A Queen Most Powerful

In June 1941, an expedition led by Russian anthropologists Tashmuhammed Kari-Niyazov and Mikhail Gerasimov begin excavations in the “Gur-Emi” at the burial site of Timur (also known as Tamerlán). Timur was a famous conqueror who founded the Timurid Empire in and around modern-day Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia. He was the first ruler of the Timurid dynasty. The Russian anthropologists were following orders of a similar dictator, Joseph Stalin. Their orders were to exhume Timur’s body and create a replica of his face based on the contours of his skull.

The Curse

However, when the local population of the city of Samarkand (Uzbekistan), which was made the capital by Timur heard about Stalin’s plans, they were terrified and begged Gerasimov to not remove the body with the argument that a terrible curse was attached to Timur’s grave. Of course, Gerasimov dismissed this as superstition and removed the body anyways. To his surprise, however, he found in the tomb an inscription that said “Whomsoever opens my tomb shall unleash an invader even more terrible than myself”.

Again Gerasimov dismissed this as just silly and took the body to Moscow for the studies. Coincidence or not, three days later on June 22, 1941,  Hitler invaded Russia and started a war which ended up costing 30 million Russian lives. For over a year, Gerasimov tried to tell Stalin about the curse and finally convinced him to just put the body back where they found it. Again coincidence or not, a few weeks later, in November 1942, when Timur’s body was re-buried, the Russians won the Battle of Stalingrad and effectively started to send Hitler’s troops back to Berlin.

Now, we are speaking about Timur we are talking about someone who caused the deaths of 17 million people: about 5% of the world’s population at the time. During his invasion of Baghdad, he required each of his soldiers to show him two severed heads from the largely Christian population. Timur left towers several feet tall made up of the skulls of his victims. However, all that horrifying stuff meant nothing when he confronted the Virgin Mary on September 8th, 1395, also in Russia.

The Icon of Our Lady of Vladimir

For the past ten days, a famous icon called “Vladimirskaya” (known in the west as “Our Lady of Vladimir”) was travelling the country from the city of Vladimir where it was located. During its travel to Moscow, the local population would bow to their “Theotokos”, as the orthodox called the Virgin Mary, asking her protection against the hordes of Timur which were about to invade Russia’s capital.

These Russians had faith: tradition stated that the icon was painted by none other than the Apostle Luke, and on the very table where Christ dined. And, that upon seeing the portrait, the Mother of God said: “From now on, all generations will bless Me. The grace of the One born of Me and Mine be with this icon”. The icon was then transferred from Jerusalem to Constantinople and ended in the city of Vladimir (today is in the Church of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi).

When the icon finally arrived in Moscow, Timur had a dream of a radiant Virgin with saints in shining garments and holding swords. Then, angels ordered him to leave Russia. He told his advisors of his dream, asking for the meaning. The dream interpreters explained that he saw the protectress of Russia and there was no victory possible then. Timur ordered a retreat then, and one can only imagine what his soldiers thought when they learned they were going home because of a woman.

The Supreme Commander of the Heavenly Armies

Yet that was no ordinary woman. She was the Supreme Commander of the heavenly armies: one who every angel obeys without question. Our Lady beat and ridiculed the most powerful angel and “Prince of this World” as Jesus himself calls him when she was just fourteen years old.

Mary said that she would bring back from communism the Russia which loved her so much when that country was consecrated to her. And, according to Sr. Lucia of Fatima, the 1984 consecration by St. John Paul II satisfied her request. And, oh again strange coincidence, Russia came back to her during the day of Christmas of 25 of December 1991, when Gorbachev declared the USSR extinct and the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time.