The Fatima apparitions as the source of inspiration for Marian theology of Father Roman Bakhtalovskyy (1897–1985)

Andryi Oliynyk

Abstract

Father Roman Bakhtalovskyy is a kind of mystic and mystagogist in modernity, because
his piety, spirituality, priestly ministry and writing draw inspiration from the Fatima apparition. In
his Marian views, we find many symbols of harking back to events of 1917 in Portugal. They formed
his faith based on: the worship of the Immaculate Conception Mother of God, the service to Her
Sacred Heart, the improvement of filial relations according to foundations of the kingdom of God.
The hope and the faith in the final victory of Christianity over the ideology of atheism is a key to the
understanding of his uncompromising position in the fight with evil, the faithfulness to the Church
and the protection of own religious convictions in the situation of the communist regime. For Father
Roman, everything that happened in the Soviet Union was no cause for astonishment, sadness or
despair, because the dialogues of the Blessed Virgin with visionaries in Fatima foretold “of the great
apostasy” in the XXth century, brutal persecutions of Christians in Communist countries and, simultaneously,
the invitation of Christians to the activity in the interest of the kingdom of God, through
solidarity, conversion, patience and the persistence to the faith. The vital experience and “Fatima’s
Opus” made Father Bakhtalovskyy a lively and unimpeachable witness of historical events of the
XX century inside the “Evil empire” (R. Reagan) of the Soviet Union. The personal conclusion for
Father Roman, for the renovation of faith and Christian morality in Ukraine, was the founding of
a female congregation of the Sacred Heart of Mary from Fatima and ensuring its survival in the
difficult conditions of the existence of an underground Church. Therefore, all activities of Father
Bakhtalovskyy regarding Fatima were an acceleration of the arrival of freedom to the nation and the
Church in Ukraine.