Recalling Fatima and Russia and Eastern Orthodoxy

Crunchy Con who is a former Catholic , now Eastern Orthodox, has a great post Fatima and Russia. He reminds us that today is the annioversary of the death of Sister Lucia.

What is interesting is the topic of what actually happened to Russia. many Catholics perhaps thought Russia after the Papal Consecration would become Catholic!!! Well tht did not happen. However Rod quotes Cardinal Bertone who is now the Vatican Secreatary of State.

I want to make it clear that Lucia didn't conceive of the consecration of Russia as a strategy for capturing this great Christian country for Catholicism. That wasn't the intention of the consecration, which was actually meant to help Russia return to its Christian heritage, to recover its identity as a nation devoted to Our Lady. Remember the Communist revolution had betrayed and violated Russia's Christian identity, using the might of the state to transform the country into a model of atheism.

...Once communism fell apart, the piety of the Russian people, which is saturated with devotion to Mary, re-emerged from the catacombs. There was no need to channel it toward Catholicism, and the Slavic pope wisely respected the Russian people's independence. Devotion to Mary was the force that kept the faith of the Russian Orthodox community alive even in the dark years of Communist oppression. So much so, in fact, that when the Soviet Union crumbled it was the youth who poured into the streets, proudly displaying the icons that they had once been forced to keep hidden in their closets or cellars.

Good Stuff read it all