Holy Innocence: How an Underground School Operated Under the Church of Onuphry in Cherkasy Region

Source: Author’s Facebook page

Journalists in the Cherkasy region have uncovered an underground Orthodox school linked to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which formally claims no ties to the Moscow Patriarchate. The irony is that the Cherkasy diocese openly showcased the school’s activities on its Facebook page.

Among the founders of the “Cherkasy Orthodox Gymnasium named after St. Sergius of Radonezh”—the name used in the video—is Metropolitan Feodosii of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (officially described as not affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate). He has been on trial for more than two years on charges of inciting interfaith hatred and conducting subversive activities against Ukraine.

Formally, this so-called “Orthodox gymnasium” is registered as a third-group private entrepreneur, with its declared activity listed as “tutoring.” Both the self-proclaimed “director of the gymnasium” and the same private entrepreneur, Degterenko, deny the existence of any school. They claim that she is engaged in animal husbandry and provides tutoring services—including, notably, hiring teachers for this purpose.

The registered address of this private entrepreneur is not in Cherkasy itself but in the village of Chornyavka, some 30 kilometres from the city—an unusual location, to say the least, for a tutoring business.

Journalists at Suspilne carried out the investigation.

The case is strikingly familiar. Recently, journalists uncovered a similar underground school in Kyiv at the Holosiivska Pustyn Monastery. There, children were taught using Soviet-era textbooks and shown Russian films. The class schedule even included a subject titled “Slavic Language,” which journalists were told was, in fact, a Russian language lesson.

The clientele and atmosphere at the “school” are telling. “It’s better to say a prayer than to observe a moment of silence; endlessly singing this hymn is abnormal,” said the mother of one student.

Similar to the “Orthodox gymnasium” in the Cherkasy region, there is no official registration for Holosiivska Pustyn; the institution does not exist in any official records. Officially, students are registered at a local lyceum, but they do not attend classes there. Instead, their grades are transferred from the same underground school, facilitated through connections with the lyceum director.

The Holosiivska Pustyn Monastery actively shaped children’s worldview to an imperial Russian model. Recently, a similar institution has been discovered near Cherkasy. It remains unknown how many more such schools may exist across Ukraine.

The activities of these UOC (allegedly non-MP) institutions are no different from those of their counterparts in the temporarily occupied territories. The Russian Orthodox Church boasts that its “humanitarian missions” in these areas organize Russian-language instruction for children through so-called “volunteer tutors.” This represents, in its purest form, an imperialist policy of Russification aimed at erasing Ukrainian identity.

One might ask: Isn’t the UOC (allegedly non-MP) taking too many liberties in Ukraine? The Church of Metropolitan Onuphry has long been accused of promoting the “Russian world.” However, directly influencing the worldview of children goes far beyond these allegations. Is the UOC (allegedly non-MP) not concerned about the potential consequences of such actions?

The question is: what should she be afraid of? We all remember how Onuphry’s church was given time to sever ties completely with Moscow and the Russian Orthodox Church, how Onuphry himself was stripped of Ukrainian citizenship, and so on. Yet the UOC (allegedly non-MP) seems blind to all this. They acted as they did, continue to act, and all inconveniences imposed by the state are presented as oppression or religious persecution.

The fact that the Church of Onuphry is part of the Russian Orthodox Church must still be proven in court by state authorities.

And which side do the courts take? As expected, the courts in Ukraine have sided with the UOC (allegedly non-MP).

In October of last year, the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal rejected the application filed by the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience against the Kyiv Metropolis of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The UOC (allegedly non-MP) had requested a ban on disposing of real estate and conducting transactions from its accounts. Then, in December, the Supreme Court upheld the previous ruling when it dismissed the appeal brought by the State Service

In other words, while Ukrainian authorities officially deny any dialogue with the Moscow Patriarchate, in practice, the UOC (allegedly non-MP) continues to open schools that serve the Russification of young Ukrainians.

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