of food and water, which Mother built herself. There is a sign on the building calling for animals not to be thrown into the monastery and props for helping monastery cats.
"Zadonsk is a very small city, we have only nine thousand inhabitants, but we literally drowned in the foundlings. People leave cats, they don't sterilize them, it's a disaster. We do not have any available veterinary clinics nearby. This is a big problem. I no longer know how to convey a simple message to people: please sterilize your pets if you do not need their offspring. It's not a sin, it's a sin to leave defenceless living beings to their fate. Both from the point of view of Christianity and just like a human being," said Mother Arsenia.
Animal rescue is a personal initiative of Arsenia. Abbot Nikon once gave the nun the blessing to do this. Mother Arsenia's morning begins with prayer. The nun gets up at 5.30, prays and hurries to the animals. Almost every day she collects cages with cats, gets into her car and drives to Voronezh.
Voronezh is our heroine's hometown. In the world, her name was Natalia. After graduating from the seminary, the 23-year-old girl took monastic vows, becoming Arsenia. Animals were always thrown into the monastery. They weren't treated with much ceremony there, they were collected in a bag, at best they were taken to the outskirts and released. The young nun couldn't put up with it. And one day she noticed a bloody kitten, which a boy tried to kill in front of her eyes, drove away the tormentor and left the baby.
There were more and more foundlings, it was impossible to keep them in a cell, and Arsenia began to attach cats, drive with carriers to the markets of neighboring towns and villages, and advertise. Sphinxes, Persians, Devon Rexes, Nevsky masquerades, and even rare Bengalis and Maine Coons were thrown out onto the street. One of the rescued, red-haired May, was found barely alive from the cold on the M-4 highway. After a glucose drip, the cat miraculously came out of his coma.
"To save money for treatment and sterilization, I stand in the passage in Voronezh and beg for cats, I accommodate them as much as possible. Why Voronezh? This is a city of millions, there are many people here who respond to my requests for help," says Mother Arsenia.
Several people help Mother Arsenia at the monastery. Her mother, who is now 76 years old, is an elderly monastery janitor, she lives in a trailer with the dogs that have been nailed. And two more hired employees, to whom the nun even pays a salary from her savings.
They work seven days a week. But, according to Mother Arsenia, she can't do it any other way. Although there is simply nowhere to put the animals.
"Sometimes, a man drives up in a jeep, throws out a kitten on the move - it falls, breaks ribs, a paw. Or they bring newborn kittens and say: "Here, if you don't take it, I'll leave it in the woods. You have nothing to do in the monastery anyway." But everything rests only on me. No one else in the monastery cares about them. I'm like a louse on a comb. Do you understand? They're trying to crush her, but she's spinning as best she can," the nun said.
Photos – Lipetsk Newspaper.