Lies, fabrication, and twisted patriotism of OCU propagandists
On April 11, 2024, the Shevchenko District Court of Kyiv found the Editor-in-Chief of 'Left Bank' Sonia Koshkina guilty of spreading false information.
The court ruled that the posts by one of the active lobbyists of the OCU on Telegram, as well as an article in the "LB" publication about the "sexual intimacy" between Bishop Nikita of Ivano-Frankivsk and an underage "choirboy" (as written by Sonia Koshkina herself), are lies.
According to the court's decision, the "Left Bank" resource and Sonia Koshkina personally must refute the disseminated information and pay Bishop Nikita around 30,000 UAH in moral damages.
However, firstly, at the time of writing the article (April 13), Koshkina still had not apologized.
Secondly, she is not the only one who needs to apologize. Why?
What is Sonia Koshkina?
To understand the motives of Koshkina's actions, we should say a few words about how she became what we are witnessing now.
Ksenia Nikitichna Vasilenko (Sonia Koshkina's real name) is the co-owner and Editor-in-Chief of the Left Bank online edition. She has worked in many other media outlets in Ukraine, teaches journalism and is an active lobbyist for the OCU.
However, up until 2018, she considered herself a parishioner of the Moscow Patriarchate, called Filaret Denisenko by the word "Mr" (not "patriarch") and claimed that the Kyiv Patriarchate would never become legitimate because it is non-canonical.
And here are the words of Sonia Koshkina in her interview with Metropolitan Oleksandr Drabinko of the UOC: "You know, I am a parishioner of the Moscow Patriarchate. You know that we have a very nice and wonderful parish, and many of us are literally shaken by such political moments. Nevertheless, we cannot influence this. Just as, of course, we cannot change the patriarchate. The question is: what to do? What to do for adult adequate people who understand everything, see everything but who sincerely believe and want to go to church, without switching to the non-canonical – with all due respect to the current component – Kyiv Patriarchate?"
Then Drabinko told his parishioner that he did not have an exhaustive answer to this question. But less than a year later, together with Sonia, they found this answer, having moved to Dumenko's structure.
Let's note another interesting point – Koshkina considers herself a great patriot of Ukraine and even wrote a book about Maidan. But after a few weeks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sonia left for the Czech Republic, apparently not believing in Ukraine's victory. In the Czech Republic, she gave an interview to Radio Liberty, in which she noted that religion is her hobby and "location does not affect editorial processes".
It shoud be added that not only location but also conscience did not affect editorial processes. Because, already being an OCO member, Koshkina decided to disregard journalistic ethics in discussions about the UOC and instead engage in basic mudslinging. Besides, the environment greatly facilitated this. There is plenty of evidence for this, but we are interested in a specific case – with Archimandrite Nikita.
A conscious lie or a "hobby"?
It is difficult to understand what Koshkina's soul feels towards the UOC because it's hard to assess the level of hatred that has built up in her soul and, in fact, overshadowed elementary notions of honour and conscience.
We won't quote everything this young lady wrote about the UOC. Firstly, it's unpleasant, and secondly – the same things can be heard from a village vendor. We'll only cite her statements related to the case that the court recognized as fake.
So, on the night of November 25, commenting on the searches conducted by the SBU in the building of the Chernivtsi Eparchy of the UOC, Koshkina wrote on her Telegram: "The Chernivtsi Eparchy. AAAAAAAA!!!! A boy in underwear. Crucified. Lord, I've seen it all)"
It is difficult for us to judge what else Drabinko’s parishioner saw – we have no experience in communicating with OCU clerics. But it is likely that Sonia saw such strange things that allowed her to judge "sexual intimacy" simply by the fact that a person had no socks on. She wrote, "During the search, the secretary of the Chernivtsi Eparchy of the UOC MP, Archimandrite Nikita, tormented a BOY FROM THE CHURCH CHOIR. (Photos attached. Pay attention: Nikita is barefoot). We blurred the face of the 'boy in underwear' because I feel sorry for him."
The photo that Sonia attached as "evidence" depicted Archimandrite Nikita standing in his cell in his underpants at 6 am – at the moment when SBU employees literally burst in there. The underage boy, whom Sonia felt "sorry" for, was standing in the corridor with his hands on the wall. How these two photos are related is unclear.
But that's why there are "professional Ukrainian journalists" to "explain such things". Koshkina writes that Archimandrite Nikita should "thank" the SBU officers who "let him get dressed not take pictures, as it was when they went in there". On her website, she described it in more detail: "According to sources, during the search, SBU employees dropped in at the moment of physical proximity between the secretary of the Chernivtsi Eparchy of the UOC MP, Archimandrite Nikita, and a 17-year-old boy who sings in the local choir."
In short, on 25 November Sonia Koshkina devoted 7 posts to "covering" the searches in the Chernivtsi Eparchy, not counting the article in the Left Bank, which was updated several times, with "new details" added.
All these statements were considered by the court to be untrue. But the most interesting thing is not that but the fact that Sonia ADMITTED having produced lies!
In other words, at the very moment when she wrote about the "choirboy in underwear" and about his "physical intimacy" with Archimandrite Nikita, she KNEW she was lying! That is, Koshkina deliberately ruined the life of a young boy, who was guilty only of the fact that the parishioner of the Dumenko church needed an appropriate picture to spit at people from the Church of Christ.
Sonia's cynicism and lack of conscience were emphasised by her "compassion" for the guy who was photographed by the SBU officers at the time of the searches. This young man, by the way, unable to withstand the harassment from his acquaintances, left Ukraine. Koshkina, who has no children of her own, does not care about the life of this youngster.
She is concerned about something else - how the Synod of the UOC will go, whose participants she calls "devils in cassocks". And she writes this, already knowing that the court will require her to apologize for slandering the UOC cleric.
Will she apologize? Unlikely. Even if she does, it will be in a way that her apology doesn't look like an apology. Well, after that, she will become even dirtier in her statements towards the UOC. Because, firstly, she will have to "compensate" for the words of "apology"; secondly, it's in trend to slander the UOC in Ukraine and to be punished for supporting the UOC; and thirdly, none of her current "spiritual mentors" will tell her that lying, slander, and profanity are no good and non-Christian.
Indeed, what can Sonia's "spiritual fathers" say, who themselves allow statements that go beyond ordinary, let alone Christian decency?
The OCU and "spiritual guidance"
For example, what can "Metropolitan" Oleksandr Drabinko (OCU), who swears while talking to parishioners, and who has been repeatedly involved in scandals himself, tell her?
Or what can the "dean" of the OCU from the Khmelnytskyi region, who promises to curse a believer if she "doesn't shut her mouth", say?
Sonia, like the OCU seminarians swearing during the video broadcast of the "service" of Epifaniy Dumenko has someone to learn from.
The question is why does the top leadership of the OCU not react to all this? After all, Koshkina is not an ordinary parishioner but a person very close to a lot of OCU "hierarchs" (including Dumenko), voicing her views in the public space. Therefore, her views, given her closeness to the representatives of the OCU, are perceived as the unofficial position of this structure.
So, when Dumenko wonders why the UOC leadership does not want to engage in dialogue with him, let him remember Koshkina, for whom Synodals of the UOC (who Dumenko hopes to engage in dialogue with) are just "devils in cassocks".
It turns out that if Epifaniy does not react to Sonia, he agrees with her words?
In our opinion, yes. All the talk of the OCU leaders about openness, readiness for dialogue and even more about the "cultural" and "democratic" nature of the OCU are completely shattered by Koshkina's statements. Moreover, many parishioners of the UOC, who hear what Ksenia Vasilenko says, are convinced that with such people like her, for whom religion is just a hobby, it is simply impossible to be in the same Church.
Indeed, how can one partake from the same Chalice with a person for whom lies, slander and ruined lives are just one side of a "hobby"?
Be that as it may, Ksenia Vasilenko’s words speak of another thing: a great spiritual pain that she cannot suppress. She seems to believe that the dirtier, the more cynical and aggressive her words about the Church of Christ are, the less her soul will feel the emptiness and darkness in which she is currently immersed. But, in fact, this is a delusion. Because the only way to change the situation is to remember that Christ came to just such lost souls in need of purification and salvation.
