Papal Consecration Timeline
ShareThe history of the request for the consecration of Russia. As Our Lady stated in the July apparition, after showing the children hell and the many souls falling into it, “to save souls from hell, God wishes to establish devotion to her Immaculate Heart.” Consecration is the means for setting aside a person or a collection of persons (e.g. family, parish, diocese or nation) for the special care and solicitude of the Mother of God, that is, that they may be saved and united for eternity with Her Son.
From Request to Consecration | |
| July 13, 1917 | This war will end, but if men do not refrain from offending God, another and more terrible war will begin during the pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night that is lit by a strange and unknown light [this occurred on January 28, 1938], you will know it is the sign God gives you that He is about to punish the world with war and with hunger, and by the persecution of the Church and the Holy Father. Our Lady “To prevent this, I shall come to the world to ask that Russia be consecrated to my Immaculate Heart, and I shall ask that on the First Saturday of every month Communions of reparation be made in atonement for the sins-of the world.” |
| June 13, 1929 | Our Lady fulfills her promise of July 1917, returning to ask "for the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart, promising its conversion through this means and the hindering of the propagation of its errors.” |
| 1929-1939 | Pope Pius IX is informed of the request. The date is uncertain. |
| 1938 | Portuguese Bishops ask Pius XI for the Consecration of the World to the Immaculate Heart. It is said they were influenced to do this by the spiritual director of Bl. Alexandrina da Costa (1904-1955). |
| June 1940 | Request to Pope Pius XII through the Bishop of Macau, and a little later through Father Gonzaga de Fonseca. Mention is made of Our Lady asking the Consecrating of Russia to the Immaculate Heart. |
| December 1940 | Letter to Pius XII, saying that Our Lord Himself requests the Pope to “consecrate the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, with a special mention for Russia, and order that all the Bishops of the world do the same in union with Your Holiness.” |
| October 31, 1942 | Pope Pius XII consecrates the world to the Immaculate Heart. |
| July 7, 1952 | Pope Pius XII consecrates the Russian people to the Immaculate Heart |
| November 21, 1964 | Pope Paul VI renews, in the presence of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council but without their participation, the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart. |
| May 13, 1982 | Pope John Paul II invites the bishops of the world to join him in consecrating the world and with it Russia to the Immaculate Heart. Many do not receive the invitation in time for the Pope's trip to Fatima to render thanksgiving for preservation from assassination the year before. While there he consecrated the world. Sr. Lucia, who was present, later said it did not fulfill the conditions. |
| October 1983 | Pope John Paul II renews the 1982 Consecration at the Synod of Bishops in Rome. |
| March 25, 1984 | Pope John Paul II, having notified the world's bishops, and invited them to join him from their cathedrals, he makes the collegial consecration in St. Peter's Square, in the presence of the statue of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima - brough there for this purpose. "united with all the pastors of the Church in a particular bond whereby we constitute a body and a college," consecrates "the whole world, especially the peoples for which by reason of their situation you have particular love and solicitude." The Pope and Sr. Lucia initially seemed uncertain whether the consecration had been fulfilled, but shortly thereafter Sr. Lucia tells the papal nuncio to Portugal that the Consecration is fulfilled. |
After the Consecration of 25 March 1984 | |
| May 13, 1984 | One of the largest crowds in Fatima history gathers to pray the Rosary for peace. |
| May 13, 1984 | In an explosion at Severomorsk Naval Base near Murmansk, 2/3rds of all the missiles stockpiled for the Soviet Northern Fleet are destroyed. The blast also destroys facilities needed to maintain the missiles, and kills hundreds of scientists and technicians familiar with their operation and maintenance. Western experts called it the worst naval disaster the USSR had suffered since WWII. |
| December 1984 | Soviet Defense Minister Dmitri Ustinov, mastermind of plans for Western Europe, suddenly and mysteriously dies. |
| March 10-11, 1985 | Soviet Chairman Konstantin Chernenko dies; Soviet Chairman Mikhail Gorbachev is elected. Gorbachev will begin a reform that will eventually bring freedom to the USSR and the Soviet Bloc. The first and greatest freedom is the right to worship God which had been severely shacked under communism, with its doctrine of militant atheism. |
| April 26, 1986 | Chernobyl nuclear reactor melt-down occurs, killing many workers immediately and others through radiation sickness. A 1000 square mile exclusion zone has existed since then. Many argue that it convinced the Soviet government of the folly of nuclear war. |
| May 12, 1988 | An explosion wrecked the only factory that made the rocket motors for the Soviets’ deadly SS 24 long-range missiles, which carry ten nuclear bombs each. |
| August 29, 1989 | Sr. Lucia affirms in correspondence that the consecration "has been accomplished" and that "God will keep His word." |
| November 9, 1989 | Fall of the Berlin Wall |
| Nov-Dec 1989 | Peaceful revolutions in Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania |
| 1990 | East and West Germany are unified |
| December 25, 1991 | Dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics |