SBU and proсuracy open a criminal case over UOC monastery's school

Holosiivskyi Monastery of the UOC. Photo: Prosecutor General's Office

On January 7, 2025, the Office of the Prosecutor General announced the launch of a pretrial investigation into the activities of a school operating at the Holosiiv Monastery of the UOC.

According to the agency’s press service, the investigation was opened by SBU investigators, with procedural oversight by 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 the symbols of the communist and Nazi totalitarian regimes, including in the form of souvenir products; public performance of the anthems of the USSR, the Ukrainian SSR, or excerpts thereof anywhere on the territory of Ukraine).

The grounds for initiating the criminal proceedings were facts made public in an investigative report by Slidstvo.Info. The SBU and prosecutors accuse the school’s leadership of using a 1966 Soviet mathematics textbook in the educational process, as well as of “performing Soviet songs.”

Earlier, the UOJ reported that Slidstvo.Info “exposed” the school at the UOC monastery, claiming that the Russian national anthem was played there and that they “praised the Russian god.”

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