A chapter from the book “Teraturgima, or
Miracles of the New Century.
The first
great omen of the Chernobyl disaster, which shook the entire planet in 1986,
was revealed at a time of the rapid development of nuclear energy, long before
the explosion of the 4th reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Witnesses recall it happened exactly ten years before the accident, on April
26, 1976. It is interpreted as a sign sent by the Lord and Our Lady 40 years
ago. A local newspaper “Prapor Peremohy” (“The Banner of Victory) published an
article at the time, titled “Fairytales of Clergymen.” An author referred to a
cloud of an unusual shape appearing in the sky that day, which the clergymen
interpreted as an apparition of the Virgin Mary. However, it was not merely an
atmospheric oddity.
That
evening many locals witnessed an unusually shaped cloud floating above the
ground. The figure of the Virgin Mary could be discerned in it, with her face
and brightly coloured raiment clearly visible. She was holding a tuft of dried
wormwood, which the locals also call “chernobylnik.” Holy Mary dropped the
wormwood over the town. Then the bright radiant cloud moved towards the forest
and stopped over the church of the Holy Prophet Elijah. Blessed Virgin Mary
faced the church and blessed it twice with both hands. As she appeared in the
sky, it stopped raining and the weather became warm and mild. This phenomenon
was interpreted by the local priest, Father Alexander Prokopenko. He explained
that only Mother of God may give her blessing with two hands. Bishops also have
the privilege of blessing with two hands; however the vision in the sky was not
that of a male.
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| The Church of the Holy Prophet Elijah |
The
locals interpreted this phenomenon as a forecast of a dry summer and a poor
harvest. Some people have found and picked up pieces of wormwood that fell from
the sky. Many years later it became clear that this was a prediction: exactly
ten years later the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded. But when the disaster
struck, nobody made a connection between the events ten years apart. People
recalled the story much later and came to recognize it as a sign from God.
In 2002
His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev and All Ukraine blessed the
creation of an icon which captured the apparition of Blessed Virgin Mary over
Chernobyl. It was painted by a servant of God, an artist from Kiev named Ioan,
who also created the rest of the artwork in our church. Ioan, who is an orphan,
is very religious, pious and earnest. He had been fasting and took communion
before starting the work. The icon portrays the church of St. Elijah with the
Queen of Heaven and Archangels Michael and Gabriel on both sides, rising in the
sky above it. She holds chernobylnik (wormwood) in her hands. Two capsules with
wormwood picked in the Chernobyl area are affixed on both sides of the icon.
His Beatitude Vladimir blessed the image as one of Chernobyl’s locally revered
icons.
A vision
of the Chernobyl Saviour icon is revealed to the leader of the Chernobyl Power
Plant Communist party section on his deathbed
Yuri
Andreev, who is now deceased, was the leader of the Chernobyl nuclear power
plant Communist party section at the time. A Communist with a strong attachment
to his party’s ideas, he became very ill after receiving huge doses of
radiation. He was suffering greatly; the doctors did not expect him to live
much longer. Yuri kept seeing a recurring dream: an image of an icon. He
described it to the artist and gave instructions on how it had to be painted.
He also told of his dream to me, and I passed his message to His Beatitude
Metropolitan Volodymyr. Being seriously ill, the Communist leader kept asking
for the icon to be painted. He saw the image with his inner spiritual vision
and felt a strong need for it to be created. His Beatitude gave his blessing.
The icon
was painted at the Trinity-Sergiev Lavra in 2003 and sanctified at
Kiev-Pechersk Lavra on the feast day of the Dormition of the Mother of God.
When His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir blessed the image of the Chernobyl
Saviour, three signs appeared in the sky. A dove flew above the icon before
hundreds of witnesses, then a rainbow appeared in the sky, and finally the sign
of the cross became visible, with the sun shining at its centre. Curiously,
Yuri Andreev, the terminally ill leader of the Communist party section of the
Chernobyl nuclear plant, greatly recovered after this event. The Lord healed
him. It is surprising that a staunch Communist, later the president of the
“Chernobyl – Ukraine” Union, was chosen for this mission. Thanks to him the
icon of the Chernobyl Saviour came into the world, and the Lord has continued
to heal the sick and afflicted people who come to venerate this image.
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| The Church of the Holy Prophet Eliah |
Vladislav
Goretsky, a well-known iconographer, was chosen to create this icon. The image
is truly sublime, expressive and spiritual. It is also exceptional in that it
depicts ordinary people alongside the image of God for the first time in the
history of iconography. The souls of the survivors of the Chernobyl tragedy are
portrayed on the right, while the souls of the deceased victims are on the
left. His Beatitude Vladimir requested the permission of Patriarch Alexiy II to
paint the images of the people in the icon. Permission was granted.
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| A pine tree that grew in the form of a cross |
The
subject of the icon is deeply symbolic. It is a visual rendition of a theme
from the Book of Revelation. At the centre of the image is a “star of wormwood”
falling from the sky against the backdrop of the ominous glow of the explosion.
Another focal point is a crucifix-shaped pine tree. This extraordinary sign of
the upcoming tragedy grew on Polissya’s land decades before the accident. This
large, old tree was fully grown before the Second World War. Chernobyl’s
nuclear power plant was built just two kilometres away from this huge living
cross, growing at the forest edge.
After the
tragedy, when the so-called “red forest” poisoned by radiation was cut down, an
opening revealed a stunning spiritual vision: two symbols of the universal
disaster – the exploded fourth nuclear reactor and the giant tree-cross –
became connected in one.
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| The “Red forest” |
This
vision is reminiscent of the Old Testament cruciform tree watered by Lot, which
was to become Christ’s cross two thousand years later. The tree is believed to
have grown from the three staffs given to Abraham by the Holy Trinity, Who was
revealed to the forefather in the form of three angels. Four thousand years
later the Chernobyl Cross arose as a symbol of the nuclear crucifixion that
would come in 1986. To the left and right of the cross are the living and the
deceased liquidators of the nuclear catastrophe. Above them is the Lord Jesus Christ
with a scroll of the Apocalypse, open on the page that holds the prophecy, as
well as the Holy Virgin and the Archangel Michael. This is the exact vision
that came in a dream to the Communist leader of the Chernobyl nuclear plant.
The
Chernobyl Saviour icon mystically communicates that the One holding the scroll
holds the keys to the grand design and to every detail in the lives of those
born into the world, as well as the events and defining moments of history,
including the tragedy of Chernobyl.
The
Saviour looked at the priest every night, leading him to where His image was
hidden.
There is
another extraordinary icon, which I have never mentioned before. It is the
image of the Saviour from St Michael the Archangel’s church in the village of
Krasno, located in the exclusion zone.
This
wonderful icon has an unusual history. After the accident all the villagers from
Krasno were evacuated due to very high levels of radiation brought on by the
radioactive cloud moving towards Belarus. One of Krasno’s inhabitants ended up
in St. Petersburg, where he became a priest at one of the local churches.
Eleven
years ago he found my phone number and called. “Father Nikolay, I’d like to ask
you for a favour,” he told me. “I have a recurring dream, in which I see the
eyes of the Saviour from an icon left in the exclusion zone in Krasno. I would
like you to find it – it is a large icon of Christ painted on wooden board.”
“How will I find it?” I asked. “I’ll tell you where to go,” he responded.
He
described the location with great precision. He named the house and the place
in the house where the icon was hidden. One had to be a local to give such
exact instructions for navigating the village that by now had become
contaminated and abandoned.
The
priest’s grandfather used to serve in St Michael the Archangel’s church for
many years. The extraordinary old icon of the Saviour had been stolen from the
church once, but was later miraculously restored by the Lord. The remarkable
wooden church itself, built in 1800, was plundered after the Chernobyl
disaster. But the grandfather, now deceased, had an opportunity to hide the
antique icon, although the location remained unknown. The Lord Himself gave a
sign and taught how to find the sacred icon that was dear to Him.
Thousands
of kilometres away, in St. Petersburg, a priest and a native of the Chernobyl
zone began to dream of this icon, the Saviour looking at him every night. I
drove to the village and found the abandoned house as it had been described
over the phone. Everything turned out to be true. I pulled the icon from the
attic and brought it to our local church. When the icon was restored, the
priest from St. Petersburg came to our church to worship and to witness his
dream, which became reality.
The image
of Jesus Christ in this icon is truly alive and unforgettable, his gaze forever
vivid in your memory.
Angels
lead a church service in the exclusion zone.
The old
church in the village of Krasno has long been abandoned. However, we have had
multiple witness accounts of church services being held there by the angels and
the heavenly host. Staff members of the Chernobyl police force have come to me
on multiple occasions between 2005 and 2009, asking to explain the meaning of
what they had witnessed.
Police
officers have recounted the following events. On one occasion a police unit
that patrols the exclusion zone approached the village church and heard voices.
They thought it was an illusion, since settlers had long left the village.
There is also an abandoned checkpoint at the entrance to the village. The
surrounding forest has grown thick and dangerous, making it impossible to get
into the village by any other route.
The
patrol vehicle moved forward towards the church. Officers could hear beautiful
singing coming from the church and saw a mild glow of the lights inside the
building. The men came out of the car and froze, overcome with religious fear.
The Chernobyl police unit is a well-trained professional force, prepared to
respond to a variety of emergency situations. Yet, these hardened men felt so
overwhelmed with fear that they left the scene immediately. They went back to
the same location again, but this time the church looked quiet. They did not
dare enter the church and sent a report to their chief.
The
police officers later came to my church and asked me to explain the nature of
the event they had witnessed. I told them that the history of the church has
multiple accounts of such events. Angels do not leave the holy altar until the
end of time. When people have to abandon a church for any reason, angels come
to worship there instead. The church in Krasno has special significance to
them, since it is dedicated to the Archangel Michael, the head of the heavenly
host. The place, although burned by lethal doses of radiation, still remains a
sacred site, where God’s grace abides. The Lord’s will was to bring responsible
witnesses to recount this miracle to the wider world. All subsequent witness
accounts of the liturgy in the empty church were identical to the first
description.
I have
been going to the church in Krasno to lead services on feast days ever since.
During one of my visits I found an icon of the Archangel Michael. I went into
the loft between the church’s cupolas. It is a difficult spot to reach and
quite dangerous to walk through, because of the rotting old floor boards. I
prayed and walked as far as I could go, when I suddenly felt as though someone
was looking at me closely. I raised my head and saw the icon of the Archangel
Michael with a fiery sword in his hand, placed on a decrepit old shelf. The
church had been previously plundered by looters, but this icon had remained
mysteriously concealed from their sight. The icon was placed there to protect
the church. It is unknown who hid the image; perhaps, the angels themselves.
The
Apparition of St Seraphim of Sarov and the blessing of the annual liturgy in
Chernobyl on April 26th.
This
event happened in 2001 and shook me deeply. I have seen many things in my
lifetime; however, this story was important unlike anything else. It helped me
understand the place of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in the history of the
Church and the life of the universe as a whole. There is a deep spiritual
interconnectedness between this explosion, the history of the Church and the
history of the world at large.
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| The 4th reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant |
The
fishermen who were in their boats on the Pripyat River at night on April 26th
saw a bright explosion of light above the church of St. Elijah the Prophet,
followed by another explosion above the nuclear power plant. This was a sign
described in the book of Revelation as “a great star, blazing like a torch”
(Rev. 8:10-11).
When I
came to serve in this church after the tragedy, the building and grounds
required a lot of restoration. We worked hard to rebuild the church, and I
conducted regular liturgies, even though there were very few parishioners. On
April 26th, my first anniversary of the tragedy at this church, I prayed and
went to bed. There were people keeping vigil in town and remembering the
victims through secular rituals, concerts and feasts. I fell asleep.
My window
overlooks a cliff above the Pripyat River. I remember suddenly waking up at
night and looking out of the window. I saw an old man in white robes with a
white beard and a staff walking towards my house. I recognized St Seraphim of
Sarov, his face, gait and bearing looking exactly as depicted in the icons. St
Seraphim approached my house, stopped in front of my window and looked at me
closely. He hit the ground three times with his staff, then turned towards the
river and walked off through the church gates towards the power plant. Then I
remember finding myself in bed again. I turned on the lights and saw it was
1.30 a.m. – the precise time the nuclear disaster struck. The Lord has sent St.
Seraphim to wake me up and call me to prayer and vigil that night.
I
immediately had an insight: the nuclear catastrophe was one of the watershed
events in human history, described in the Book of Revelation: “The third angel
sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky
on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water – the name of the star is Wormwood.
A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that
had become bitter” (Rev. 8:10-11). Wormwood is a wide-spread plant in this
area, also known as “chernobylnik,” hence the name of the town.
There is
also a direct link between the apparition of the Holy Virgin above Chernobyl
ten years before the tragedy. This land was meant to be a place where the Holy
Scriptures culminated, and the Lord’s word split human history into “before”
and “after” the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. I kept trying to understand why the
Lord has chosen St Seraphim to reveal the spiritual meaning of the tragedy and
wrote a letter to Patriarch Alexiy II. We corresponded for two years. As a
result, our church officially received part of St. Seraphim’s holy relics,
which I personally brought from Diveyevo. St Seraphim was a devout monk, but
also an active participant in all the important events of his time. He began
his spiritual journey in Kiev, where he worshipped at the holy places and the
saints of the Kiev Caves monastery. He wanted to join the brothers at the
monastery and received a blessing to go to Sarov. He always remained involved
in the affairs of his homeland.
Ever
since St Serpahim’s apparition on the anniversary of the tragedy we have conducted
all-night vigils and the Holy Liturgy on the night of April 26th in Chernobyl.
Numerous archbishops, bishops and members of the clergy have joined us over the
years to remember the victims. Among them is Pavel, the Metropolitan of
Chernobyl and the bishop of the Kiev Caves Lavra, who ordained me to the
priesthood. I believe the Lord has purposefully made him the first church
leader in Chernobyl.
Numerous
pilgrims are also drawn to Chernobyl on this day. We usually go to the cemetery
to have a funeral service for the firefighters who were the first to face the
blazing nuclear reactor. Thus, through St Seraphim, the Lord has blessed us to
stay awake and pray during the hour our planet suffered a nuclear explosion. In
2016 this tradition will be 30 years old.
It is
unlikely we will ever be able to grasp the fullness and the importance of signs
and events surrounding the history of the nuclear tragedy in Chernobyl. Yet,
there is clearly a direct spiritual link between all of them. The Lord reveals
all that is necessary in His own time. We must remain patient and steadfast in
our prayer, as we wait to receive His knowledge.
Archpriest Nikolay Yakushin
Source: http://orthochristian.com/92606.html
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