SAMARA, February 12. /ITAR-TASS/. Clergymen in the Samara region located in the middle reach of the Volga River will help local bailiffs by equating a non-return of debts to larceny, says an agreement on intentions signed by the Samara Metropolitan District of the Russian Orthodox Church and the regional branch for the Federal Service of Bailiffs.
“The sides agreed that the clergy will tell the laymen in preachments about unacceptability of living on tick and espousing consumerist attitudes to life and people,” the press service of the bailiffs service said. “They will also tell the lay that a non-return of debts will be equated to larceny under the rules of the church.”
Clergymen and bailiffs will do explanations to the public together and will invite the debtors on loans and alimonies for conversations and “readings”.
Clerics will also assist in the job-placement of jobless debtors. The agreement also envisions an option for reunification of the debtor parents and their children under the aegis of a monastery.
For instance, if one of the parents has a backlog of unpaid alimonies and his or her underage child is left without care of a second parent, a possibility emerges then of putting the child to a refuge in the same monastery where the debtor parent works provisionally or permanently.
In 2013, the Samara regional branch of the Federal Service of Bailiffs handled more than 35,000 cases on alimony non-payments and 19,000 cases of that amount were rounded up before the end of the calendar year.
In addition to this, more than 860 chronic debtors on alimonies were placed on wanted lists. Also, the bailiffs were trying to levy about 1.57 billion rubles of delayed fees for housing and public utility services ($45.1 million) and they levied 410 million rubles ($11.7 million).
In January 2014, the regional bailiffs effectuated 1,205 arrests of debtors’ properties to the tune of over 1 billion rubles ($28.7 million) — mostly household appliances, furniture and cars.