Chernobyl, the Revelation, and the Church of the Prophet Elijah

The Church of the Prophet Elias (Elijah) in Chernobyl (source)

  

The only church in Chernobyl dedicated to the Old Testament Prophet Elijah is first mentioned by chronicles in the 16^th century. Following the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in April 1986 the church was closed. Services in it were resumed in 2001. The church contains the revered icons of “The Saviour of Chernobyl” and of St. Nicholas the Wonder-Worker...

  

In April 2011, on the 25^th anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia visited Chernobyl. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church served a funeral service (panikhida) there for the repose of the accident victims. The Patriarch then noted that the containment and stoppage of the nuclear power station accident “became a great moral feat for thousands of people” and called upon the gathered people not to forget the Chernobyl disaster victims.

The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant happened on April 26, 1986, due to an explosion in the fourth power-generating unit. As a result of the disaster 19 Russian regions with a total area of about 60,000 square kilometers (23,166 sq. mi.) and a population of 2.6 million people, and 46,500 square kilometers (17,954 sq. mi.) of the neighboring territory of Belarus (23% of its total area) suffered from the radioactive fallout. The overall area of radiation pollution in the Ukraine was 50,000 square kilometers (19,305 sq.mi.) in 12 regions. 

   

 Icon of Christ "The Savior of Chernobyl", with the Theotokos and the Archangel Michael, the cross-shaped tree, the Star mentioned in the Revelation, and personifications of the victims and the first aid workers (source)

   

The icon “The Saviour of Chernobyl,” in Prophet Elijah Church, painted (written) after the disaster, has a unique history. According to the web site of the Church of St. Theodosius in Kiev, the icon’s prototype appeared several times in dreams to Yuri Andreev, an atomic energy worker who received an enormous dosage of radiation at the time of the accident. Andreev dismissed the visions as simple dreams, or even heresy, but eventually decided to ask Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev (now recently-reposed) if it would be possible to have an icon made showing the Saviour, together with the people of Chernobyl who risked or sacrificed their lives to save others from the radiation. Metropolitan Vladimir gave his blessing. The icon depicts The Saviour, the Mother of God, and the Archangel Michael at the top of the icon. At the bottom left are the souls of the victims who died from the accident; on the bottom right are the workers who knowingly stayed in the deadly radiation in order to contain the accident. Between them is a pine tree, shaped like a trident, that stood at Chernobyl. “Workers of the Chernobyl nuclear plant were all non-believers,” said Andreev, as reported by The Voice of Russia, “until they witnessed something which can only be interpreted as the power of God. In the very first seconds after the explosion on the fourth reactor a cloud with uranium particles moved towards the neighboring town of Pripyat,” only 1800 meters (1 mile) away. “A pine stood in the way of the radioactive cloud. Before it reached the tree, the cloud broke into two halves and instead of covering the town, it passed it by a mere several meters from residential areas. No one can explain this to this day."
   

During WWII, the pine had been used by fascists to hang Russian soldiers on.

   

The Icon has been the source of miraculous healings, according to the St. Theodosius Church web-site. During the consecration of the icon, a miracle occurred witnessed by thousands of people: a dove flew over the icon, a rainbow appeared in the sky in the shape of a halo (though there had been no rain), and then an Orthodox Cross appeared in the sky, with the sun in the center of it.

(source)

   

The tree in the shape of the Holy Cross at Chernobyl (source)

  

20 April 2011, 18:33

The only church open in Chernobyl zone shows the minimum radiation level

Kiev, April 20, Interfax - During 25 years from the date of Chernobyl accident the radiation level in the area of St. Elijah Church, the only church operating in the exclusion zone, was well below the level across the zone, Chernobyl disaster liquidators state.

"Even in the hardest days of nineteen eighty six the area around St. Elijah Church was clean (from radiation - IF), not to mention that the church itself was also clean," president of the Ukrainian Chernobyl Union Yury Andreyev said in a Kiev-Moscow video conference on Wednesday.

Now the territory adjacent to the church has the background level of 6 microroentgen per hour compared with 18 in Kiev.

Andreyev also said many disaster liquidators had been atheists. "We came to believe later

after observing suchdevelopments which could be explained only by God's will," he says.

In particular, according to him, a few seconds after the explosion in the fourth unit of the Chernobyl PP the cloud containing uranium particles started moving in the direction of Pripyat, a city located about 1,800 meters from the plant. There was a pine-tree on its way (it is featured on a well-known ic

on Chernobyl's Savior.)

"The cloud stopped short of this pine, divided into two parts by some unknown reason and

continued moving to the left and right sides of the city instead of covering its residential areas.

The radiation level in contamination areas was four or five roentgen per hour, and the city showed only half a milliroentgen," Andreyev said.

(source)

 

St. Paisios the Athonite, depicted being blessed by Christ, together with his heavenly patrons: St. Euphemia and St. Arsenios of Cappadocia (source)

  

St. Paisios the Athonite (+1994) said: "There, in the Revelation, St. John the Theologian mentions that he saw a great star, burning, fall from heaven, polluting, making bitter, and fatally poisoning the water and the springs of the waters...

And the name of the star is Wormwood! (in Ukranian, Chernobyl)!" (Revelation 8:11)

(source)

   

Icon depicting the Revelation to St. John the Theologian (source)

  

Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us! Amen!