Harassment of an Orthodox School in Kyiv by the Media and Authorities

A campaign of harassment and persecution of UOC believers who organized a school on the grounds of the UOC's Pokrovsky Holoseyevsky Monastery in Kyiv

Journalists from the media outlet "Slidstvo.Info" spent several months conducting surveillance of children and parents who gathered for classes at a family club on the grounds of the UOC's Holoseyevsky Monastery.

Later, a piece was published that was full of manipulations, overtly false information, and incitement of hatred against Orthodox Christians.

On January 6, 2026, journalists from "Slidstvo.Info" published an "investigation" titled "Children Learn Russian and Sing the RF Anthem: How an Underground School at a Monastery Operates in Kyiv," concerning the activities of the Kyiv school at the UOC's Holoseyevsky Monastery.

According to the "investigators," the school "teaches children not only to glorify the Russian God, but also to speak the Russian language. And all of this is not without the patronage of licensed Ukrainian schools."

It should be noted that the program's headline contains an outright lie, as nowhere in the video do the journalists provide evidence that anyone at the school "sings the RF anthem."

The journalists charge the school's leadership with using Soviet textbooks in the educational process, "rote memorization of Yesenin's poetry," teaching the Russian language (in which subjects are also taught alongside Ukrainian), as well as screenings of Soviet films and singing Soviet songs.

According to "Slidstvo.Info," all of this is unacceptable "in the fourth year of a full-scale war with Russia."

The journalists were outraged that the school operated in the format of a "Parents' Club," since using a different status would not have allowed the use of the curriculum that the principal and teachers deemed appropriate. As a result, the primary program was shortened from 4 years (as in a modern Ukrainian school) to 3. "Our first grade is already at the level of second grade in a modern school. We divided the entire learning process into 3 years," the teachers say.

To produce their "investigation," the journalists posed as people wishing to enroll their children in the school and filmed parents, the principal, and teachers without their consent.

During the filming, they showed a woman who believes that instead of listening to a national anthem, children would be better off using the time for prayer, and who also complained that her child had been taught hatred at a general-education school.

In order to condemn the school's activities, the "investigators" recorded comments from so-called experts. They approached former head of the Institute of National Memory, MP Volodymyr Viatrovych, as well as the founder of the public organization "Smart Osvita," Ivanna Kobernik.

On January 7, 2025, the Office of the Prosecutor General announced the opening of a pre-trial investigation into the activities of the school operating at the UOC's Holoseyevsky Monastery.

According to the agency's press service, the investigation was opened by SBU investigators under the procedural supervision of juvenile prosecutors of the Kyiv Prosecutor's Office under Part 1 of Article 436-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (production, distribution, and public use of symbols of communist and Nazi totalitarian regimes, including in the form of souvenir products, and public performance of the anthems of the USSR or the Ukrainian SSR, or fragments thereof, throughout the territory of Ukraine).

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The grounds for initiating criminal proceedings were the facts disclosed in the journalistic investigation by "Slidstvo.Info." The SBU and prosecutors charge the school's leadership with using a 1966 Soviet mathematics textbook in the educational process, as well as "performing Soviet songs."

� (Source: Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine)

On January 9, 2026, school principal Anna Bolgova categorically denied the accusations leveled against the institution.

According to her, the journalists distorted the facts and took information out of context in order to create a sensational story.

"We were open; we were not hiding anything"
"Our parents' club operated openly — we were not hiding anything at all. Well, if we had had some kind of plans, we would not have been gathering in plain sight," Anna emphasizes.

According to her, it was an ordinary parents' club — mothers who wanted to give their children a quality education and an Orthodox upbringing: "Our children are Orthodox; it is very hard for them in regular schools — gadgets, foul language, and all the rest. We came together because the situation with education had become a painful issue for everyone."

Parents openly distributed announcements in Orthodox groups online, inviting like-minded people. "It was all freely accessible, everywhere on the internet, not hidden from anyone. We had a common group where everything was visible — all of our activities could be followed. We did nothing illegal," says Anna.

She explained that the children were enrolled in regular schools on distance learning, and the club gave parents the opportunity to supplement their schoolwork and complement the curriculum with an Orthodox education.

"There was no funding from Russia"
One of the journalists' main accusations — that the school was funded from Russia — is categorically denied by the principal.

"No one can believe it, but no one funded us — at all. We had no funding whatsoever. I thought we would get together and then someone with money would come and say: 'Let us help.' But no one came. No one at all," she says with bitterness.

Everything was done on sheer enthusiasm: furniture was bought second-hand, some was donated, some brought from home. Two upright pianos were brought in used. Textbooks were collected one by one, written off from libraries as waste paper. "We scraped together money penny by penny, whoever could. Our people were very ordinary," the principal emphasizes.

A separate issue involves the Soviet textbooks, for which the school was accused of disseminating totalitarian symbols and promoting the "Russian world."

In their "investigation," the journalists showed the Pchyolko arithmetic textbook — a Soviet 1966 edition that was indeed used at the school. But the principal explains: it is a quality textbook that many modern parents use with their children at home and with tutors, and it is available for free purchase. Moreover, it is in the Ukrainian language — the school specifically sought a Ukrainian-language edition.

"We found the Ukrainian version, we searched the entire internet and found the Ukrainian version — it is a Ukrainian school, after all! Can you imagine, we printed out those problems and exercises on printers. And now — we turned out to be criminals," Anna Bolgova says with bitterness.

She emphasizes that the Pchyolko textbook is "very logical and sequential."

"Many parents who want their children to truly know mathematics use these textbooks." She emphasizes that the main criterion when selecting teaching materials was the quality of content delivery: "Physics, mathematics — what possible crime could there be? What matters to us is that the information be presented adequately. Because the latest reform in the Ukrainian school is very dubious — information is presented in a heavy and incomprehensible form." Bolgova emphasizes that the school had textbooks from various periods — modern Ukrainian ones, pre-reform ones, and older ones. "We had many textbooks in Ukrainian — we found so many old, adequate ones. You know, the curriculum used to be quite different," says the principal.

When asked by an SPJ journalist whether "Slidstvo.info" had told the truth in claiming that the school's pupils sang the RF anthem, Bolgova expressed indignation. According to her, it is an outright lie. She said that among Ukrainian children on TikTok, protests against the imposition of a patriotic agenda are currently spreading.

"I was talking about the fact that on TikTok there is currently a trend — a protest against imposition. They start to tease on purpose. And on TikTok right now there is this trend — they deliberately start singing the Russian anthem," she explains, emphasizing that this is a fad that exists exclusively online and has nothing to do with her school. Moreover, when Anna Bolgova heard that one of the boys had shown such TikTok clips to other children, she called them in and had an educational talk with them about why that was wrong.

The "Slidstvo.info" accusation that the school "glorified the Russian God" left Bolgova bewildered. She calls it utter absurdity that is impossible to answer intelligibly: "I cannot comprehend this. Let them explain to me — how exactly?"
She said that both the teachers and the parents who gathered were devout, practicing believers for whom faith in God is of enormous importance. Accordingly, the Law of God was included in the children's upbringing.

"We are Orthodox people and we believe that the Law of God is the foundational subject. Everything is built upon it. Orthodox children absolutely need it. I taught it myself. We are all Christians; all our parents support this subject — we came together because truth was very important to us," she explains.

The school did indeed study the Russian language and Russian classics, but the principal explains why this was necessary.

"We had some fully Ukrainian-speaking families as well. But the majority were Russian-speaking. Yet that did not divide us at all," she says.

The principal — a psychologist by training — explains the methodological basis of her approach: "From my observations and practical experience, I came to understand that it is important for a child to learn to read in the language in which they communicate with their parents and in which they think. Another language can be layered on top of that later."

According to her, after Russian was banned in schools, a huge number of Russian-speaking children, on top of all their other challenges, also encountered serious difficulties in their studies.

"Today most children write illiterately and command neither Russian nor Ukrainian. But Russian-speaking children who first studied in Russian and then began learning Ukrainian were literate, spoke Ukrainian beautifully, wrote without errors, and won prizes at Ukrainian-language olympiads. That is how it was with my own children and with others I knew," the principal gives as examples.

She criticized the reforms to the school literature curriculum. According to her, it now includes works that are completely unsuitable for children, heavy to perceive and absolutely harmful to the child's psyche.

The principal cites specific examples: "'Perfume' by Süskind, 'The Flowers of Evil' by Baudelaire, and a great deal of other depressive literature."

In contrast, the parents' club studied classical literature:

"We had a curriculum and it included poems by Russian classical authors. Well, let them shoot me for that. If Yesenin's poems are considered propaganda of the 'Russian world,' then I am sorry. Does that mean everything beautiful now belongs to the 'Russian world'?"
The school watched old Soviet fairy tales and discussed what they had seen with the children. They also showed pupils films about the dangers of drug use.

Anna Bolgova recounted how a journalist from "Slidstvo.info" infiltrated the school by posing as a refugee from Luhansk.

"She introduced herself as a refugee from Luhansk and won everyone over. She came for several days, cultivated relationships with us, talked with everyone. We received her with open hearts. We are not hiding anything, we were not doing anything reprehensible, so we told her everything," she recalls.

It was to this "refugee" that the principal spoke about the TikTok situation, about how they selected textbooks, and about their educational work. "She simply did not grasp it," says the principal about how the journalist distorted her words.

After the "investigation" was published, phone calls and pressure began.

Parents became frightened, and the monastery asked that the parents' club be closed. "They blew it all up so much that parents simply got scared, and at the monastery they also said: 'Sorry, goodbye.' We created problems for them, I understand that. We all went through such a heavy ordeal," she says.

The principal recalls with warmth what kind of community had formed at the school.

"Such a wonderful community had come together — I have never seen people like that. I wept for joy that we had managed to come together. Such selfless people. We were such friends; we became like a family," she recounts.

"The children cried when the holidays came — they did not want to part, did not want to leave. It was so interesting to be together, such camaraderie. We talked with them, played with them, and in the Law of God lessons we discussed all their problems," Anna recalls.

"We gathered them from general-education schools, and they brought so much with them — it was truly unbelievable. Children are being lost in schools; no one takes care of them; they are cast aside, needed by no one. And with us, in a short time, such results — they were visibly changing before our eyes," she says with pride.

(Source: SPJ)

On January 23, 2026, the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience announced the opening of an examination procedure with respect to the Holy Protection Monastery "Holoseyevska Pustyn."

According to the agency's order, a working group will begin studying materials related to the monastery's activities starting January 26.

The matter concerns a monastery of the Kyiv Metropolitanate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, against which an examination has been initiated into possible indicators of affiliation with the Russian Orthodox Church. The SSEFC emphasizes that the examination is investigative in nature and is being conducted within the framework of current legislation, and that any final conclusions, if reached, are subject to a separate official announcement.

As follows from the agency's documents, the monastery was already included in July 2025 in the list of religious organizations subject to additional examination under instructions to address possible violations of legislation on freedom of conscience.

The agency also notes that attention to the monastery's activities intensified following media publications in January 2026 reporting on the operation of a private school on the monastery's grounds. At the same time, representatives of the Orthodox school at the UOC's Holoseyevsky Monastery state that it became the target of a public campaign following the release of a so-called journalistic investigation based on covert filming and manipulative claims, and that the accusations leveled against it have no factual basis and are being used to pressure Orthodox education and believers.

The SSEFC states that the agency's actions are carried out in accordance with the principle of the presumption of innocence of religious organizations. The results of the examination, if formalized, will be presented separately in the manner prescribed by law.

(Source: SSEFC)