Post by Bonobo on Apr 6, 2021 15:14:42 GMT 1
This article in Polish describes the story of a fea miracls which cause a huge commotion in communist Poland - both among believers and communist authorities who tried to eliminate "harmful superstitions. "
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I like this story: believers started to collect soil from the area where the miracle had taken place. They made a deep ditch which soon got filled with underground water. People started to drink it as holy water. Communist police arrested every drinker, fined them and sent to compulsory vaccinatioin against typhoid.
tvn24.pl/magazyn-tvn24/i-wtedy-w-rece-milicjanta-wybuchl-granat-to-byl-cud-maryja-pomogla-wygrac-z-zomo,249,4321
The policeman swung a grenade at the Mother of God, so his hand was cut off as a punishment. The girl who experienced the apparition, however, heard that Mary told her not to be angry with the police. Especially since the faithful with stones chased the uniformed with truncheons from the wonderful meadow and could continue to look for the miracle. In the times of the People's Republic of Poland, Poles believed in miracles en masse, and the militia fought this faith with all their strength. In communist Poland after World War II, over 50 private revelations took place. A miracle on average once a year. In this respect, the People's Republic of Poland was undoubtedly a country famous for miracles. They were not in the hand of both the Church and the communist regime which was fighting against it. None of the alleged post-war miracles have been recognized by Church teaching as true revelation. Paradoxically, the communists saw these unconfirmed miracles as a threat to their godless vision of the world. AND Lublin 1949. "Pharaoh" against Mary It was Sunday July 3, 1949. The Lublin cathedral was full of people all day long. Even between Holy Masses. On that day, the cathedral parish solemnly renewed the act of dedication to the protection of Mary. Around 3 p.m., nun Barbara Sadowska noticed that dark tears were flowing from the face of Our Lady of Częstochowa on the painting placed on the side altar. She informed the church officer Józef Wójtowicz about it. At first he complained about the nun's womanly frills, but for the sake of peace he went to check what was going on. He saw in the image of the saint - as he put it - a "dark red icicle" three centimeters long. He ran to the sacristy for the priest. The vicar Tadeusz Malec saw in the painting "black drops moving from the right eye on the cheek towards the scars". Father Malec ran to notify the bishop, but the suffragan from Lublin, Zdzisław Goliński, approached the matter with earthly peace. He decided that it must have been some kind of infiltration of moisture, and that it had appeared under the eye was pure coincidence. Father Malec, as it seemed to him, spoke briefly with the bishop. He returned quickly to the church as he was about to celebrate Mass. But when he returned to the temple, there was no more control over the faithful. They noticed changes in the picture. They screamed, cried, cried: "Mother of God, you are crying!". Father Malec did not even try to call them to prayer. He was unable to shout beyond the crowd. The information about the crying picture spread like wildfire throughout the city. Literally a quarter of an hour after the nun saw the drops on the painting, the miracle in the cathedral was already discussed in the Lublinianka restaurant, one kilometer away. An apprentice, Bolesława Paradowska, together with an older friend, a waitress, as she called it, "got up" from work and ran to the cathedral. And not only them. By evening, the cathedral was full to the brim, and the next day, kilometer-long queues formed in front of it. It got dangerous. The temple, destroyed by the war, was surrounded by scaffolding. It was feared that they might fall over under the pressure of the crowd. The church order guard appeared with white and yellow armbands. Initially, the newspapers did not report the events at the cathedral, and telephone calls were rare. And yet, crowds began to come to Lublin from all over the Lublin region. The police set up patrols on the tollbooths and did not let people into the city unless they gave a valid, plausible reason, but it did not help much. It was impossible not to let the crowded trains and buses into Lublin. The report of the Lublin voivode to the Ministry of Public Administration shows that the crowd of many thousands in front of the cathedral grew day by day. On July 8 there were eight thousand people, a day later - 15 thousand, and on July 10 - already 20 thousand. When one day the churchman did not normally open the door to the cathedral at 5.30 am, after four hours the crowd broke it open. The policeman lay down on his cross, but the UB was vigilant Sensational news spread among the crowd about the numerous conversions and healings of those who entered the cathedral. Professor of the Catholic University of Lublin, Stefan Świeżawski (later participant of the Second Vatican Council) recalled at the end of his life that on the altar with a crying picture he saw piles of abandoned party ID cards and a policeman lying with a cross at his feet. In turn, in the documents of the security service there is an account according to which even a certain Soviet citizen then converted in the cathedral and offered Mary his golden watch as a votive offering. In the memories of witnesses of the miracle, one can also read that a uniformed soldier of the Internal Security Corps (selected units intended to kill political opponents of the communists) converted at the sight of tears in the painting, offered a golden signet ring as a votive offering, and on leaving the church he chanted a Marian song. However, he did not make others sing. People who had been taught the four years of commune rule feared he was a provocateur, and the signet ring was not of gold. The events at the cathedral were like a publicly slap in the face of the communists. It was in the same Lublin, after all, five years earlier, before the end of the war, that the pro-Soviet government fighting against religion had established itself. At the turn of the 1940s and 1950s, there was already an open struggle between the communists and the Church. That same year, on Corpus Christi, the authorities organized defense exercises for young people and students outside the city only to prevent them from participating in the processions. A special group of security officers, led by Deputy Minister Roman Romkowski himself, quickly arrived in Lublin. The action against the miracle has begun. Militia and soldiers surrounded the stations. They legitimized people and explained to them that there was no miracle. In all of Poland, in order to buy a ticket to Lublin, you had to show a certificate of residence in this city. So people rode stowaways on trains. They paid fines for not having a ticket, but the miracle was priceless after all. The smarter ones bought tickets to the last stations before Lublin and continued on foot. The militia, undercover agents, agitators and the Church could not stop them. People knew theirs. There was a miracle. The authorities held a grudge against the bishop that the Church was unable to stop the wave of pilgrims. Bishop Goliński, summoned to the prosecutor's office on the occasion of "organizing a miracle", consciously replied: "There is no such cohesion and organizational discipline in the Church as there are in secular organizations or political parties." Mary does not cry in peace After a few days, the press launched a propaganda offensive. She had the opportunity to do so, because it happened what the church service was supposed to prevent. One of the people gathered in front of the temple died on the spot. The circumstances of his death remain unclear to this day. According to some sources, under the pressure of the crowd, a heavy wooden beam fell and killed a 20-year-old woman, according to others, a secret police officer threw the beam over the woman's head. Still others say that provocateurs from the UB, wanting to make people disperse, started shouting that the scaffolding was collapsing. The panicked crowd was to trample the woman dozing on the cathedral steps. In mid-July all Poland knew about the miracle in Lublin, because the publications challenging this event were published by "Trybuna Ludu". Information about what is happening in Lublin was also provided by the Polish radio stations of the BBC and the Voice of America. The inconvenience for the communists was also dealt with in the Kremlin. Particular astonishment of the Soviet comrades was caused by the appeal of the party organization in Gdańsk, according to which it is impossible for the Mother of God to cry in peace, because there is no reason to do so, because the war is over. The attache of the Soviet embassy in Poland I. Stepanov stated that this position testified to "deficiencies in the setting up of agitation work" among Polish comrades. In order to fight the miracle, the Lublin "Banner of the People" reprinted a fragment of "Pharaoh" by Bolesław Prus, in which priests, who were intellectually towering over the dark people, used the solar eclipse for their particular purposes. Humer investigations and Strzembosz's search After two weeks, also on Sunday, July 17, the authorities organized a rally in the center of Lublin. The faithful leaving the church also gathered and began shouting anti-communist slogans. Some of them were arrested by the police. In reaction to this, the crowd of supporters of the miracle rushed to the command to rescue the detainees. There were fights. People attacked with stones and bricks, and the police poured water on them and beat them with rifle butts. Nearly 600 people were detained, and over 50 were sentenced to terms ranging from ten months to two years in prison. Those who escaped convictions were harassed in their workplaces and in colleges. Investigations and trials during the dark age of Stalinism were rife with violence and torture. Among the infamous Lublin investigators was Colonel Adam Humer, sentenced in free Poland to 7.5 years in prison for torturing interrogated persons. The sentences were generally draconian. However, there were situations, despite the horror, absurd. In May 1950, there were four accused persons involved in writing, rewriting and reading the occasional poem about the miracle. Rewriting the poem in 12 copies on a typewriter was considered to be disseminating false information to the detriment of the Polish state. The author of the poem went to prison for a year and a half, the copier for two, and the colporter for three. The acquitted was the accused who only read the poem. Adam Strzembosz, a young lawyer at the time, wrote a motion for an extraordinary review of this judgment. Not blood, not tears, and the samples were dry The alleged miracle in the cathedral also troubled the clergy. As a rule, the Church does not recognize ongoing apparitions, but this could not be said directly to the frantic crowd. The restrained appeal of the diocesan bishop Piotr Kałwa, which proclaimed that "if God wants to show us his will through the Blessed Mother, (...) he will certainly not skimp on clearer and more convincing signs", did not weaken the common belief in a miracle. The diocesan commission for the study of the miracle analyzed liquid samples from the painting (painted in 1927 by Bolesław Rutkowski) in the laboratory of the medical academy. What the liquid was was not found as the samples dried quickly. Before it could evaporate, however, it was possible to rule out that it was not blood or tears. The appeals of the clergy, addressed to the faithful throughout the second half of July, to refrain from making pilgrimages to Lublin, were unsuccessful. It was only on August 8 that the auxiliary bishop Zdzisław Goliński ordered the closure of the cathedral in order to clean it up and complete the renovation works. He also announced that the drops appearing in the painting had not been found to be miraculous. People went home. Some of the faithful and some of the clergy still believe that it was a miracle. The painting on the side altar of the cathedral is called miraculous, the faithful lay votive offerings under it. In 1988, the then primate of Poland Józef Glemp, with the consent of the Vatican, coronated the painting. Officially, however, the Holy See did not recognize the miracle. II Nowolipki 1959 - a painted miracle The events that took place 10 years later in the very heart of Warsaw were a much bigger problem for the communist authorities. It was approaching 10pm on a chilly Wednesday October 7th. A 12-year-old girl who lived near the church with her parents was having an evening rosary. When she got home, before going to bed, she went to the window. She saw a strange glow over the church spire. In her she saw Mary, the mother of Christ, in a traditional form with a crown of 12 stars. She told her parents about it. It is difficult to recreate in detail how the events went on. However, according to the accounts of the Citizens' Militia, 400 people had already gathered in front of the church in Nowolipki before midnight. The next evening there was no gleam on the tower. He appeared in the following days, causing a sensation in the capital and gathering crowds around the temple. On Saturday, October 10, there were several thousand people. Pallotyn Lucjan Balter (who died in 2010), who at that time attended a nearby correspondence high school because the authorities did not want to recognize his pre-war high school diploma, saw the mysterious phenomenon with his own eyes and remembered it as follows: "The very top of the tower of St. Augustine's church consists of three vertically arranged spheres covered with copper sheet: they were always visible during the day, but after dark, they disappeared from sight, and their place was taken by the strange white figure seen by the growing crowds of people" . On the infidel's hat up Balter also made precise observations of what was happening in the crowd. "Take your hat off your head," one of the prayers on the street apparently exhorted the sinner. When someone admitted that he did not see anything miraculous in the tower, he heard at his address: "Go to confession, you will see." The future Pallottine also dared to provoke the policemen with questions, but when asked if they could see anything on the tower, they had a ready answer: "Please do not stop, please go further". St. Augustine's Church in Warsaw - contemporary view / Source: Maciej Pawłowski The monk, although he does not prejudge that the revelation took place, notes that this visible sign, whatever it was, had a positive effect on some of the congregation. "As a multiple witness to this event, I must admit (...) that it caused a number of deep religious experiences, including the return of non-believers to God," he said in 2002, already a professor of theology. The authorities had a decidedly different point of view. From the notes of policemen and secret police officers, one can learn that "fanatized devotees" lit candles and sang "We want God, Holy Virgin". The faithful knelt wherever they could and prayed. Security service intelligence noted: "People pray the rosary in the street, not the Militia, so that it would be possible to pray better, and when people kneel, they will go in and run away" (original spelling). The militia surrounded Warsaw railway stations. Scouts were ordered to capture groups of women led by a man from the crowd. Because it was probably those "fanatic devotees" who came from the provinces, and not knowing Warsaw, hired guides. However, even the most effective militia would not be able to stop thousands of crowds from going to Nowolipki without the use of force. At the peak of interest in the miracle, there were 35,000 believers around the church. On average, 20 people a day were either detained for 48 hours or applications were filed with misdemeanor colleges. However, a solution by force on a larger scale was not an option, because newspapers all over the world had already written about the events in Warsaw. "I rent a window with binoculars for PLN 20 per head" So a propaganda offensive was set up, which was easy enough as almost all newspapers in Poland were propaganda mouthpieces of the authorities at the time. Apart from publications questioning the miracle in Nowolipki from a scientific point of view, there were also "life" voices of opposition. "We, the citizens of Muranów, push our way to our homes in the evenings, cursing the newcomers who tread our lawns, break freshly planted bushes, take care of their needs in our staircases, drink quarters in our cellars" - one could read in Walce Młodych, an organ Union of Socialist Youth. The content of a letter of one of the inhabitants of this district, secretly opened by the secret police, stands in direct contradiction to these feelings. The sender does not hide that she makes money from the miracle. "I rent a window with binoculars for PLN 20 per head!" - she wrote to a friend or relative. Here is a brief explanation of how you know what was written in the private letter. Well, the authorities so wanted to control the souls concentrated around the miracle that it ordered "perlustration" of private correspondence. Security Service officers took private letters from postal sorting offices, placed envelopes over a pair, read them, made copies or took official notes. Reading someone else's letters (as it is today) was a crime back then. Because even the communist constitution guaranteed the secrecy of correspondence, and the Penal Code provided for a penalty of two years in prison for reading someone else's letters. But the political police in any regime are above the law. Paradoxically, however, thanks to this unlawful operation of safety devices, a lot is known today about what people thought about the mysterious phenomenon at Nowolipki Street. Copies and notes from read letters have been archived and have survived to this day at the Institute of National Remembrance. Painting at height The authorities, seeing that it would not be possible to eliminate the crowds in front of the church and in the surrounding streets, decided ... to liquidate the miracle. The Warsaw Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party decided to paint over the glowing dome. On October 15, it was painted dark green. But the glow still hovered above the tower. The blame for the ineffectiveness was blamed on professionals who selected the wrong paint. After 10 days, the action of painting the dome black began, but the paint was washed away by rain. The next day, asphalt mastic was used, which was mixed with some powder to make it stick better. Only when this layer had solidified and you could be sure that it would not fall off, was a matte paint layer applied on October 29th. Faced with a collective rapture over the alleged miracle, the priests working in St. Augustine's Church found themselves in a very difficult situation. They could not be carried away by the mood of the faithful, because - as we have already mentioned - the Church, as a rule, does not recognize lasting miracles, and the Gospel says that blessed are those who have not seen but believed. That is, for faith to be profound, you do not need any visible signs. A plaque inside the church commemorating the "events" in the parish of St. Augustine in 1959 / Source: Maciej Pawłowski After permanent painting, the dome stopped shining and the crowd thinned overnight, and finally the situation returned to normal. The authorities never explained to the people what the glow in the tower was causing. Today it is assumed that a substance with fluorescent properties may have been produced by the reaction with water and oxidation of the dome cover. However, these are only hypotheses. In one respect, however, the secular state authorities recognized the miracle in Nowolipki. And this in a way that produces legal effects. The district financial office (the equivalent of today's tax office) imposed a tax surcharge on the parish, justifying that because of the miracle and the crowds of the faithful, it must have collected several times more victims than when the miracle did not exist. The apparitions in Nowolipki have not been recognized by the Archbishopric of Warsaw or the Vatican to this day. However, there are anniversaries of the "apparitions of Our Lady" in the church of Saint Augustine, as you can read on the website of the parish. However, the memorial plaque in the church does not mean that it was a miracle. It commemorates the events of 1959. III Zabłudów 1965. Recognition with a fire in the field of miracles When you look at this photo, in a very high vertical frame, difficult to put on the Internet, it is impossible to help remember that similar framed views were very popular and hung on the walls of country houses in the second half of the 20th century. It is a testimony to how well-known, popular and revered in the Polish countryside were the events that took place in 1965 in Zabłudów in Podlasie. Jadwiga Jakubowska prays at the site of the alleged apparition in Zabłudów / Source: ipn.gov.pl The photo shows 14-year-old Jadwiga Jakubowska, a resident of Zabłudów in the Białystok poviat. It was on the evening of May 13, 1965, in a meadow near the town, that Christ's mother was to appear in the rays of the setting sun breaking through the leaves of the trees. She urged people not to sin, pray and convert. The one who appeared threatened that her son would punish people for all iniquities. She also announced to the girl that her sick mother would soon recover. Terrified, Jadwiga ran home and told her mother, Maria Jakubowska, what she had seen in the meadow. The figure that appeared "was very beautiful", besides "dressed in a white dress and a blue cloak, had a crown on her head, her eyes were blue". The fact that the 14-year-old saw the saint in the treetops does not mean that she was standing on a tree. Rather, it was "floating in the cloud". The mother's account of what her daughter saw was recorded in the prosecutor's office. Because undesirable phenomena, including miracles, were fought by the communist state with investigative methods. The news of the miracle in Zabłudów also spread quickly around the area, and pilgrims began to arrive at the "miraculous meadow". "Some persisted in prayer, others came to witness an extraordinary phenomenon or even ridicule the believers" - noted the chronicler of the Zabłudów parish, Father Adam Szot. Do not allow a miracle over the urn The state authorities, which fought a fight with the Church for a government of souls, fell into panic at the news that thousands of people were being dragged to the site of the miracle, because Our Lady of Zabłudowska announced that she would also appear on the election Sunday, May 30. The Security Service determined that the inhabitants of as many as six neighboring counties were going to attend the announced apparition on May 30. The identification of the political police was discussed by the executive of the Provincial Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party. The first secretary of KW Arkadiusz Łaszewicz lamented: "The unpleasant dissonance against the active attitude of the Białystok society in supporting the election program of candidates for deputies and national councils was the issue of initiating the 'miracle' in Zabłudów. Appropriate steps have already been taken." From Thursday, May 27, the entire Zabłudów and the meadow of the alleged revelation were surrounded by reinforced militia forces. Armed officers also secured the vicinity of the Jakubowski home. The sale of alcohol was forbidden in the shop of the local cooperative and in the inn. The Esbecks counted foreign vehicles that arrived in the town on election Sunday. This was approximately 1,800 cars, 1,000 motorcycles and 500 bicycles. The number of vehicles that reached Zabłudów at that time is so impressive that the police installed blockades around the town. The part of the faithful who did not get through the blockades went to the city crosswise, through fields and forests, and rivers and streams were forced by swimming. With or without clothes. Overcoming obstacles on the way to Zabłudów became one of the first instances of a violent confrontation between the authorities and the people. A photo of the Security Service showing the efforts of the militia whose task was to prevent pilgrims from entering the meadow in Zabłudów / Source: ipn.gov.pl To get to Zabłudów from Białystok, you have to cross the bridge over the Rudni - a small tributary of the Narew. The bridge was blocked by the police. The inhabitants of the vicinity of the river began to bring poles to the banks and to build a footbridge from them. After a few hours, it was possible to cross the river with a dry foot. However, the Zom members came with the intention of eliminating the footbridge, but the people guarding it chased them away with threats and shouts, among which the "f**k**g communists" was one of the mildest. Meanwhile, tensions grew in the "field of apparitions". A visionary carried like a holy figure In the morning, the Zomowie men managed to chase a group of several dozen pilgrims away from the meadow. Between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. the crowd was unmanageable. The pilgrims came along roads, forests, fields and meadows. There was nervousness in the crowd. There was a rumor that the teenage visionary had been arrested. Meanwhile, Jadwiga Jakubowska was sitting at home, terrified by how her private celestial revelation had caused her fateful effects on earth. In case the terror subsided and she wanted to go to the meadow, her house was guarded by policemen. However, the officers did not receive instructions on how to behave if Jakubowska was to be found in the meadow, not necessarily of her own free will. So they did not intervene when a 30-year-old bully in a nylon coat, slicked up, carried the girl out of the house like an object. It must have been a peculiar sight, because the man managed to lift the teenager with only one hand. The second was occupied because he was also carrying a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary to the meadow. No photographer has captured this view. Only the description of the scene has survived in the report on the dispersion of the congregation, prepared for the Provincial Office of Internal Affairs in Białystok. The militia, who had been convinced of the situation a few hours earlier, began to realize that the situation was getting out of hand. First, this unsuccessful attempt to destroy the footbridge made of poles. Then take the visionary out of the house. Finally, Jadwiga's father did not fulfill the task assigned to him. When his daughter left home, officers came to the dairy, where he was working despite Sunday. They ordered him to go to a meadow full of people and bring his daughter to his place of residence. He went, but not only did he not bring Jadwiga home, but also told the audience that the revelation was true, and not a teenager's fuss. Miracles around a miracle The militia finally called the crowd to disperse. The pilgrims remained unmoved. So the clubs, blast grenades and tear gas went into motion. Zomowcy also fired rifles at the terror. The population of Podlasie, however, did not turn their cheeks to beating. The assembled people threw firecrackers away, surrounded the militia cars and turned them sideways or upside down with their wheels. They also threw stones with accuracy. Around five in the afternoon, ZOMO withdrew from the meadow. Militia and pilgrims in Zabłudów. Photo taken from hiding by the Security Service / Source: ipn.gov.pl The victorious clash with the militia lived to see the legend of another miracle. For here, Mary's warriors standing on the side of the light repelled the forces of evil. The miraculous intervention of heaven was also attributed by the population to the tear gas grenade bursting into the hands of the policeman. The hand needed dressing. But the news was that the grenade with which the officer was about to throw at Mary broke his arm off, which was to be a divine punishment. After the victorious clash between the population and the militia, Mary appeared again to Jadwiga Jakubowska. She was supposed to call for forgiveness to the policemen and promise that if any of the people gathered in the meadow were sick at home, they would recover soon. After the clashes on May 30, the authorities changed their confrontational attitude. She tried to control the situation, but did not counteract it, the more so as the meadow was constantly inhabited by several dozen to several hundred people. It was favored by increasingly warmer and longer days. Both Catholics and Orthodox people put their crosses there. In this respect, it can be concluded that the Zabłudów events were of an ecumenical nature. Costumes in uniform sorts The meetings in the meadow continued for almost a month and a half. Until finally the authorities implemented a plan which, more effectively than physical strength, stopped people from visiting the meadow. On the night of July 11-12, the police fenced the meadow with tape, and anyone who tried to cross the tape line received a ticket and a mandatory vaccination against typhoid fever. The reason was drinking water by those present from the stagnation in the meadow. At first there was no water. The pilgrims, however, took handfuls of "holy land". They chose it so much that a pit was created in which water began to collect. Because the meadow, as we mentioned, was wet. The faithful considered it a miraculous spring. They drank from it. So the militia gained an excuse to cordon off the area, order a quarantine and, together with the fines, issue mandatory vaccinations. The most determined, who tried to return to the meadow after being vaccinated, received further fines, and some were sent for observation to an infectious disease hospital. To make the alleged epidemiological threat credible, policemen guarded the meadow without hats and put on white coats. The locals, who were not beaten in the darkness, addressed them, however, "commander" and not "doctor". Well, where can doctors in white coats wear identical navy blue creased pants and all the same shoes? According to police reports, the meadow was deserted around 25 July. The posts guarded the place of the alleged apparitions until September 12. There were quarrels between the inhabitants of the town over the miracle, one of which turned into a struggle and a fight almost broke out. Jadwiga Jakubowska's mother was advised by her daughter's godmother to buy a string for the offerings collected in the meadow and hang herself. It was a game for the authorities, because a divided community is easier to manipulate. The SB knew from the denunciations who got rich by the miracle. Most of all, the Jakubowski family were accused of accepting donations from pilgrims, as well as merchants, that they were selling chains with Mary at striped prices, a PKS bus driver who illegally collected a full set of passengers, collected 20 zlotys from each of them and instead of taking a scheduled route, he drove them to Zabłudowa and a man addicted to alcohol, who pretended to be blind before the pilgrims, then washed his eyes with water from a hole in the meadow and shouted that he had just regained his eyesight. The situation in Zabłudów calmed down for good when in 1967 Jadwiga Jakubowska went to Częstochowa and entered the convent. Groups of the faithful met in the meadow for a few more years, mainly on Marian holidays. Today, at the site of the alleged apparition, there is a chapel in front of which from time to time someone kneels down to pray. IV Oława 1983: Mary instructs the Polish Episcopate The so-called miracle in Oława from 1983, paradoxically, is a proof of the civilization progress of mankind in the earthly dimension. Taking advantage of the ease of travel, visionaries from all over the world come to this Lower Silesian city. Television is directed to the world-view struggle. The Oława events also show why the Church adheres to the principle that it does not recognize the apparitions in progress, but only very rarely - completed. The spring of 1983 was a very dark time. One and a half years have passed since the introduction of martial law. This state of affairs, although suspended, still formally lasted. Despite the propaganda about the "progressive normalization of life", the shops were empty, holes deepened in the sidewalks, and films produced by the GDR and the USSR were shown in cinemas. Poles were divided into those who live in uncertainty and those who live in hopelessness. Some have found some form of isolation from reality. For example, the 51-year-old disability pensioner Kazimierz Domański spent most of his time on a plot where he grew vegetables. On June 8, as he claimed until the end of his life, the Mother of God appeared to him. In quite mundane circumstances. According to the gardening calendar, Domański tied tomato bushes to the stakes. He ran out of ribbons while working. So he went to the house on the plot and saw Mary standing on the bench there. She was supposed to heal him, because he was permanently ailing after an accident from years ago, and tell him: "I healed you. Now you have to heal the sick." A retiree gardener built an altar on the plot. He informed friends and priests that he had received a revelation. The clergy doubted what he was saying, but one mentioned Domański from the pulpit. In this way, after a week, it is safe to say, all of Poland knew about the "miracle on the plots". Believers from all over the country began to draw to Oława. The visionary sees a threat in the Vatican There are different estimates of the number of pilgrims. Apparently, by the end of 1983, the plots of land in Oława had been visited by 100,000 people, and on the Marian feast on December 8, 1984, 32,000 pilgrims were supposed to visit Oława, a town with a population of 28,000. Domański, who followed the call to heal others, was unable, however, to serve all those in need. On the fence of the allotment garden he hung a sign with the hours of receptions. The Church's attitude to Domański's case was ambiguous. Initially, the rank and file priests went to the crowds of pilgrims and administered the sacraments. There was a priest in Zamość, who assured the faithful straight from the pulpit that the Mother of God healed people in Oława. With time, however, the bishops began to forbid priests to cooperate with Domański. In the face of this position of the bishops, Domański stated that he had experienced another revelation in which Mary was to say that the bishops should not forbid priests from serving on plots in Oława, because in this way they limited the possibility of its impact on humanity. It would be a peculiar novelty in Christianity if sinful people on earth could limit the supernatural power of the saints. But the visionary did not mind that. The Church continued to teach. He sent a message to the primate, which he claimed from Our Lady, to warn Pope John Paul II that there were people in his immediate vicinity who clearly wished him ill. Six months later, the Polish Episcopate called on the faithful to stop believing in the miracle in Oława. "It can (...) violate the principles of faith and can be used against the Church" - stated the bishops. Again, power was not to the taste of human gatherings unorganized by itself. Thus, articles stigmatizing "ignorance" and "superstition" began to appear in newspapers. The Security Service, using operational methods, spread the news that Domański was undergoing psychiatric treatment. In fact, the ailments of the visionary of the cannons were of a neurological nature - after a car accident he had suffered 20 years earlier. Meatballs and other supposedly supernatural phenomena Our Lady was to order Domański to build a chapel. However, he did not get permission from the authorities. So he arbitrarily started the construction, but the construction supervision, assisted by the militia, ordered him to dismantle the already poured foundations and fined him. A MO station appeared in the vicinity of the plots in the form of a booth with a 24-hour staff. At night, the crowds of pilgrims were shone with powerful floodlights. Of course, officially, in the name of security. Where there was no floodlight, unknown perpetrators destroyed crosses and chapels hung on trees by pilgrims. There was also an attempt to set fire to the allotment gazebo. When Domański was visited by the famous visionary from Australia, the later Church-cursed Little Pebble sectarian, there were biting comments in the press that they both had a lot in common. As Domański had a revelation with tomatoes, Little Pebble was supposed to multiply meatballs for his followers by supernatural power. Believers in the miracle in Oława lived to the end of the times when the authorities no longer persecuted people for believing in anything. Two years after the democratic breakthrough in Poland, Domański began the construction of a church, presbytery, pilgrim house and canteen without any obstacles. In 1999, he founded the Society of the Holy Spirit, which took institutional care of this pilgrimage center. The wonders of the time of freedom After the fall of communism, the supposed revelations did not stop. However, the nature of the accompanying events has changed. They do not gather such crowds anymore and for as long as in Lublin, Warsaw, Zabłudów or Oława. And as researchers of this phenomenon claim, all the more famous so-called miracles in the People's Republic of Poland were mainly Marian in nature. Meanwhile, in the twenty-first century, two events occurred in free Poland, which the faithful call Eucharistic miracles. In 2008, in Sokółka and eight years later in Legnica, red discoloration was found on consecrated hosts, which after examination turned out to be fragments of human tissues. 0:08 / 3:28 A miracle in Sokółka. Material from 2009 / Video: archive TVN24 Wrocław None of the alleged revelations in Poland - apart from the miracle in Gietrzwałd in 1877 - has so far been recognized by the Church as a supernatural phenomenon. (https://tvn24.pl)
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I like this story: believers started to collect soil from the area where the miracle had taken place. They made a deep ditch which soon got filled with underground water. People started to drink it as holy water. Communist police arrested every drinker, fined them and sent to compulsory vaccinatioin against typhoid.
tvn24.pl/magazyn-tvn24/i-wtedy-w-rece-milicjanta-wybuchl-granat-to-byl-cud-maryja-pomogla-wygrac-z-zomo,249,4321
The policeman swung a grenade at the Mother of God, so his hand was cut off as a punishment. The girl who experienced the apparition, however, heard that Mary told her not to be angry with the police. Especially since the faithful with stones chased the uniformed with truncheons from the wonderful meadow and could continue to look for the miracle. In the times of the People's Republic of Poland, Poles believed in miracles en masse, and the militia fought this faith with all their strength. In communist Poland after World War II, over 50 private revelations took place. A miracle on average once a year. In this respect, the People's Republic of Poland was undoubtedly a country famous for miracles. They were not in the hand of both the Church and the communist regime which was fighting against it. None of the alleged post-war miracles have been recognized by Church teaching as true revelation. Paradoxically, the communists saw these unconfirmed miracles as a threat to their godless vision of the world. AND Lublin 1949. "Pharaoh" against Mary It was Sunday July 3, 1949. The Lublin cathedral was full of people all day long. Even between Holy Masses. On that day, the cathedral parish solemnly renewed the act of dedication to the protection of Mary. Around 3 p.m., nun Barbara Sadowska noticed that dark tears were flowing from the face of Our Lady of Częstochowa on the painting placed on the side altar. She informed the church officer Józef Wójtowicz about it. At first he complained about the nun's womanly frills, but for the sake of peace he went to check what was going on. He saw in the image of the saint - as he put it - a "dark red icicle" three centimeters long. He ran to the sacristy for the priest. The vicar Tadeusz Malec saw in the painting "black drops moving from the right eye on the cheek towards the scars". Father Malec ran to notify the bishop, but the suffragan from Lublin, Zdzisław Goliński, approached the matter with earthly peace. He decided that it must have been some kind of infiltration of moisture, and that it had appeared under the eye was pure coincidence. Father Malec, as it seemed to him, spoke briefly with the bishop. He returned quickly to the church as he was about to celebrate Mass. But when he returned to the temple, there was no more control over the faithful. They noticed changes in the picture. They screamed, cried, cried: "Mother of God, you are crying!". Father Malec did not even try to call them to prayer. He was unable to shout beyond the crowd. The information about the crying picture spread like wildfire throughout the city. Literally a quarter of an hour after the nun saw the drops on the painting, the miracle in the cathedral was already discussed in the Lublinianka restaurant, one kilometer away. An apprentice, Bolesława Paradowska, together with an older friend, a waitress, as she called it, "got up" from work and ran to the cathedral. And not only them. By evening, the cathedral was full to the brim, and the next day, kilometer-long queues formed in front of it. It got dangerous. The temple, destroyed by the war, was surrounded by scaffolding. It was feared that they might fall over under the pressure of the crowd. The church order guard appeared with white and yellow armbands. Initially, the newspapers did not report the events at the cathedral, and telephone calls were rare. And yet, crowds began to come to Lublin from all over the Lublin region. The police set up patrols on the tollbooths and did not let people into the city unless they gave a valid, plausible reason, but it did not help much. It was impossible not to let the crowded trains and buses into Lublin. The report of the Lublin voivode to the Ministry of Public Administration shows that the crowd of many thousands in front of the cathedral grew day by day. On July 8 there were eight thousand people, a day later - 15 thousand, and on July 10 - already 20 thousand. When one day the churchman did not normally open the door to the cathedral at 5.30 am, after four hours the crowd broke it open. The policeman lay down on his cross, but the UB was vigilant Sensational news spread among the crowd about the numerous conversions and healings of those who entered the cathedral. Professor of the Catholic University of Lublin, Stefan Świeżawski (later participant of the Second Vatican Council) recalled at the end of his life that on the altar with a crying picture he saw piles of abandoned party ID cards and a policeman lying with a cross at his feet. In turn, in the documents of the security service there is an account according to which even a certain Soviet citizen then converted in the cathedral and offered Mary his golden watch as a votive offering. In the memories of witnesses of the miracle, one can also read that a uniformed soldier of the Internal Security Corps (selected units intended to kill political opponents of the communists) converted at the sight of tears in the painting, offered a golden signet ring as a votive offering, and on leaving the church he chanted a Marian song. However, he did not make others sing. People who had been taught the four years of commune rule feared he was a provocateur, and the signet ring was not of gold. The events at the cathedral were like a publicly slap in the face of the communists. It was in the same Lublin, after all, five years earlier, before the end of the war, that the pro-Soviet government fighting against religion had established itself. At the turn of the 1940s and 1950s, there was already an open struggle between the communists and the Church. That same year, on Corpus Christi, the authorities organized defense exercises for young people and students outside the city only to prevent them from participating in the processions. A special group of security officers, led by Deputy Minister Roman Romkowski himself, quickly arrived in Lublin. The action against the miracle has begun. Militia and soldiers surrounded the stations. They legitimized people and explained to them that there was no miracle. In all of Poland, in order to buy a ticket to Lublin, you had to show a certificate of residence in this city. So people rode stowaways on trains. They paid fines for not having a ticket, but the miracle was priceless after all. The smarter ones bought tickets to the last stations before Lublin and continued on foot. The militia, undercover agents, agitators and the Church could not stop them. People knew theirs. There was a miracle. The authorities held a grudge against the bishop that the Church was unable to stop the wave of pilgrims. Bishop Goliński, summoned to the prosecutor's office on the occasion of "organizing a miracle", consciously replied: "There is no such cohesion and organizational discipline in the Church as there are in secular organizations or political parties." Mary does not cry in peace After a few days, the press launched a propaganda offensive. She had the opportunity to do so, because it happened what the church service was supposed to prevent. One of the people gathered in front of the temple died on the spot. The circumstances of his death remain unclear to this day. According to some sources, under the pressure of the crowd, a heavy wooden beam fell and killed a 20-year-old woman, according to others, a secret police officer threw the beam over the woman's head. Still others say that provocateurs from the UB, wanting to make people disperse, started shouting that the scaffolding was collapsing. The panicked crowd was to trample the woman dozing on the cathedral steps. In mid-July all Poland knew about the miracle in Lublin, because the publications challenging this event were published by "Trybuna Ludu". Information about what is happening in Lublin was also provided by the Polish radio stations of the BBC and the Voice of America. The inconvenience for the communists was also dealt with in the Kremlin. Particular astonishment of the Soviet comrades was caused by the appeal of the party organization in Gdańsk, according to which it is impossible for the Mother of God to cry in peace, because there is no reason to do so, because the war is over. The attache of the Soviet embassy in Poland I. Stepanov stated that this position testified to "deficiencies in the setting up of agitation work" among Polish comrades. In order to fight the miracle, the Lublin "Banner of the People" reprinted a fragment of "Pharaoh" by Bolesław Prus, in which priests, who were intellectually towering over the dark people, used the solar eclipse for their particular purposes. Humer investigations and Strzembosz's search After two weeks, also on Sunday, July 17, the authorities organized a rally in the center of Lublin. The faithful leaving the church also gathered and began shouting anti-communist slogans. Some of them were arrested by the police. In reaction to this, the crowd of supporters of the miracle rushed to the command to rescue the detainees. There were fights. People attacked with stones and bricks, and the police poured water on them and beat them with rifle butts. Nearly 600 people were detained, and over 50 were sentenced to terms ranging from ten months to two years in prison. Those who escaped convictions were harassed in their workplaces and in colleges. Investigations and trials during the dark age of Stalinism were rife with violence and torture. Among the infamous Lublin investigators was Colonel Adam Humer, sentenced in free Poland to 7.5 years in prison for torturing interrogated persons. The sentences were generally draconian. However, there were situations, despite the horror, absurd. In May 1950, there were four accused persons involved in writing, rewriting and reading the occasional poem about the miracle. Rewriting the poem in 12 copies on a typewriter was considered to be disseminating false information to the detriment of the Polish state. The author of the poem went to prison for a year and a half, the copier for two, and the colporter for three. The acquitted was the accused who only read the poem. Adam Strzembosz, a young lawyer at the time, wrote a motion for an extraordinary review of this judgment. Not blood, not tears, and the samples were dry The alleged miracle in the cathedral also troubled the clergy. As a rule, the Church does not recognize ongoing apparitions, but this could not be said directly to the frantic crowd. The restrained appeal of the diocesan bishop Piotr Kałwa, which proclaimed that "if God wants to show us his will through the Blessed Mother, (...) he will certainly not skimp on clearer and more convincing signs", did not weaken the common belief in a miracle. The diocesan commission for the study of the miracle analyzed liquid samples from the painting (painted in 1927 by Bolesław Rutkowski) in the laboratory of the medical academy. What the liquid was was not found as the samples dried quickly. Before it could evaporate, however, it was possible to rule out that it was not blood or tears. The appeals of the clergy, addressed to the faithful throughout the second half of July, to refrain from making pilgrimages to Lublin, were unsuccessful. It was only on August 8 that the auxiliary bishop Zdzisław Goliński ordered the closure of the cathedral in order to clean it up and complete the renovation works. He also announced that the drops appearing in the painting had not been found to be miraculous. People went home. Some of the faithful and some of the clergy still believe that it was a miracle. The painting on the side altar of the cathedral is called miraculous, the faithful lay votive offerings under it. In 1988, the then primate of Poland Józef Glemp, with the consent of the Vatican, coronated the painting. Officially, however, the Holy See did not recognize the miracle. II Nowolipki 1959 - a painted miracle The events that took place 10 years later in the very heart of Warsaw were a much bigger problem for the communist authorities. It was approaching 10pm on a chilly Wednesday October 7th. A 12-year-old girl who lived near the church with her parents was having an evening rosary. When she got home, before going to bed, she went to the window. She saw a strange glow over the church spire. In her she saw Mary, the mother of Christ, in a traditional form with a crown of 12 stars. She told her parents about it. It is difficult to recreate in detail how the events went on. However, according to the accounts of the Citizens' Militia, 400 people had already gathered in front of the church in Nowolipki before midnight. The next evening there was no gleam on the tower. He appeared in the following days, causing a sensation in the capital and gathering crowds around the temple. On Saturday, October 10, there were several thousand people. Pallotyn Lucjan Balter (who died in 2010), who at that time attended a nearby correspondence high school because the authorities did not want to recognize his pre-war high school diploma, saw the mysterious phenomenon with his own eyes and remembered it as follows: "The very top of the tower of St. Augustine's church consists of three vertically arranged spheres covered with copper sheet: they were always visible during the day, but after dark, they disappeared from sight, and their place was taken by the strange white figure seen by the growing crowds of people" . On the infidel's hat up Balter also made precise observations of what was happening in the crowd. "Take your hat off your head," one of the prayers on the street apparently exhorted the sinner. When someone admitted that he did not see anything miraculous in the tower, he heard at his address: "Go to confession, you will see." The future Pallottine also dared to provoke the policemen with questions, but when asked if they could see anything on the tower, they had a ready answer: "Please do not stop, please go further". St. Augustine's Church in Warsaw - contemporary view / Source: Maciej Pawłowski The monk, although he does not prejudge that the revelation took place, notes that this visible sign, whatever it was, had a positive effect on some of the congregation. "As a multiple witness to this event, I must admit (...) that it caused a number of deep religious experiences, including the return of non-believers to God," he said in 2002, already a professor of theology. The authorities had a decidedly different point of view. From the notes of policemen and secret police officers, one can learn that "fanatized devotees" lit candles and sang "We want God, Holy Virgin". The faithful knelt wherever they could and prayed. Security service intelligence noted: "People pray the rosary in the street, not the Militia, so that it would be possible to pray better, and when people kneel, they will go in and run away" (original spelling). The militia surrounded Warsaw railway stations. Scouts were ordered to capture groups of women led by a man from the crowd. Because it was probably those "fanatic devotees" who came from the provinces, and not knowing Warsaw, hired guides. However, even the most effective militia would not be able to stop thousands of crowds from going to Nowolipki without the use of force. At the peak of interest in the miracle, there were 35,000 believers around the church. On average, 20 people a day were either detained for 48 hours or applications were filed with misdemeanor colleges. However, a solution by force on a larger scale was not an option, because newspapers all over the world had already written about the events in Warsaw. "I rent a window with binoculars for PLN 20 per head" So a propaganda offensive was set up, which was easy enough as almost all newspapers in Poland were propaganda mouthpieces of the authorities at the time. Apart from publications questioning the miracle in Nowolipki from a scientific point of view, there were also "life" voices of opposition. "We, the citizens of Muranów, push our way to our homes in the evenings, cursing the newcomers who tread our lawns, break freshly planted bushes, take care of their needs in our staircases, drink quarters in our cellars" - one could read in Walce Młodych, an organ Union of Socialist Youth. The content of a letter of one of the inhabitants of this district, secretly opened by the secret police, stands in direct contradiction to these feelings. The sender does not hide that she makes money from the miracle. "I rent a window with binoculars for PLN 20 per head!" - she wrote to a friend or relative. Here is a brief explanation of how you know what was written in the private letter. Well, the authorities so wanted to control the souls concentrated around the miracle that it ordered "perlustration" of private correspondence. Security Service officers took private letters from postal sorting offices, placed envelopes over a pair, read them, made copies or took official notes. Reading someone else's letters (as it is today) was a crime back then. Because even the communist constitution guaranteed the secrecy of correspondence, and the Penal Code provided for a penalty of two years in prison for reading someone else's letters. But the political police in any regime are above the law. Paradoxically, however, thanks to this unlawful operation of safety devices, a lot is known today about what people thought about the mysterious phenomenon at Nowolipki Street. Copies and notes from read letters have been archived and have survived to this day at the Institute of National Remembrance. Painting at height The authorities, seeing that it would not be possible to eliminate the crowds in front of the church and in the surrounding streets, decided ... to liquidate the miracle. The Warsaw Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party decided to paint over the glowing dome. On October 15, it was painted dark green. But the glow still hovered above the tower. The blame for the ineffectiveness was blamed on professionals who selected the wrong paint. After 10 days, the action of painting the dome black began, but the paint was washed away by rain. The next day, asphalt mastic was used, which was mixed with some powder to make it stick better. Only when this layer had solidified and you could be sure that it would not fall off, was a matte paint layer applied on October 29th. Faced with a collective rapture over the alleged miracle, the priests working in St. Augustine's Church found themselves in a very difficult situation. They could not be carried away by the mood of the faithful, because - as we have already mentioned - the Church, as a rule, does not recognize lasting miracles, and the Gospel says that blessed are those who have not seen but believed. That is, for faith to be profound, you do not need any visible signs. A plaque inside the church commemorating the "events" in the parish of St. Augustine in 1959 / Source: Maciej Pawłowski After permanent painting, the dome stopped shining and the crowd thinned overnight, and finally the situation returned to normal. The authorities never explained to the people what the glow in the tower was causing. Today it is assumed that a substance with fluorescent properties may have been produced by the reaction with water and oxidation of the dome cover. However, these are only hypotheses. In one respect, however, the secular state authorities recognized the miracle in Nowolipki. And this in a way that produces legal effects. The district financial office (the equivalent of today's tax office) imposed a tax surcharge on the parish, justifying that because of the miracle and the crowds of the faithful, it must have collected several times more victims than when the miracle did not exist. The apparitions in Nowolipki have not been recognized by the Archbishopric of Warsaw or the Vatican to this day. However, there are anniversaries of the "apparitions of Our Lady" in the church of Saint Augustine, as you can read on the website of the parish. However, the memorial plaque in the church does not mean that it was a miracle. It commemorates the events of 1959. III Zabłudów 1965. Recognition with a fire in the field of miracles When you look at this photo, in a very high vertical frame, difficult to put on the Internet, it is impossible to help remember that similar framed views were very popular and hung on the walls of country houses in the second half of the 20th century. It is a testimony to how well-known, popular and revered in the Polish countryside were the events that took place in 1965 in Zabłudów in Podlasie. Jadwiga Jakubowska prays at the site of the alleged apparition in Zabłudów / Source: ipn.gov.pl The photo shows 14-year-old Jadwiga Jakubowska, a resident of Zabłudów in the Białystok poviat. It was on the evening of May 13, 1965, in a meadow near the town, that Christ's mother was to appear in the rays of the setting sun breaking through the leaves of the trees. She urged people not to sin, pray and convert. The one who appeared threatened that her son would punish people for all iniquities. She also announced to the girl that her sick mother would soon recover. Terrified, Jadwiga ran home and told her mother, Maria Jakubowska, what she had seen in the meadow. The figure that appeared "was very beautiful", besides "dressed in a white dress and a blue cloak, had a crown on her head, her eyes were blue". The fact that the 14-year-old saw the saint in the treetops does not mean that she was standing on a tree. Rather, it was "floating in the cloud". The mother's account of what her daughter saw was recorded in the prosecutor's office. Because undesirable phenomena, including miracles, were fought by the communist state with investigative methods. The news of the miracle in Zabłudów also spread quickly around the area, and pilgrims began to arrive at the "miraculous meadow". "Some persisted in prayer, others came to witness an extraordinary phenomenon or even ridicule the believers" - noted the chronicler of the Zabłudów parish, Father Adam Szot. Do not allow a miracle over the urn The state authorities, which fought a fight with the Church for a government of souls, fell into panic at the news that thousands of people were being dragged to the site of the miracle, because Our Lady of Zabłudowska announced that she would also appear on the election Sunday, May 30. The Security Service determined that the inhabitants of as many as six neighboring counties were going to attend the announced apparition on May 30. The identification of the political police was discussed by the executive of the Provincial Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party. The first secretary of KW Arkadiusz Łaszewicz lamented: "The unpleasant dissonance against the active attitude of the Białystok society in supporting the election program of candidates for deputies and national councils was the issue of initiating the 'miracle' in Zabłudów. Appropriate steps have already been taken." From Thursday, May 27, the entire Zabłudów and the meadow of the alleged revelation were surrounded by reinforced militia forces. Armed officers also secured the vicinity of the Jakubowski home. The sale of alcohol was forbidden in the shop of the local cooperative and in the inn. The Esbecks counted foreign vehicles that arrived in the town on election Sunday. This was approximately 1,800 cars, 1,000 motorcycles and 500 bicycles. The number of vehicles that reached Zabłudów at that time is so impressive that the police installed blockades around the town. The part of the faithful who did not get through the blockades went to the city crosswise, through fields and forests, and rivers and streams were forced by swimming. With or without clothes. Overcoming obstacles on the way to Zabłudów became one of the first instances of a violent confrontation between the authorities and the people. A photo of the Security Service showing the efforts of the militia whose task was to prevent pilgrims from entering the meadow in Zabłudów / Source: ipn.gov.pl To get to Zabłudów from Białystok, you have to cross the bridge over the Rudni - a small tributary of the Narew. The bridge was blocked by the police. The inhabitants of the vicinity of the river began to bring poles to the banks and to build a footbridge from them. After a few hours, it was possible to cross the river with a dry foot. However, the Zom members came with the intention of eliminating the footbridge, but the people guarding it chased them away with threats and shouts, among which the "f**k**g communists" was one of the mildest. Meanwhile, tensions grew in the "field of apparitions". A visionary carried like a holy figure In the morning, the Zomowie men managed to chase a group of several dozen pilgrims away from the meadow. Between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. the crowd was unmanageable. The pilgrims came along roads, forests, fields and meadows. There was nervousness in the crowd. There was a rumor that the teenage visionary had been arrested. Meanwhile, Jadwiga Jakubowska was sitting at home, terrified by how her private celestial revelation had caused her fateful effects on earth. In case the terror subsided and she wanted to go to the meadow, her house was guarded by policemen. However, the officers did not receive instructions on how to behave if Jakubowska was to be found in the meadow, not necessarily of her own free will. So they did not intervene when a 30-year-old bully in a nylon coat, slicked up, carried the girl out of the house like an object. It must have been a peculiar sight, because the man managed to lift the teenager with only one hand. The second was occupied because he was also carrying a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary to the meadow. No photographer has captured this view. Only the description of the scene has survived in the report on the dispersion of the congregation, prepared for the Provincial Office of Internal Affairs in Białystok. The militia, who had been convinced of the situation a few hours earlier, began to realize that the situation was getting out of hand. First, this unsuccessful attempt to destroy the footbridge made of poles. Then take the visionary out of the house. Finally, Jadwiga's father did not fulfill the task assigned to him. When his daughter left home, officers came to the dairy, where he was working despite Sunday. They ordered him to go to a meadow full of people and bring his daughter to his place of residence. He went, but not only did he not bring Jadwiga home, but also told the audience that the revelation was true, and not a teenager's fuss. Miracles around a miracle The militia finally called the crowd to disperse. The pilgrims remained unmoved. So the clubs, blast grenades and tear gas went into motion. Zomowcy also fired rifles at the terror. The population of Podlasie, however, did not turn their cheeks to beating. The assembled people threw firecrackers away, surrounded the militia cars and turned them sideways or upside down with their wheels. They also threw stones with accuracy. Around five in the afternoon, ZOMO withdrew from the meadow. Militia and pilgrims in Zabłudów. Photo taken from hiding by the Security Service / Source: ipn.gov.pl The victorious clash with the militia lived to see the legend of another miracle. For here, Mary's warriors standing on the side of the light repelled the forces of evil. The miraculous intervention of heaven was also attributed by the population to the tear gas grenade bursting into the hands of the policeman. The hand needed dressing. But the news was that the grenade with which the officer was about to throw at Mary broke his arm off, which was to be a divine punishment. After the victorious clash between the population and the militia, Mary appeared again to Jadwiga Jakubowska. She was supposed to call for forgiveness to the policemen and promise that if any of the people gathered in the meadow were sick at home, they would recover soon. After the clashes on May 30, the authorities changed their confrontational attitude. She tried to control the situation, but did not counteract it, the more so as the meadow was constantly inhabited by several dozen to several hundred people. It was favored by increasingly warmer and longer days. Both Catholics and Orthodox people put their crosses there. In this respect, it can be concluded that the Zabłudów events were of an ecumenical nature. Costumes in uniform sorts The meetings in the meadow continued for almost a month and a half. Until finally the authorities implemented a plan which, more effectively than physical strength, stopped people from visiting the meadow. On the night of July 11-12, the police fenced the meadow with tape, and anyone who tried to cross the tape line received a ticket and a mandatory vaccination against typhoid fever. The reason was drinking water by those present from the stagnation in the meadow. At first there was no water. The pilgrims, however, took handfuls of "holy land". They chose it so much that a pit was created in which water began to collect. Because the meadow, as we mentioned, was wet. The faithful considered it a miraculous spring. They drank from it. So the militia gained an excuse to cordon off the area, order a quarantine and, together with the fines, issue mandatory vaccinations. The most determined, who tried to return to the meadow after being vaccinated, received further fines, and some were sent for observation to an infectious disease hospital. To make the alleged epidemiological threat credible, policemen guarded the meadow without hats and put on white coats. The locals, who were not beaten in the darkness, addressed them, however, "commander" and not "doctor". Well, where can doctors in white coats wear identical navy blue creased pants and all the same shoes? According to police reports, the meadow was deserted around 25 July. The posts guarded the place of the alleged apparitions until September 12. There were quarrels between the inhabitants of the town over the miracle, one of which turned into a struggle and a fight almost broke out. Jadwiga Jakubowska's mother was advised by her daughter's godmother to buy a string for the offerings collected in the meadow and hang herself. It was a game for the authorities, because a divided community is easier to manipulate. The SB knew from the denunciations who got rich by the miracle. Most of all, the Jakubowski family were accused of accepting donations from pilgrims, as well as merchants, that they were selling chains with Mary at striped prices, a PKS bus driver who illegally collected a full set of passengers, collected 20 zlotys from each of them and instead of taking a scheduled route, he drove them to Zabłudowa and a man addicted to alcohol, who pretended to be blind before the pilgrims, then washed his eyes with water from a hole in the meadow and shouted that he had just regained his eyesight. The situation in Zabłudów calmed down for good when in 1967 Jadwiga Jakubowska went to Częstochowa and entered the convent. Groups of the faithful met in the meadow for a few more years, mainly on Marian holidays. Today, at the site of the alleged apparition, there is a chapel in front of which from time to time someone kneels down to pray. IV Oława 1983: Mary instructs the Polish Episcopate The so-called miracle in Oława from 1983, paradoxically, is a proof of the civilization progress of mankind in the earthly dimension. Taking advantage of the ease of travel, visionaries from all over the world come to this Lower Silesian city. Television is directed to the world-view struggle. The Oława events also show why the Church adheres to the principle that it does not recognize the apparitions in progress, but only very rarely - completed. The spring of 1983 was a very dark time. One and a half years have passed since the introduction of martial law. This state of affairs, although suspended, still formally lasted. Despite the propaganda about the "progressive normalization of life", the shops were empty, holes deepened in the sidewalks, and films produced by the GDR and the USSR were shown in cinemas. Poles were divided into those who live in uncertainty and those who live in hopelessness. Some have found some form of isolation from reality. For example, the 51-year-old disability pensioner Kazimierz Domański spent most of his time on a plot where he grew vegetables. On June 8, as he claimed until the end of his life, the Mother of God appeared to him. In quite mundane circumstances. According to the gardening calendar, Domański tied tomato bushes to the stakes. He ran out of ribbons while working. So he went to the house on the plot and saw Mary standing on the bench there. She was supposed to heal him, because he was permanently ailing after an accident from years ago, and tell him: "I healed you. Now you have to heal the sick." A retiree gardener built an altar on the plot. He informed friends and priests that he had received a revelation. The clergy doubted what he was saying, but one mentioned Domański from the pulpit. In this way, after a week, it is safe to say, all of Poland knew about the "miracle on the plots". Believers from all over the country began to draw to Oława. The visionary sees a threat in the Vatican There are different estimates of the number of pilgrims. Apparently, by the end of 1983, the plots of land in Oława had been visited by 100,000 people, and on the Marian feast on December 8, 1984, 32,000 pilgrims were supposed to visit Oława, a town with a population of 28,000. Domański, who followed the call to heal others, was unable, however, to serve all those in need. On the fence of the allotment garden he hung a sign with the hours of receptions. The Church's attitude to Domański's case was ambiguous. Initially, the rank and file priests went to the crowds of pilgrims and administered the sacraments. There was a priest in Zamość, who assured the faithful straight from the pulpit that the Mother of God healed people in Oława. With time, however, the bishops began to forbid priests to cooperate with Domański. In the face of this position of the bishops, Domański stated that he had experienced another revelation in which Mary was to say that the bishops should not forbid priests from serving on plots in Oława, because in this way they limited the possibility of its impact on humanity. It would be a peculiar novelty in Christianity if sinful people on earth could limit the supernatural power of the saints. But the visionary did not mind that. The Church continued to teach. He sent a message to the primate, which he claimed from Our Lady, to warn Pope John Paul II that there were people in his immediate vicinity who clearly wished him ill. Six months later, the Polish Episcopate called on the faithful to stop believing in the miracle in Oława. "It can (...) violate the principles of faith and can be used against the Church" - stated the bishops. Again, power was not to the taste of human gatherings unorganized by itself. Thus, articles stigmatizing "ignorance" and "superstition" began to appear in newspapers. The Security Service, using operational methods, spread the news that Domański was undergoing psychiatric treatment. In fact, the ailments of the visionary of the cannons were of a neurological nature - after a car accident he had suffered 20 years earlier. Meatballs and other supposedly supernatural phenomena Our Lady was to order Domański to build a chapel. However, he did not get permission from the authorities. So he arbitrarily started the construction, but the construction supervision, assisted by the militia, ordered him to dismantle the already poured foundations and fined him. A MO station appeared in the vicinity of the plots in the form of a booth with a 24-hour staff. At night, the crowds of pilgrims were shone with powerful floodlights. Of course, officially, in the name of security. Where there was no floodlight, unknown perpetrators destroyed crosses and chapels hung on trees by pilgrims. There was also an attempt to set fire to the allotment gazebo. When Domański was visited by the famous visionary from Australia, the later Church-cursed Little Pebble sectarian, there were biting comments in the press that they both had a lot in common. As Domański had a revelation with tomatoes, Little Pebble was supposed to multiply meatballs for his followers by supernatural power. Believers in the miracle in Oława lived to the end of the times when the authorities no longer persecuted people for believing in anything. Two years after the democratic breakthrough in Poland, Domański began the construction of a church, presbytery, pilgrim house and canteen without any obstacles. In 1999, he founded the Society of the Holy Spirit, which took institutional care of this pilgrimage center. The wonders of the time of freedom After the fall of communism, the supposed revelations did not stop. However, the nature of the accompanying events has changed. They do not gather such crowds anymore and for as long as in Lublin, Warsaw, Zabłudów or Oława. And as researchers of this phenomenon claim, all the more famous so-called miracles in the People's Republic of Poland were mainly Marian in nature. Meanwhile, in the twenty-first century, two events occurred in free Poland, which the faithful call Eucharistic miracles. In 2008, in Sokółka and eight years later in Legnica, red discoloration was found on consecrated hosts, which after examination turned out to be fragments of human tissues. 0:08 / 3:28 A miracle in Sokółka. Material from 2009 / Video: archive TVN24 Wrocław None of the alleged revelations in Poland - apart from the miracle in Gietrzwałd in 1877 - has so far been recognized by the Church as a supernatural phenomenon. (https://tvn24.pl)