Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 17, 2022 / 12:02 pm
A special statue of Our Lady of Fatima has arrived in Ukraine, ahead of Pope Francis’ consecration of the country and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
“The Center of the Shrine of Fatima (Portugal) provides us with an official copy of the Statue of the Mother of God of Fatima, to ask God for protection and peace in Ukraine and the world in her presence,” the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin in Lviv announced on Facebook Wednesday.
The church will house the statue from March 17 to April 15, the post read. After departing from Portugal, the statue visited Krakow, Poland, before continuing to Lviv.
The statue comes at the request of Archbishop Ihor Vozniak of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. It is one of 13 official copies of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima that travel worldwide. Carved in 1920, sculptor José Ferreira Tedin created the original statue with the help of Sister Lucia, one of the three children at the Marian apparitions in Fatima in 1917.