1.

Korrektur

V i r gi n M ary, U krai n e an d the unde rground

GreekCat h ol i c C hurch
Agnieszka Halemba

Summary
This article analyses the ways in which religion, nation, and memory politics in contemporary Transcarpathian Ukraine (Zakarpatska oblast) intersect. The interrelations between these three political fields will be approached through an analysis of the
emergence, symbolism, and development of one Greek Catholic Marian apparition
site. This article is based on materials gathered in 2006 and 2007 using the standard
research methods of social anthropology: photo and video documentation, participant
observation, and most importantly, unstructured interviews. The research was undertaken predominantly in the Irshava region in Ukrainian Transcarpathia. The focus of
this article is on the narratives concerning the site as well as on the sites material
construction, which, through engagement with the memory of the Greek Catholic
Churchs underground presence in the region during Soviet times, attempt to legitimate a particular vision for the future of this church in the Ukraine.

Introduction
The division between western and eastern Ukraine has become a commonplace both
in the academic works of various disciplines as well as in publications intended for
the general public. This division is presented there as based on the differing political
and cultural history of both regions, differences which have consequences for contemporary processes of identity formation and political life. Western Ukraine is usually
presented as the region where Ukrainian identity-building processes have been based
on sustaining opposition to two nations, Russia and Poland, who each laid claims
to the states that periodically acquired dominant position in this territory. Western
Ukraine is also seen as the main area generating debates on the role of various Orthodox and Catholic Churches in national identity building processes, processes which
have resulted in the struggle between various churches for the position as the Ukrainian national church.1
Although situated geographically in the western (south-western) part of the
Ukraine, Transcarpathia fits into this division of western and eastern Ukraine neither
1 Cf. Naumescu, Vlad: Modes of Religiosity in eastern Christianity. Religious processes and social
change in Ukraine. Berlin-Mnster 2007.

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in terms of political and social history nor in terms of contemporary configurations of

self-identification patterns among local populations. While in the usual eastern/western division of the Ukraine the identification with the independent Ukrainian state and
with linguistic and cultural markers of Ukrainianness seems to gain importance as
one moves towards the Ukrainian western border, in Transcarpathia this scaling up
of Ukrainian national feelings becomes complicated and less confident. This is obviously related to the history of this region, which was incorporated into Soviet Ukraine
in November 1944 despite the fact that Subcarpathian Rus, alias Transcarpathian
Ukraine, had never been a part of Ukraine, let alone Soviet Ukraine.2 The question
of the position of this region in relation to the Ukrainian nation, Ukrainian statehood,
and Ukrainian unity has also created tensions in the church politics in Transcarpathia.

The Greek Catholic Church in Transcarpathia

The Greek Catholic Church in Eastern Europe was established as an outcome of the
late 16th and 17th centuries union agreements3 between the Vatican and a part of the
local Orthodox priests and bishops. Those agreements stated that although administratively and doctrinally those Orthodox priests who sign the union come under the jurisdiction of the Vatican, they will keep the Byzantine liturgical rite. However, from the
perspective of the two dominant churches of the region, i.e. the Roman Catholic and
the Orthodox, the Greek Catholic Church remained for centuries in what can be called
a neither-nor position. For the Orthodox Church they have been the traitors, who,
as Vasilii Maksimishinec, the head of an important Orthodox monastery in Transcarpathia wrote in 2004, sold themselves for Judass money and for Romes [Roma/
Rom] promises.4 The local representatives of the Roman Catholic Church have also
treated the Greek Catholics with suspicion as those who could always potentially return to Orthodoxy. For centuries the Greek Catholic Churchs priests and believers
have been encouraged to adopt Latin devotional practices, architectural styles, and
liturgical changes to render their historical connections to Orthodoxy less visible.5
After the Second World War the situation of the Greek Catholic Church was precarious, especially in socialist countries with a significant population of Orthodox believers. In Soviet Ukraine the Greek Catholic Church was reunited with the Ortho2 Jordan, Peter/Klemeni, Mladen: Transcarpathia bridgehead or periphery? Geopolitical and Economic Aspects and Perspectives of a Ukrainian Region. Frankfurt/Main u.a. 2004, 34.
3 The most important union agreements were signed in 1596 in Brest and in 1646 in Uzhhorod.
4 Maksimishinec, Vasilii: Istoria Pravoslavnoi Cerkvi v Karpatskoi Rusi [History of Orthodox Church in
Carpathian Rus]. Uzhgorod 2004, 58.
5 Mahieu, Stephanie: Statues and/or Icons? The Greek Catholic Divine Liturgy in Hungary and Romania, between Renewal and Purification. In: Eastern Christianities in Anthropological Perspective. Ed.
by Chris Hann. Berkeley 2010; Hann, Chris: Creeds, Cultures and the Witchery of Music. In: Journal
of the Royal Anthropological Institute 9/2 (2003), 223239; Buzalka, Juraj: Nation and Religion. The
Politics of Commemoration in South-East Poland. Berlin 2007.

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dox Church in 1946. Although the Soviet state persecuted all religious groups, it was
the Greek Catholic Church that suffered most.6 Bishops and priests were imprisoned,
exiled, and murdered, while others operated underground. Their underground operation lasted until the late 1980s. After its re-legalisation, the Greek Catholic Church
immediately entered the competition between various religious institutions striving
to be the Ukrainian national church, a struggle which has been thoroughly described
in the literature and was most visible in so-called Western Ukraine.7 Transcarpathia
however has also had its own conflicts ascribable to the specific historical development of the region. These conflicts have underscored different identification options
for its inhabitants and political activists.
At present, in terms of Greek Catholic Church administration, the territory of the
Transcarpathian region of Ukraine is identical with the territory under the administration of the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo. Until the early 19th century however, this eparchy was much larger, with over 800 parishes scattered among the territories that at present belong to Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia. The seat of
the eparchy was the Monastery of St. Nicholas on Chernecha Hora near Mukachevo
(contemporary Ukraine). The eparchy remained in communion with the Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople until the Union of Uzhhorod in 1646.8 Following the union,
the Greek Catholic bishops of Mukachevo initially only had an auxiliary status to the
bishop of Eger (contemporary Hungary). Finally, in 1771 Rome approved a decree
that created a jurisdictionally independent Mukachevo Greek Catholic Eparchy.9 In
1780 the seat of the eparchy was moved to Uzhhorod where it remains to this day.10
The territory of the Mukachevo Eparchy was reduced between 1818 and 1912
either by transferring some parishes to the neighbouring church administrative units
or by creating new eparchies, e.g. with a seat in Preov and Hajddorog.11 Still, even
after those administrative transformations, the territory remaining under the jurisdiction of the bishops of Mukachevo covered a larger part of Eastern/Central Europe than
today. After the inclusion of Transcarpathia in the Soviet Ukraine, the Greek Catholic
Church was de-legalised, and the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo ceased to
exist legally. Its property was either handed over to the Orthodox Church or confiscated by the state.
When the Greek Catholic Church was re-legalised in 1989, the Eparchy of Mukachevo, turned out to be, for the first time in its history, fully within the territory of
an independent Ukraine. The status of the eparchy was a subject of fierce discussions
within the church starting in the late 1980s. Several options were discussed and con6 Naumescu (cf.n. 1).
7 Ibid.; Bociurkiw, Bohdan R.: The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Soviet state (19391950).
Edmonton 1996; Plochij, Serhij M.: Religion and Nation in Modern Ukraine. Edmonton 2003.
8 Magocsi, Paul Robert/Pop, Ivan: Encyclopedia of Rusyn history and culture. Toronto 2002.
9 Jordan/Klemeni (cf.n. 2).
10 Magocsi/Pop (cf.n. 8).
11 Fenich, Volodimir: Etnonatsionalna identichnist greko-katolikiv Mukachivvskoi eparkhii [Ethnonational Identity of the Greek Catholic Mukachevo Eparchy]. In: Carpatica 12/31 (2004), 3862.

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sidered12, but two positions were the strongest. Their respective supporters have been
discussing them up to the present time, as we will see below. The sui juris option, with
future eparch Ivan Semedii as its leader, presented the Mukachevo Eparchy as historically separate from mainland Ukraine and never in union with the eparchies of Galicia but rather having historical linkages with the Preov and Hajddorog eparchies;
it would be located on multi-ethnic territory (some of its supporters emphasized the
Ruthenian identity of Transcarpathian Slavic-speaking inhabitants); it would have significant specificities regarding liturgical practice.13 This fraction opted for a separate
church administration for Transcarpathia under the direct jurisdiction of Rome. The
other main position, with bishop Ivan Margitych as the main leader, argued for the
pan-Ukrainian unity of the Greek Catholic Church with one main seat in Lviv/Lviv/
Lemberg or Kiev/Kyiv/Kiew. This position stated that Transcarpathia is an integral
part of the Ukraine, inhabited by Ukrainians or Rutheno-Ukrainians, who proved their
Ukrainian national identification at the time of the establishment of Carpatho-Ukraine
in 1939.
The Ukrainian-unity option has lost its battle and the Mukachevo Eparchy is at
present a sui juris one, under the direct supervision of Rome. However, the option
supporting the administrative unity of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church remains
strong, especially among those priests who co-operated or were educated during communist times by the underground bishop Ivan Margitych.

The Virgin Mary of Dzhublyk and the underground priests

On the 27th of August, 2002 two girls, 9-year-old Marianka Kobal and 10-year-old
Olenka Kuruc, went to fetch water from a spring called Dzhublyk located between
two villages in Transcarpathian Ukraine: Nizhne Bolotne and Vilkhivka. While taking
water they saw a young, beautiful woman standing on a cloud covered with flowers. The cloud did not touch the ground and the woman was dressed in bright white
clothes with a blue belt. She did not speak. The father of Marianka, who is a Greek
Catholic priest, later told the girls that if they see the woman again, they should ask
for her name and make a sign of a cross. When the next apparition occurred, the girls
followed his instructions and found out that the lady was the Virgin Mary.14
Since2002 a lot has changed at this apparition site, which took its name from the
name of a small meadow in which the spring is located Dzhublyk (plate I). What
used to be a muddy area around a small spring from which the inhabitants of the two
12 Ibid., 57.
13 Sabov, Yurii: Pro Stasus Pidporiadkuvannia Mukachivskoi Greko-Katolickoi Eparchii [On the Status
of Subjugation of the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo]. Uzhgorod 1994.
14 The brief description above of the beginning of the apparitions in Ukraine is based on conversations
with the visionaries and their parents as well as the publications of the site manager, a former Basilian
monk, Atanazii Ciipesh; cf. Istoriya Poyavi Presvyatoi Rodini u Dzhubliku na Zakarpatti [History of
the Apparitions of Holy Virgin Mary in Dzhublyk in Transcarpathia]. Lviv 2006.

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neighbouring villages took clean and tasty water, became a building site. At the moment, masses are conducted in a large chapel which has been built next to the spring.
There are plans to build an enormous church in the nearby forest, laid out on the
plan of the equilateral cross.15 In the meantime, cloister buildings for men and women
are being prepared as well as a house for pilgrims and a big roofed assembly square
in front of the chapel, designed for common prayers. There are the Stations of the
Cross leading to the top of the hill behind the chapel, a healing bath circling a cross
in the central location, and a long stairway leading to another cross put up as a place
of prayer for the unity of all Christians. On the 27th day of each month, buses full of
pilgrims arrive, and on the 27th of August each year an anniversary of the apparition is
celebrated with fireworks, drawing several thousand people. The pilgrims often come
from quite far away, mainly from Ukrainian Galicia (Halitchyna), but usually there
are also two or three buses from neighbouring Slovakia. A few films have been made
about the apparitions, leaflets and booklets have been published, and an impressive
number of religious items has been produced: song books, poems, special rosaries and
Stations of the Cross prayers, pictures, calendars, and so on.
The two visionaries are inhabitants of Nizhne Bolotne. At the moment, the site
is managed by a former Basilian monk, Atanazii Ciipesh, who was also born in this
village. According to him, all the buildings at Dzhublyk have been planned and designed personally by the Virgin Mary. She is also responsible, according to him, for
providing financial support for her plans. Father Atanazii sees himself as a builder and
a manager, primarily interested in following the Virgin Marys orders and making sure
that the apparition site of Dzhublyk will survive and grow. As he has said himself, I
am responsible for building and execution of Virgin Marys will she is the one who
is responsible for securing the necessary funds.16
All Nizhne Bolotnes inhabitants are Greek Catholic, and, most importantly, they
remained so throughout socialist times. The local Greek Catholic Church building in
Nizhne Bolotne has never been closed it remained a place of prayer throughout
the communist regime and has done so up to the present. After the de-legalisation
of the Greek Catholic Church, the local people refused to accept a resident Orthodox priest, and in front of Soviet authorities, they argued that they do not need any
priest in the village and they are not going to support him financially. Formally, the
local religious community of Nizhne Bolotne was assigned an Orthodox priest who
resided in another village and seldom appeared in Nizhne Bolotne. Still, the key to the
church remained in possession of the cantor, who was, throughout communist times,
responsible for opening the church on holy days and conducting ceremonies for the
villagers without participation of a priest. Funerals and baptisms as well as other kinds
of celebrations and prayers were conducted by believers either in private homes or in
the church building, without participation of priests. From time to time however, the
villagers welcomed underground Greek Catholic priests, who provided some services,
15 Atanazii Ciipesh, manager of the apparition site in Dzhublyk, personal communication, August 2007.
16 Atanazii Ciipesh, personal communication August 2007.

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such as administering the Eucharist and performing marriages. Interestingly, in the

case of Nizhne Bolotne, among the priests who most often visited this village and who
are most remembered by the villagers today are Ivan Margitych, Petro Oros and Petro
Pavlo Madjar (plate II).
Ivan Margitych was born in 1921 in Velika Chingava village (today Borzhavske/
Borzhavske/Borzhavskoe) in Transcarpathia. In 1946 he was ordained into the priesthood in Uzhhorod, and after the de-legalisation of the Greek Catholic Church he continued to serve underground in close cooperation with a group of priests that also
included, among others, Petro Oros and Petro Pavlo Madjar. In September 1951 Ivan
Margitych was arrested and sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment. He was sent to
Siberia and returned from there to Borzhavske in 1955 on the wave of amnesty which
followed the death of Stalin. He then continued his underground religious service. In
the 1980s he became actively involved in the process of rehabilitating and re-legalising
the Greek Catholic Church. In 1987, still underground, he was ordained as a bishop.
His ordination received formal confirmation from Pope John Paul II (19202005) in
1991. In 1993 he became an auxiliary bishop for the believers of Ukrainian nationality
in the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo.17 He died in September 2003.
As stated above, Ivan Margitych was the leader of the fraction within the Greek
Catholic Church in Transcarpathia that favoured the unification of the Ukrainian
Greek Catholic Church under one leadership based in Galicia (Halitchyna) and was
against administrative independence of the Eparchy of Mukachevo. In Margitychs
private archive18 one finds letters that he exchanged with the Vatican and with the
headquarters of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Lviv and Kyiv; one also
finds resolutions of local communities of believers supporting the Ukrainian-unity
case, copies of the letters of his main opponent, Ivan Semedii, and of other pro-sui
juris activists, as well as all kinds of other documents and articles related to the case
or to Margitychs pastoral work. They bear witness to his fight for the inclusion of
the Mukachevo Eparchy within one Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church administration with its headquarters on the other side of the Carpathian Mountains. Although
in 1993, the Vatican made a final decision that gave sui juris status to the Mukachevo
Eparchy19, the documents found in Margitychs archive confirm that he continued this
work almost until his death.
17 Bendas, Stefan/Bendas, Danyil: Sviashchennyky-muchenyky, spovidnyky virnosti [Priests-Martyrs,
Volaries of Faith]. Uzhgorod 1999.
18 What I call here private archive consists of a dozen boxes full of papers that were left in Ivan
Margitychs house after his death and packed by one of his relatives who was also one of his most
dedicated followers. He keeps these boxes at home and refuses to hand them over to anyone in fear
that they could be destroyed by the present Greek Catholic Church authorities. I was allowed to look
through the archive and copy the documents because I was introduced to him as a trustworthy person by a Greek Catholic priest whose pro-Ukrainian unity sympathies do not leave any doubts. The
present handling of this archive is an indication of the feeling of oppression and failure that presently
reigns among pro-Ukrainian Greek Catholics of the region.
19 Antonio Franko (Popes Nuncius to Ukraine): Letter to All Priests of Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo, 7.02.1993. Private archive of Ivan Margitych.

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In the archive there are letters and articles written by Basilian monk, Petro Pavlo
Madjar, who was a follower and associate of Ivan Margitych and likewise an avid
Ukrainian patriot. He underwent an underground ordination in 1957 and worked as a
priest throughout communist times, successfully avoiding long-term arrests and exile.
In many houses of believers in the Irshava region one can find Madjars prayers and
sermons written by hand or on a typewriter and copied dozens of times for distribution. In the 1990s Madjar continued this kind of work, writing and publishing, now
officially, on both matters of morality and faith as well as on local church politics.
This he did until his death in the late 1990s. He is well remembered in the village of
Nizhne Bolotne both for his courage as an underground priest and for his firm stance
on the questions of Ukrainian identity and insistence on the introduction of Ukrainian
(in place of Church Slavonic) as a liturgical language. Petro Madjar supported the
bishop Ivan Margitych in his struggle for the unity of the Greek Catholic Church until
the end of his life.
It can be said that Ivan Margitych and Petro Madjar have become symbols of
pro-Ukrainian-unity struggle for those priests of the Eparchy of Mukachevo who
share their views on Greek Catholic Church politics. They were instrumental in initiating the change of the liturgical language from Church Slavonic to Ukrainian in
some parishes, as well as in propagating, supporting and developing new pilgrimage
routes leading to western Ukraine, e.g. to Zarvanitsa. The main declaration of their
strong pro-Ukrainian inclination is a huge church in Borzhavske which was built and
designed by Ivan Margitych. This church is a painted tribute to the history and the
glory of Ukraine, with many historical figures depicted on its walls including Princess
Olga, Martyr Prince Boris, Martyr Prince Glib, Prince Teodor Koriatovich, Bishop
Andrii Bachinskii, Bishop Vasil Popovich, Bishop Pavlo Gojdic, Avgustin Voloshin,
Patriarch Ioan Slipii and Metropolitans Ivan Liubachivkii and Andrei Sheptyskii. His
grave, located in the underground chapel of this church, has become a site of pilgrimage for some of his most avid supporters (plate III and fig. 1).
Another priest who is well-remembered in the village of Nizhne Bolotne is Petro
Oros. His life has come to represent the suffering of the Greek Catholic Church under
socialism. He was born in 1917, and in 1942 he was ordained into the priesthood after
completing seminary in Uzhhorod. After the de-legalisation of the Greek Catholic
Church, he continued to serve underground. In 19511952 a wave of arrests eliminated not only Ivan Margitych from the region of Irshava but also other actively working underground Greek Catholic priests like Ivan Gorinetski, Ivan Roman and Ivan
Chengeri. Thereafter, Petro Oros was in charge of underground service for nearly the
entire region until 28th of August 1953 when he was shot by the militia. His body was
given neither to his family nor to the believers. Instead, he was first buried in the
woods next to the village of Kamianske, but when the fresh grave was quickly discovered by the local people, his body was moved to the police station in Irshava. Apparently, for the next 39 years no one was sure where his body was buried.20 Only after
20 Bendas/Bendas (cf.n. 17).

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Fig. 1 Paintings on
the walls of the church
in Borzhavske village:
Theodore Romzha and
Augustyn Voloshin.

the re-legalisation of the Greek Catholic Church, the witnesses (former militia workers) confirmed that Petro Oros had been buried all those years under the floor of the
garage of the local militia station. He was exhumed in 1992, and on the 23rd of August
1992 his remains were carried in a procession from Irshava to Bilki village, his last
parish before the de-legalisation of the Greek Catholic Church. He was buried in a
chapel next to the Greek Catholic Church in Bilki, and in 1999 a monument was erected next to the former militia station in Irshava were his body had been buried for
39years.21
21 Ibid.

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What is the relation between these priests and the apparition of the Virgin Mary in
Dzhublyk? At the time of the apparition only Ivan Margitych was still alive, but the
names and biographies of all these priests have been evoked at the apparition site.
Ivan Margitychs relatively long and difficult life has provided the main narrative,
linking devotion, courage, and suffering with strong political activism and a clear vision for the future. His life is also a thread through which the lives of the two other
underground priests presented above have been linked into a narrative of underground
suffering and Ukrainian patriotism. Ivan Margitych began his path in cooperation
with Petro Oros, who is now a priest martyr, and was accompanied in the later stages
of his life by Petro Pavlo Madjar, who is widely known in the region for his strong
Ukrainian national feelings. The narrations related to the life-histories of these three
priests, often included in sermons at the apparition site, discussed among the pilgrims,
and confirmed through the visions, facilitate a link between the underground suffering
and aspirations for pan-Ukrainian unity of the Greek Catholic Church. Thus, in this
way, the pro-Ukrainian fraction lays exclusive claims to the underground suffering,
even though various other priests, some supporting nowadays a sui juris option, were
involved in the underground work of the church. In these narratives, Petro Oros represents the martyrdom of the Greek Catholic priests, and his life is a site of meaningful
events which influence the present. For example, the Virgin Mary of Dzhublyk appeared for the first time on the 27th of August 2002; I was told by the manager of the
site, Father Atanazii Ciipesh, that she chose this day not only because it is the eve of
her feast but also because it was the eve of the anniversary of Petro Oross death.
The suffering of the underground Greek Catholic Church is also an important lieu
de mmoire for inhabitants of the village of Nizhne Bolotne, one of the few villages
in Transcarpathia that not only refused to accept the Orthodox priests, but also managed to keep the church building in the village available for Greek Catholic services.
The fact that famous and influential underground priests had standing support in this
village, links its inhabitants to the powerful narrative of the underground suffering.
During interviews with inhabitants of Nizhne Bolotne, many verified that the spring
of Dzhublyk itself was a favourite resting place for Petro Oros when he secretly visited believers:
He was travelling on foot, Father Oros. When he was walking through Vilkhivka, well, in that
village he could not enter any house this was a dead place.22 And in our village, although he
could not enter every house, he could come to some even at night, knock and they would let him
in. So, when he walked through Vilkhivka he was making such small crosses over their door22 The speaker, a female inhabitant of Nizhne Bolotne in her 60s, refers to the fact that, in the opinion of
Nizhne Bolotnes inhabitants, people of Vilkhivka, the other village next to the apparition site, either
accepted Orthodoxy or withdrew from religious activities altogether in Soviet times. My interviews
in Vilkhivka confirm the fact that the underground activities of Greek Catholic priests there were less
than in Nizhne Bolotne. Nowadays, while Nizhne Bolotne inhabitants both emphasize their heroic
underground past and accept the truthfulness of the Virgin Mary apparitions, Vilkhivkas inhabitants
do not lay claims to underground heroism and are more sceptical and cautious with regard to the apparitions.

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steps, one could hardly notice what he was doing. And he told people here that there could be in
the future a beautiful place there, when people would start to believe again. He was going to that
spring [Dzhublyk spring A.H.], he prayed there. I cannot be sure, but maybe it was his idea
[ukr.: zadum] that he would be killed, and here Virgin Mary appears? People say that he was
very often sitting next to that spring, praying and drinking water. He was a great man. And after
him Father Pavlo Madjar was another great man, he even during his lifetime made miracles!

While Petro Oros is unfailingly venerated and remembered with awe and respect by
everyone I interviewed, regardless of their views on contemporary church politics, the
position of Petro Pavlo Madjar is more complex. Even those who admire his work and
courage and, as we have seen above, even attribute miraculous powers to him, admit
that he was not received positively by everyone because of his strong pro-Ukrainian
stance and involvement in politics. Still, he is also included in the same narratives as
a follower of Petro Oros and an admirer of the Dzhublyk spring. Ivan Margitychs
life links all these narratives together, as his life connects underground suffering and
pro-Ukrainian struggle, while the former legitimises the latter.
According to the publications produced by the management of the apparition site,
Ivan Margitych was chosen by the Virgin Mary herself as the first bishop who should
be notified about her apparition:
The Immaculate Lady asked Father Petro23 through visionaries to notify the church authorities
of her apparitions. To his question regarding the particular person that should be notified first,
the girls replied, The elderly vladyka Margitych. Father Petro went to the bishop and told him
everything that the children had said. After he finished vladyka asked, And you, Father, what do
you think? He answered, I believe that this is Gods Mother! So, let us go!.24

Hence Ivan Margitych was the first, and for some time, the only bishop who visited the apparition site. On the 28th of November 2002, he also headed a group that
included the visionaries, their parents, and Atanazii Ciipesh, during a pilgrimage to
Rome with hope of introducing the case of Dzhublyk to the Pope. Although they could
only take part in a general audience, Ivan Margitych managed to introduce the case
briefly to John Paul II, who apparently promised that a commission from the Vatican
would be sent to the apparition site.25 Although a few months later, Atanazii Ciipesh,
Petro Kobal (father of Marianka), and Ivan Margitych became involved in a dispute
and Atanazii Ciipesh became the solitary manager of the site and the supervisor of the
one remaining visionary (Marianka stopped coming to the site), the Virgin Mary of
Dzhublyk continued to deliver quite consistent messages. The messages had accompanied the apparitions from the very beginning and referred both to the martyrdom of
the Greek Catholic Church as well as to the question of Ukrainian unity.

23 Fr. Petro is the father of Marianka, one of the visionaries. He is a Greek Catholic priest and a follower
and admirer of Ivan Margitych.
24 Ciipesh, Atanazii: Istotia Poiavi Presviatoi Rodiny v Dzhubliku na Zakarpatti [History of the Apparitions of Holy Virgin Mary in Dzhublyk in Transcarpathia]. Dzhublyik 32002/03.
25 Ibid., 22f.

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For example, Olenka had visions of Teodor Romzha, the last head of the Eparchy
of Mukachevo, from 1944 until his death on the 1st of November 1947. It is widely
assumed, although not yet officially proven, that he was killed by Soviet secret police.26 At the moment his beatification process is underway, and on the 24th of June
2001 John Paul II declared him as Blessed. There were also visions of the Apostle
Andrew that were commented on in the following way by Atanazii Ciipesh:
The next day was the Feast of All Saints of the Ukrainian Nation. After the morning mass,
she [Olenka A.H.] said that she saw, next to the Mother of God and two main Apostles [Peter
and Paul A.H.], one person she had not seen before. The Mother of God told her that this was
the Apostle Andrew. This must be significant for our Ukrainian land, that she saw on that very
day the Apostle Andrew? We know from the legends which are alive among our people that
this was Andrew Protokletos, who had stepped onto the Ukrainian land and had blessed the
mountains upon which later Kiev was built. In truth, we become again and again convinced
that the Holy Family27 comes not for some separate region of Ukraine but for the entire nation, for all Ukrainian society and not only for it. This is not surprising that movements of socalled Rusyns or some other Transcarpathian minorities accuse Dzhublyk of Ukrainian nationalism. The service for God and nationalism have in this case nothing to do with each other.28

In the passage quoted above, Atanazii Ciipesh admits the significance of the apparitions for Ukraine and his understanding of the position of Ruthenian (Rusyn) activists
who treat Dzhublyk as a pro-Ukrainian apparition, and simultaneously he rejects their
accusations of nationalism. He is aware that the political messages of the Virgin
Mary cannot be welcomed by the present authorities of the sui juris eparchy, as she
seems to support the pro-Ukrainian option. The most avid supporters of the site come
from Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil/Ternopil, and Lviv. It was their initiative to build the
Stations of the Cross over the Carpathian Mountains. The Stations are situated along
the main route between Lviv and Mukachevo from where they lead to Dzhublyk.
I have also been told that it was the Virgin Marys explicit wish that the liturgies
at the apparition site be conducted in Ukrainian (the visionary stopped a priest who
was conducting a liturgy in Church Slavonic and informed him that the Virgin Mary
wishes that the liturgy be in Ukrainian). Besides, one of the three main messages of
this apparition expresses the necessity to pray for the unity of all Christians. This of
course could be taken as a request to overcome the disagreements that until now have
characterised the relations between the Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate
and the Greek Catholic Church in Transcarpathia. Such an interpretation is available,
and there are signs at the apparition site that this could be developed in the future.
Still, at the moment the interviews with the closest supporters of the site indicate that
the unity of all Christians is interpreted not primarily as the unity of various Christian
denominations, but rather it refers to a need of unity between different administrative
26 Bendas/Bendas (cf.n. 17).
27 Although the Virgin Mary was the first and most important holy figure to appear in Dzhublyk, and
is the only one who speaks with the girls, she has been joined by Jesus and St. Joseph, among other
figures. The site is officially advertised at the moment as the apparition site of the Holy Family.
28 Ciipesh (cf.n. 24), 85f.

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units of the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine. In this way, the Virgin Mary supports
a vision for the future of the Greek Catholic Church that was promulgated by Petro
Pavlo Madjar and Ivan Margitych.
The history of the Ukrainian struggle for Transcarpathia is also entailed in the apparitions. According to the booklet distributed among believers, on the 14th of March
2003, Atanazii Ciipesh and Olenka were driving next to Krasnoe Pole, which on the
15th of March 1939 was the site of a battle between the supporters of Carpathian
Ukraine and Hungarian troops. The visionary saw the field covered with crosses and
at this moment Father Atanazii understood that a child sees something unusual. He
concluded that even today the memory of Sich fighters is commemorated here, at the
place where they gave their lives away.29
The apparition site is barely tolerated by Greek Catholic Church authorities at the
moment, but because Atanazii Ciipesh is a good negotiator and manager, his dealings
with the eparchial authorities have proven quite successful. The precise content of
these dealings has a lot to do with particular relations between the state and religious
institutions in Ukraine and has been addressed by me in another publication.30 Father
Atanazii withdrew from a Basilian order (before the apparitions occurred, he was a
leader of an important monastery in Boroniava) in order to establish his own monastic
order, but he has managed to keep good relations with his Basilian brothers. He was
born in the neighbouring village of Nizhne Bolotne where he has unfailing support of
part of the village. Even though the initial reaction of the church hierarchy was very
negative, he managed to engage in successful negotiations. Although Milan Sasik,
the head of the eparchy is sceptical about the apparition itself31, he is now nonetheless the formal head of the new Order of the Holy Family established in Dzhublyk.
Many local priests have commented that this change of attitude and acceptance has
been fuelled by a fear of an internal split within the church Atanazii Ciipesh made
clear that he would not give up on the site, and he did have some important local support. More importantly though, support for the apparition site in Dzhublyk has been
not only local, but it has come from behind the Carpathian Mountains: from Lviv,
Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil.

Conclusion
William Christian Jr. wrote concerning Marian apparitions: Whether one regards the
messages and symbolism of these visions as sent from God, or as a kind of reflection
of the collective unconscious, they provide a fascinating counterpoint to political and
29 Istoriya (cf.n. 14).
30 Cf. Halemba, Agnieszka: Virgin Mary and the border. Identity politics of the Greek Catholic Church at
the Ukrainian/Slovak borderland. In: Sociologia Slovak Sociological Review 40/6 (2008), 548565.
31 Milan Sasik, personal communication August 2006.

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social history.32 The apparitions of the Virgin Mary and other holy figures are phenomena that can be and are analysed from various standpoints: sociological, political,
experiential, feminist or psychoanalytical.33 Here, I am concerned with the position of
a certain apparition within church politics this gives focused access to issues of the
social and political history of religion in a particular setting. This does not mean that
I doubt the sincerity of the visionaries or that I disregard the religious experiences of
the pilgrims. The power of the Virgin Marys apparition lies precisely in the fact that,
although she is often evoked in a situation of nationalist struggles with ideas of election and chosenness coming to the foreground34, she also evokes images, values, and
narratives which are based on general Catholic moral values, ideas of Gods protection, and universal salvation. Hence, one can easily place ones trust in the apparition
without consciously choosing to support any political stance. This is precisely what
is happening at the moment at the site in Dzhublyk not all the people who go there
have clear pro-Ukrainian unity views. My interviews show that some of the pilgrims
even consciously do not want to get involved in political disputes, and if they become
aware of them, they choose to ignore them. Still, the powerful linkage between the
underground suffering and the pro-Ukrainian unity stance pervades the message of the
site, spreading the ideas of the so-far lost battles of Ivan Margitych and his followers.
One should not undervalue the significance of church politics in the processes of development of religious pilgrimage sites.
Perry and Echeverra, while talking about the background of Marian apparitions
in general, say that they usually occur in a situation of social upheaval, economic crisis, and political conflict, especially in underdeveloped, relatively isolated regions.35
According to them, the apparitions often occur in a situation when the church feels
under attack. Still, I believe that the situation in Dzhublyk has much in common with
the situation in Medjugorje/Meugorje, where, as Mart Bax argued one of the main
conflicts behind the apparition was one within the church itself, namely between diocesan and monastic regimes.36 This is a question for future comparative research. At
the moment, I can suggest that contemporary apparitions occur when the church faces
strong internal disagreements and disputes, which have not been solved or cannot be
solved through internal political negotiations. The conflict between monastic and diocesan regimes is also visible in the Dzhublyk case. The main manager of the site and,
32 Christian Jr., William A.: Religious Apparitions and the Cold War in Southern Europe. In: Religion, power and protest in local communities. The Northern Sjore of the Mediterranean. Ed. by Eric
R.Wolf and Herbert H. Lehmann. Berlin-New York-Amsterdam 1984, 240.
33 For a fairly recent short review of the most popular approaches see Skrbi, Zlatko: The apparitions of
the Virgin Mary of Medjugorje. The convergence of Croatian nationalism and her apparitions. In: Nations and Nationalism 11/3 (2005), 443461 and Zimdars-Swartz, Sandra: From La Salette to Medjugorje. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press 1991.
34 Skrbi (cf.n. 33).
35 Perry, Nicholas/Echeverra, Loreto: Under the Heel of Mary. London-New York 1988, 7678.
36 Cf. Bax, Mart: Religious regimes and state formation: towards a research perspective. In: Religious
Regimes and State Formation. Perspective from European Ethnology. Ed. by Eric R. Wolf. Albany
1991, 728; Idem: Medjugorje. Religion, Politics, and Violence in Rural Bosnia. Amsterdam 1995.

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at the moment, its undisputed leader is a former Basilian monk who still maintains
good relations with his former brothers. In response to my question regarding the orders attitude to Atanaziis withdrawal, his successor as the head of the monastery in
Boroniava said, Well, this happens. Mother Theresa also withdrew from her order to
establish a new one.37 Many Basilian monks visit Father Atanazii privately on occasions such as his birthday. Officially, the Basilian order does not support the apparitions, and I can only guess that the establishment of a new order of the Holy Family
was a political solution aiming at avoiding direct confrontation between the Basilian
order and the eparchial hierarchy. This support-despite-withdrawal position is easier
to understand if we take into account that Basilian monasteries in Transcarpathia have
for a long time been at the forefront of the pro-Ukranian struggle. Petro Pavlo Madjar
was a Basilian monk himself, and the liturgies in all the Basilian monasteries are carried out exclusively in Ukrainian. The monasteries also operate according to the Kyiv
time, while most parishes give the timetable of their masses in Central European time.
Still, this conflict between monks and priests is not the main one around which
the apparition site has evolved. Instead, it is a conflict between two visions of the future of the Greek Catholic Church in Transcarpathia, visions that I suggest are both
indicative of a more general identity search occurring in this region. This is a struggle
over memory which would give direction for the future of this region. Is Transcarpathian history the one of Kievan Rus or rather the one of Central European Empires? In this context the Virgin Mary is instrumentalised as a kind of heaviest weapon
for this option that has so far lost its case within Greek Catholic Church politics.
However, on the other fronts the option underlining the specificity of Transcarpathia and its links to Budapest and Vienna/Wien rather than to Lviv and Kyiv is less
successful. In 2006 and 2007, the border crossings in Transcarpathia were modernized
and tightened, as were all the others along the eastern border of the European Union.
Separate check points for European Union citizens were opened, which clearly separated people queuing there into two categories. The first time I crossed this border
in 2006, I was accompanied by a Slovak priest whose clothes, clearly indicating his
profession, secured us an unproblematic and fast crossing. He joked that we crossed
the border on the wings of the Holy Spirit. In August2007, I was alone but I did not
need this kind of support any longer. At the Slovak border crossing at least, my wings
were provided by my Polish passport.
Although the renovation of border crossing points, the inclusion of Slovakia and
Hungary into the Schengen zone, and the strengthening of the border regimes are discussed among people of different political orientations, for some priests supporting
the sui juris option, those facts are especially important and symbolic. The main pilgrimage site of the pre-World War II Mukachevo Eparchy, which until today has remained under the jurisdiction of the Greek Catholic Church, is located in Hungary in
the village of Maria Pocs. Although Ukrainian citizens also required a Hungarian visa
before Hungarys inclusion into the Schengen zone, according to my informants it was
37 Personal communication, August 2007.

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neither particularly difficult nor expensive to get one, and pilgrimages to Maria Pocs
took place throughout the1990s and the beginning of the2000s. While pro-Ukrainian
priests organized parish pilgrimages to Zarvanitsa in Ukraine, other priests organized
visits to Maria Pocs. One of the latter told me when I asked about the future of pilgrimages to Hungary, People will go when they are allowed to go. He explained
that in the next years we could expect a rise in pilgrimages to Zarvanitsa and other
Ukrainian sites because people need and want to participate in those for religious reasons. But crossing the European Union border could prove to be too expensive, too
time-consuming, and too difficult to organize. Hence, one could say that the European
Union seems to unwillingly support the Virgin Mary of Dzhublyk.

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