A series of Marian apparitions and prophetic messages in Ukraine since the 19th century

Hrushiv, a small Ukrainian village to the west of Lviv, close to the Polish border, has received a series of apparitions of the Virgin Mary since the middle of the 18th century, when the Mother of God appeared in a meadow at the bottom of the village. These successive apparitions took place in 1806, 1856, 1914, and 1987. Miraculous healings have been recorded.

Shutterstock, TNShutter.

Les raisons d'y croire :

In the 19th century, a spring suddenly welled up from beneath a willow tree which had been planted 350 years earlier on the spot where the Blessed Mother had appeared. This spring has been responsible for unexplained cures ever since.

On 13 May 1987, the anniversary of the Fatima apparitions, local television, under the control of the KGB, broadcast a live programme about the apparitions to mock believers and pilgrims. A huge number of viewers saw the Virgin appear on their screens in a beautiful light, "floating above the church", holding "the Child Jesus in her arms", while none of the television crew saw anything.

On 26 April 1987, one year to the day after the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster, a new series of apparitions began. A bright light covered the dome of the church of the Holy Trinity and the surrounding area. From within this light the Virgin Mary appeared, hovering above the dome of the church and holding in her arms the Child Jesus. A ten-year-old girl, Maria Kyzin, who lived nearby at the time and went to mass in the neighbouring village, saw a beautiful woman come and go on the balcony of the Church of the Holy Trinity, above a door. The apparitions continued for the next few months.

In all, almost five hundred thousand people attended these apparitions. The Virgin appeared daily between 26 April and 25 August 1987, despite the prohibitions of the Communist authorities, who set up barricades, blocked roads, dug trenches and arrested pilgrims. Despite these dangers, 45,000 people, Catholics and Orthodox alike, managed to reach the site of the apparitions every day.

During this period, witnesses to the apparitions came not only from all over Ukraine, but also from Germany, Poland, Italy and other places. They all solemnly declared that they had heard Our Lady speak in their respective mother tongues.

The prophetic messages received are striking in their accuracy and precision: on 12 May 1914, Mary warned the Ukrainians that "misfortunes" were about to befall their nation (the country was on the front line of the fighting between the Entente countries and the German and Austro-Hungarian powers); then she prophesied that the suffering would last "eighty years" or "ninety years" (civil violence after the Bolshevik Revolution, the Second World War, then Soviet rule), and that Ukraine would become an independent state (which it did in 1991).
Although the canonical procedure for recognising the apparitions could not be completed (the Uniate Church, the majority in Hrushiv, was clandestine until 1989), the clergy responded very quickly and positively to the phenomenon: defying government bans, priests said mass inside the shrine (up to ten masses a day).

In the wake of Fatima, several messages (in 1914 and 1987) predicted the disappearance of the faith in Russia after the revolutionary troubles, and pointed to the danger of the Soviet regime, whose atheism would bring misfortune to all mankind and to believers in particular: "If there is not a return to Christianity in Russia, there will be a Third World War; the whole world will face ruin."

Our Lady's many messages are remarkably clear and evangelical in their depth, and all of them, without exception, are an invitation to follow Christ: prayer, recitation of the Rosary, conversion, a reminder to pass on the faith from one generation to the next and to educate children in a Christian way, penance, humility, forgiveness of enemies, regardless of nationality or religion: "Blessed are those who live uprightly and walk in the fear of the Lord."

Josyp Terelya, a visionary in 1987, was taken seriously by church leaders and received a personal audience with Saint John Paul II.

Ukraine was the first nation to be entrusted to the Virgin Mary. Jaroslav the Wise, son of Vladimir the Great, proclaimed the Virgin Mary Queen of the Ukrainian people in 1037. One of Mary's message in our times reads: "The Father is calling you. That is why I have been sent to you. You in the Ukraine were the first people entrusted to me. Throughout your long persecution, you have not lost faith, hope and love."

Synthèse :

In 1806, a cholera epidemic hit part of Ukraine. Stephen Chapowskyj, a deeply religious man from the village of Hrushiv, painted an icon of the Virgin Mary, which the villagers immediately placed on the trunk of a willow tree. A few days later, Stephen, meditating next to his icon, saw the painted image become a living woman who soon told him who she was: the Blessed Mother of God. Many pilgrims came to pray over the following days. Patients infected with cholera were cured in extraordinary ways and finally, the epidemic miraculously stopped.

In 1856, Ukraine was struck by a severe cholera epidemic again. A woman saw the Virgin Mary in a dream who said to her: "My daughter, I ask you to clear and reclaim the ancient spring. Celebrate mass there and death will cease in the village". It was afterwards reported that from that day forward not a single resident died from cholera. A chapel dedicated to the Holy Trinity was built above the well.

On 12 May 1914, Mary appeared again in the village. She warned the inhabitants that "misfortunes" would befall the country. A magnificent light was seen near the chapel of the Holy Trinity, next to the community well. The next day and the day after that, twenty-two people saw Our Lady at once.

Our Lady announced that believers would suffer, that Ukrainians would be persecuted, and that some would live to see "three wars", after which the country would become free (as it did in 1989).

On 26 April 1986, the world's media carried the news of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster. One year later, to the day, a ten-year-old girl, Maria Kyzin, also saw the Virgin Mary. The apparition warned that the horror of Chernobyl was a sign of the danger threatening the world and Christians.

From 9 to 12 May, Josyp Terelya, a Ukrainian national born in 1943 and a political prisoner for twenty-three years by the Soviet authorities, also saw the Virgin six times in a row. He had already been visited by Mary in his cell in 1972.

Tens of thousands of people, Catholics and Orthodox, Ukrainians and foreigners, flocked to Hrushiv despite the many coercive measures taken by the Soviet authorities to curb the pilgrimage, which Moscow considered illegal, and despite the fact that the United Church remained underground until 1989. Men and women were arrested and put on trial for "Ukrainian Catholic activity". The Catholic clergy, reduced to an "underground" life or rallying to Orthodoxy, were unable to carry out any real investigation into the apparitions. However, no one in the clergy ever expressed the slightest doubt, and the pilgrimage continued.

Patrick Sblachiero

Au-delà des raisons d'y croire :

In addition to the coherent and documented visionary experiences, generating many sort of lasting spiritual fruit, and the evangelical quality of the messages, the events in Hrushiv revealed the incredible faith of the inhabitants, their trust in the word of God, despite the persecution they suffered, and their faithfulness to Jesus and his Mother for more than two centuries.