Ukraine, Fatima, and Russia

The West is flourishing in the heyday of its technological and material power in very peaceful times. Yet, I know what life is like under the iron curtain; I was born in Russia. This curtain could cover the West. The West must carry the obligation to pray and offer material help to the people of Ukraine because our globe is becoming our home. All people of the world are becoming one family under Our Father. But human peace is very fragile. This is why Holy Mary came to Portugal in such a dramatic manner, with Angel coming the first to teach three children the prayer: “Do not be afraid ! I am the Angel of Peace. Pray with me”.

I was a Christian in Russia

Years ago, as an orthodox Christian of Jewish origin living in Russia, I read a short Russian referee in the ‘samizdat’ form about the Fatima apparition of an Angel and the Holy Virgin, and then Saint Joseph with the Child Jesus in Portugal. I came across this reference to Fatima just before being deprived of Russian civility and quitting Russia in 1978. I don’t remember the content of this samizdat referee, but the reality of this clandestine message, forbidden to us, Russians, and translated and brought to us by some pious men and women about what happened in Portugal sixty years ago; this reality was overwhelming. This was the reality which kept me being Christian over the last difficult forty years being an individual Christian, I finally chose the Catholic Church, twenty-five years ago, as my spiritual home.

Fatima

On the third day of apparitions, July 13, 1917 (this I know now, after reading several books on Fatima and after visiting Fatima several times), the Holy Virgin, Our Lady of Rosary, has shown the three Portuguese children, Lucy, Francis, and Jacinthe, the sufferings of the perished souls in the Hell. And then She told them:

This war will end, but if men do not refrain from offending God, another and more terrible war will begin during the pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night that is lit by a strange and unknown light [this occurred on January 28, 1938, writes commentator], you will know it is the sign God gives you that He is about to punish the world with war and with hunger, and by the persecution of the Church and the Holy Father.

To prevent this, I shall come to the world to ask that Russia be consecrated to my Immaculate Heart, and I shall ask that on the First Saturday of every month, Communions of reparation be made in atonement for the sins of the world. If my wishes are fulfilled, Russia will be converted and there will be peace; if not, then Russia will spread her errors throughout the world, bringing new wars and persecution of the Church; the good will be martyred and the Holy Father will have much to suffer; certain nations will be annihilated. But in the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and the world will enjoy a period of peace. In Portugal the faith will always be preserved …

It was not the final message, according to Sister Lucy, who later transmitted the sacred fin du message to Popes. But this was the reality of the Fatima message to me, fifty years ago, with Russia being the only country of the world, besides Portugal, mentioned four times with extreme importance by the Holy Virgin. And I could imagine the immensity of distance from Portugal to Russia, the distance both geographical and cultural; what was Russia to these kids, to this Church ?!

It was the importance of Russia to Divine Projects for the happy future of the world that was demonstrated in this prophetic appeal of the Holy Virgin.  And by the end, Her Immaculate Heart will triumph!

Let us remind that Saint John-Paul II, after the attempt of 1981 on his life, has consecrated the world, Russia including, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. On March 25, 1984, in Saint Peter’s Square, with a crowd of about 200,000 of the faithful, with numerous bishops and cardinals present, in union with all the bishops throughout the world, and before the Fatima Shrine statue of Our Lady, Pope John Paul II solemnly consecrated the world and Russia to Mary’s Immaculate Heart as had been requested by Our Lady of Fatima. Seven years later, Russian Communism disappeared — without a drop of blood! (The Vatican stated that Sister Lucy declared to them in private correspondence on 8 November 1989 that the consecration offered by Pope John Paul II in Saint Peter’s Square on 25 March 1984 had been properly accomplished and was “accepted in Heaven”.)

Now Pope Francis announced that he would consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on 25 March 2022 at Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. A consecration ceremony is also scheduled in Fatima, Portugal by the Papal almoner, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski.

Life in Russia

I wasn’t leaving Russia with a light heart. In fact, I was there at home, in Moscow. It was a difficult home and the dangerous one, but I had no ambitions and was used to it. After a good dissertation in Mathematics, I worked finally at a prestigious Academical Institute, not a member of the Communist Party, a known dissident, but without political ambitions. But I had a family of five kids, with the oldest one preparing to go to a university but she was not accepted because of the nationality of her father, who had finished the same university. I was asking through a letter to a friend a way to go out for my daughter. I was accused, attempted to be thrown out of my job (and of any job forever), successfully fighting because of my family with the administration to be employed, and not to be after three months thrown to jail -a ‘humanitarian’ jest to unemployed (the law of Russia in time of Brejnev).

My colleagues in the West worried about me. Even if I never left Russia, all invitations to international conferences were left unanswered by the administration. I was very touched, in particular, by the package from an American Professor, the famous mathematician, who discussed my youth work in a chapter of his mathematical encyclopedia and even sent me a pair of jeans to help materially. My family sold the jeans on the free market for the same amount of money as my monthly salary.

To Israel

I was finally happy they let me go after some year of fighting and discussions, with the family, to Israel as a Jew (it was a lucky time, 1978, to take a plane to Austria on this pretext, without money and passports). But I couldn’t imagine I would work somewhere and simply live because all my previous life was really bound to Russia, to its tragic history, to its martyrs, to its religion.

Today, after the first half of my life was purely Russian, I’m writing a letter about the Russian deadly course to a new world war, How much have I survived, how many difficulties related to my Russian origins have I accepted and corrected.

Thirteen years later, as the crisis has destroyed Communist Russia, I was there — previously, all the way for me there were closed. I came under the invitation of my former Russian colleague, the mathematician Pavel Medvedev (he is not alive, and his name can be publicly spelled) who became the President of the Banks Commission of the Supreme Council of Russia. I was carrying some proposals of French and Canadian academic and financial institutions, and visited Russia three times — Moscow, Minsk (today the capital of Belorussia), Saint Petersburg (then Leningrad), Yaroslavl before the formal, government contacts have been well established. My disappointments were not Russian, they were American and more generally, Western: no real interest was demonstrated by Western governments in awakening the Russian industry, technology, banking, and more importantly in reforming Russian political instincts. Russia was ready for this.

Russian Slavery

Instead, during the following thirty years, a formal American approach has covered the Russian political tradition of bureaucracy and corruption. Their worst enemy is the Russian people, they keep them in the usual slavery, letting the capable escape to the West. And the oligarchs and friends of Vladimir Putin (he is alive, but his name can be spelled publicly) are hiding their money on the West. This ‘savage’ capitalist culture was very well learned by them, and put them, in particular, in charge of the war on Ukraine, with full disregard of the well of the populations of Ukraine and of Russia.

Russian War on Ukraine

So, let us come now to this war of Russia on Ukraine and to the message of Fatima. The war is lost for Russia. It could be lost for Ukraine, too. Let us pray for them. Let us help them to sustain themselves.

Prayer from the Angel of Peace

The first prayer the Angel of Peace taught the children was:

My God, I believe; I adore; I trust, and I love Thee. I beg pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not trust, and do not love Thee.

This is the first Christian prayer, respect, and love of the Father.

Twice more in that summer of 1916, the Angel of Peace visited the children. (We cite the Angel on the page of the Society of Saint Pius X.) The second time Angel of Peace came as they were playing near the old well behind Lucy’s home. All of a sudden, without any warning, he appeared, asking, “What are you doing? Pray, pray incessantly. Offer prayers and sacrifices to the Almighty”.

Lucy, puzzled by these words, made bold to ask: “But how? How shall we sacrifice ourselves?” To which the Angel of Peace answered,

In everything you do, offer a sacrifice to God to make up for the sins by which God is offended … Above all, accept and endure with submission the suffering which God will send you.

Later on that day out in the valley, the girls explained this to Francisco, who had seen the Angel but could not hear his voice. “But how can we suffer?”, said Francisco, “We are not sick. We have enough to eat, and a place to live”.

But he soon knew its meaning when his oldest brother went to join the armies fighting World War I. Even little Jacinta, depressed by the worry at home and the stories of death on the battlefield, as well as the trouble that had come to Lucy’s family when her father began to spend all his money in the wine shops, would stretch out her little arms and cry out: “Lord, we offer Thee all these sufferings for the conversion of poor sinners”.

Toward the end of the summer, the Angel of Peace came to them while they were praying in that spot at the Cabeco. In his hand, he held a chalice, and over it, a bleeding Host. Kneeling, he offered the heart-stirring prayer :

Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I adore Thee profoundly, and I offer Thee the most Precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges, and indifferences by which He is offended. By the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.

Then giving the Host to Lucy, and the contents of the chalice to Francisco and Jacinta, he said:

Take and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men. Make reparation for their crimes and console your God.

It was the last time the children saw the Angel of Peace.

With the exception of some saints, we do not know anything about life after death. We are separated by our nature (the God teaches us, by the sinfulness of our nature, the worst fruit of the first sin) from knowing it. This is why we are afraid of death and we are inclined not to think a lot of it, simply, not to think of it.

The Children

This is why the Holy Virgin has chosen, with their full agreement, two innocent and small kids, Francisco Marto, who died at the age of ten, and his sister Jacinta, who died at the age of nine, to carry the burden of conviction for all humanity not to be afraid of the death, which is inevitable, but to be afraid of sinful life. Which carries its eternal punishment in the precipice of Hell and all three children, Lucy included were witnesses to this. As to Francisco and Jacinta, they were beatified in the year 2000, by Saint John-Paul II, and canonized by Pope Francis, in Fatima, on 13 May 2017, the hundred years of the beginning of the apparitions of Our Lady. Dear Jacinta was the youngest person, non-martyr, ever canonized.

Their third companion, Lucy dos Santos, became a sister and lived 97 years. After her death, she was
accorded the title Servant of God, as the first major step toward her canonization. Sister Lucy carried the secret of the third message of Fatima till the Portuguese Bishop Da Silva, during her heavy sickness, ordered her to write it. In June 1944, the sealed envelope containing the third secret was delivered to Bishop Da Silva, where it stayed until 1957 when it was finally delivered to Rome. The secret was revealed in 2000 to the public. And now, we have this war, already three weeks of this terrible, unjustified war, carefully prepared by Russia.

My Wife is Helping Ukrainian Refugees

My wife, a mother of three our kids still at home, is busy with the mobile phone, by WhatsApp, day and night. She is receiving the demands of Ukrainian refugees from Ukraine itself, from the Railway toward Poland, toward Germany, from Wien, from Frankfurt, from Prague. She has the messages from two kids sick with cancer decease, 12 and 15 years old, alone, whom finally she procured the transport to Italy, to a clinic. She had an old lady with insult, alone, who is in Wien and speaks only Ukrainian and Russian and she has found a friend who is busy with her. She had a man who called her persistently from Ukraine, an army man, worried about his wife and two kids, the youngest one-year-old, and who are in Brno — and she arranged their reception. There are several dozen such cases, not always solvable, and they continue and continue coming and they continue and continue coming. … Now we have the message that thousands of babies in Kiev have no milk and missing nutrients!”

What has to be done with this war politically, on the primitive human level, not in Heaven? And it is possible to do a lot of reasonable, practical things. French President Emmanuel Macron has met Vladimir Putin before the war and, already during the war, called him, together with German Prime Minister, Chancellor Olaf Sholz. With the hostile attitudes of France and Germany toward the war, with their worry that the war can be the debut of Putin’s invasion of Europe, this call was a good, useful act.

America’s Stance

The shift from the American administration’s previous stance came after an emotional address to Congress from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, 16 March, who aired a video showing Ukrainians suffering amid Russia’s onslaught. Zelensky asked American lawmakers and Biden for more help defending itself, including a no-fly zone and fighter jets.

American President Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a «war criminal» Wednesday, a
rhetorical leap that came as civilian deaths mount in Ukraine. Biden responded in his own address a few hours later, laying out new American military assistance to Ukraine — including anti-aircraft and anti-armor systems, weapons, and drones.

Desperation

On the other hand, the maximal defensive measures to help Ukraine are necessary. But a tangible note of desperation is now lacing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s inspirational rhetoric as he pleads for a more direct Western intervention to save Ukraine as merciless Russian President Vladimir Putin’s troops lay waste to cities and bombard civilians. Zelensky’s relentless media campaign and courage in staying in Kyiv to fight alongside his people prompted the world’s democracies to rush anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons into the country and to crush the Russian economy in a far more robust response than was expected.

The Refugees

The refugees from Ukraine, who are counting already three million people, are attempting to be well
accepted by the Western European countries. Thousands of government workers and volunteers, like my wife, work on their reception. Strasbourg, where I live, has already established several places of acceptance of refugees; Strasbourg University has a full program of their acceptance, from the demand of donations to placing refugees. But the numbers of refugees are enormous! And they will certainly grow.

A War Criminal

And the International Court of Justice, in Haag, has to declare that Russian President Vladimir Putin, after his announcement as a war criminal by President Biden, will be judged for the crimes of war — of an absolutely unprovoked war against of unarmed people of more than forty million, with many thousands of victims and millions of refugees.