'Live in Peace': Ukrainian Orthodox School Director Issues Open Letter After Media Report Triggers Harassment

Yana Korniychuk, who "investigated" the monastery-based school. Photo: Yana Korniychuk/Facebook

KYIV — In early January, a media scandal erupted in Ukraine after Slidstvo.Info published an “investigation” accusing the Orthodox parents’ club Perspektiva, based at Kyiv’s Holosiiv Monastery of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), of promoting the “Russian world” and even “glorifying a Russian God.” The publication triggered online harassment of teachers and parents, while the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and prosecutors opened a criminal case.

In comments made to UOJ-Ukraine, club director Anna Bolgova firmly rejected the allegations, saying journalists “distorted facts and pulled information out of context to create a scandal.” She stressed that the club “operated openly and hid nothing,” functioned as a supplement to distance learning, and had “no funding whatsoever — no one financed us at all.”

Bolgova called claims that children sang the Russian anthem “an outright lie” and described the charge of “glorifying a Russian God” as “complete absurdity.” Following her initial comments, Bolgova sent an open letter to the editorial office of UOJ-Ukraine addressed to journalist Yana Korniychuk, who had posed as a refugee and stayed with the school for several days. It was her manipulative report that became the reason for large-scale harassment of the club’s teachers, parents, and students.

The letter is published in full below, without edits or omissions.

“Glory to God for everything. I will call you Anna, because most likely that is the name with which you were baptized. I thank you — truly. Perhaps you will not understand this now, but this situation is from God. It must be lived through with the heart.

When I was sent the video, I could not watch it. I was afraid. But not because I had said anything criminal — no. I live openly, before God, and everything I say I confess with my life. I was in pain because I had opened my heart to you — I always open it to people. I simply no longer know how to do otherwise. But behind me there were also children’s hearts. And you struck all of us. You struck us with lies. With meanness.

Many people cried. And yes, at first you truly frightened us. The hatred that rose up in the comments, the calls to kill us, to take us away, to strip parents of their rights, the curses…

I was very afraid for the children and the parents and, for some reason, deleted our Telegram groups. I regret it deeply. There was a chronicle of our life there. There was light and joy there. We lived like a family — I told you about that. And I know for certain that you were touched by our bright impulse. I read it in your eyes, Annushka.

I know there was a struggle within you. But, unfortunately, you did not listen to your heart. And now, perhaps, you have your thirty pieces of silver from the foreign company where you work. You have fame; you are a successful journalist. Your investigation about mothers with children thundered across the whole world.

But I also know, Annushka, that this did not bring you joy. And understand — I am not gloating. Not only I, but other mothers are also praying for you. We will live through all this pain with God and grow. All of this will later become our victory.

And it is very important for you to understand that there is the Lord. And He is great and beautiful. And He creates His own, divine beauty in human hearts. And this beauty is born in pain, because love is like that: it bears all things, believes all things, and never fails.

And all this pain that you brought us was from the Lord — and for you. We must accept this blow and give birth to prayer instead of hatred and resentment. And then we will help in the birth of a supernova star. A star is always born when a human heart opens to God.

I am not angry with you, dear little sister. Live in peace.”

No formal charges have been brought against the parents' club or the monastery as of yet, and no court summons have arrived. But the school is closed, the community has dispersed, and the children are forced to return to regular schools. “We had tried many times before to open a school," Bolgova said in her previous comments to UOJ-Ukraine. "... Thank God, we were allowed into the monastery, given premises. And we started doing everything ourselves. And now — everything is over."

Korniychuk had entered the school undercover and attended for several days, cultivated relationships, and talked to everyone.

"We welcomed her with open hearts. We hid nothing and did nothing improper, so we told her everything,” Bolgova said.

Previously, UOJ reported that Ukrainian journalists harassed UOC believers praying in private apartments.

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