The Church of St. Prince Alexander Nevsky at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations published an experimental edition of Catechism for the Deaf: A Textbook on the Fundamentals of the Orthodox Faith with a video appendix in Russian sign language. The project was funded by the grant competition "Orthodox Initiative" under the auspices of the Commission on Missionary Work and Catechesis of Moscow, chaired by Archpriest Igor Fomin. The publication was developed by the specialists of the Center for Work with the Deaf and Hard of Hearing "Desnitsa", which operates at the temple (project manager - Andrei Andreikin, text author - Deacon Artemy Ovcharenko, illustrator - Nina Andreikina, interpreter of Russian sign language in the video - Deacon Pavel Afanasiev).
The book is an experience of adapting the Orthodox Christian doctrine to the perception of hearing-impaired persons (deaf and hard of hearing) who use Russian sign language in everyday communication. The text is written in an artistic way with the use of metaphors and images. With the help of QR codes contained in the textbook, the reader can open the video application. It is enough for a deaf person to have a smartphone in order to learn in his native Russian sign language the answers of the Orthodox Church to the questions of why the world appeared, what is evil and sin and many others.
In the opinion of the President Stanislav Aleksandrovich Ivanov of the All-Russian Society of the Deaf (VOG), "such a project has no analogues. As Dmitry Yurievich Alekseevskikh, Head of the Education and Employment Department of the All-Russian Society of the Deaf, added, the authors "did a tremendous job of adapting the text of the Catechism for people with hearing impairments.
However, in addition to the task of adaptation, it was also necessary to solve the task of theological accuracy. The book, produced back in 2020, was under theological examination for three years in the Synodal Department of Religious Education and Catechesis of the Russian Orthodox Church (SOROIC). After the fourth revision, the edition received the "Approved" label.
The first print run of only 500 copies was distributed to the deaf communities of the Russian Orthodox Church in order to make the edition even more qualitative in terms of adapting the doctrinal truths to the perception of the deaf due to the critical comments of church specialists and members of Orthodox communities. The electronic version of the edition is publicly available on the website of the Coordination Center for Work with the Deaf, Deaf-Blind and Hard of Hearing of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Reference: In the Russian Federation there are about 200 thousand persons with hearing impairments. For many of them the main language is Russian sign language. In more than 60 parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church there are church services for the deaf and hard of hearing. communities of the deaf and hearing impaired. The Center for Work with the Deaf and Hard of Hearing "Desnitsa", opened in 2015 at the Church of All Saints in the Land of the Russian Glory in Novokosino, has been conducting educational activities at the Alexander Nevsky Church at MGIMO since 2017. Divine services with translation into RZL in the temple at MGIMO are held on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of each month. There are courses in RZhYA for beginners.
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