On the morning of April 26, 1987, the anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe, Marina Kisin, a twelve-year-old farmer’s daughter, left home to go to school. Diagonally opposite her house stood a dilapidated church, plundered by the Communists and now nailed shut. Suddenly Marina noticed a strange light hovering above the church. When she went closer to the light, out of curiosity, she recognized a woman, dressed in black robes of mourning, holding a child in her arms. Then she heard a voice which told her that the Ukrainians, on account of all their sufferings, had been chosen to lead the Soviet Union back to Christianity. Marina was frightened and ran back home as fast as she could, to tell her mother and sister about her mysterious encounter. Minutes later all three of them hurried to the scene of the vision, where the light and the mysterious figure in black could still be seen. 

The figure nodded to them as if in greeting, and Marina’s mother, Miroslava, fell on her knees devoutly. “That is the Virgin Mary,” she hissed to her daughters. “Kneel down and pray!” Within hours news of the occurrence had spread and people started coming to the place. Soon pilgrims came from thousands of miles away, from Georgia and the Baltic states. The main difference between Fatima and Hrushiv was that here it was not only Marina who saw the Mother of God; half the pilgrims who came saw her, too, sometimes clearly, sometimes as a shadow. Some of them heard her message as well. 

“Oh, my daughter Ukraine, I have come to you, for you have suffered most, and during all your trials you have preserved your faith in the Most Holy Heart. I have come to you, so that you may go forth to convert Russia. Pray for Russia! Pray for that lost Russian nation. For if Russia does not accept Christ, a third world war is unavoidable.” One of the half million pilgrims who went to Hrushiv was the Catholic activist Josip Terelya, who had spent twenty years in Russian prison camps, and shortly before had been released on Gorbachev’s orders. He said, “The glow around the chapel was now about six hundred feet high. The entire area was enveloped in a light that was somehow heavenly and breathtaking. It was something between the silvery luster of the moon and the glow of a fluorescent lamp. “In the light above the church there was a smaller, more intense light, that looked like a bright globe. 

It was a fiery ball that moved back and forth, and when it was above the chapel, it was a silvery lilac color. It swayed forward and backward, shimmering. Then it moved to the left and finally descended onto the main dome of the church. The Virgin Mary took form in the sphere, as if she had been conveyed into our reality by the globe, acting as a vehicle. It was as if the light was being shown by a projector from somewhere very On the morning of April 26, 1987, the anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe, Marina Kisin, a twelve-year-old farmer’s daughter, left home to go to school. Diagonally opposite her house stood a dilapidated church, plundered by the Communists and now nailed shut. Suddenly Marina noticed a strange light hovering above the church. When she went closer to the light, out of curiosity, she recognized a woman, dressed in black robes of mourning, holding a child in her arms. 

Then she heard a voice which told her that the Ukrainians, on account of all their sufferings, had been chosen to lead the Soviet Union back to Christianity. Marina was frightened and ran back home as fast as she could, to tell her mother and sister about her mysterious encounter. Minutes later all three of them hurried to the scene of the vision, where the light and the mysterious figure in black could still be seen. The figure nodded to them as if in greeting, and Marina’s mother, Miroslava, fell on her knees devoutly. “That is the Virgin Mary,” she hissed to her daughters. “Kneel down and pray!” Within hours news of the occurrence had spread and people started coming to the place. Soon pilgrims came from thousands of miles away, from Georgia and the Baltic states. 

The main difference between Fatima and Hrushiv was that here it was not only Marina who saw the Mother of God; half the pilgrims who came saw her, too, sometimes clearly, sometimes as a shadow. Some of them heard her message as well. “Oh, my daughter Ukraine, I have come to you, for you have suffered most, and during all your trials you have preserved your faith in the Most Holy Heart. I have come to you, so that you may go forth to convert Russia. Pray for Russia! Pray for that lost Russian nation. For if Russia does not accept Christ, a third world war is unavoidable.” One of the half million pilgrims who went to Hrushiv was the Catholic activist Josip Terelya, who had spent twenty years in Russian prison camps, and shortly before had been released on Gorbachev’s orders. He said, “The glow around the chapel was now about six hundred feet high. The entire area was enveloped in a light that was somehow heavenly and breathtaking. 

It was something between the silvery luster of the moon and the glow of a fluorescent lamp. “In the light above the church there was a smaller, more intense light, that looked like a bright globe. It was a fiery ball that moved back and forth, and when it was above the chapel, it was a silvery lilac color. It swayed forward and backward, shimmering. Then it moved to the left and finally descended onto the main dome of the church. The Virgin Mary took form in the sphere, as if she had been conveyed into our reality by the globe, acting as a vehicle. It was as if the light was being shown by a projector from somewhere very