Help with a concept: отдала его на поруки церкви

[Andrea Gregovich]

Hello Colleagues:

I'm translating a story in which a little boy is having interactions with
ghosts in his room at night, and his mother is concerned.  She's taking him
to Sunday school and he thinks the ghosts (apparitions, really) seem like
the winged angels he hears about there.  But...

Мама Паши надеялась, что священнослужитель изгонит из Паши все эти
странности и отдала его на поруки церкви.

It seems like a pretty straightforward translation -- she hoped that the
priest would cast out all of Pasha's deviant quirks, she had handed him
over "to the church's custody," more or less.  I find a lot of variations
for the phrase, but they all boil down to taking responsibility for
somebody or something, or granting someone bail or probation.  The phrase
turns up in a google search in numerous articles about the church in
Ukraine petitioning to take Yulia Tymoshenko на поруки.  But I'm wondering
if in the case of a mother wanting to give her son to the church на поруки,
it is some kind of specific church function with official terminology?  Or
is it a not so special part of the sentence, she just wants the church to
take responsibility for his soul, and the phrase's strangeness to me is a
product of the author's somewhat flowery style?  (Or perhaps a product of
my ignorance...)

Incidentally, the story is from Belarus and set in Minsk, on the off chance
that it makes any difference in church terminology.  Thanks for any help
you can give me...

Andrea Gregovich

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