JOSYP TERELYA - MYSTIC AND PAINTER OF THE ICON

Josyp Terelya, Mystic and world renowned Visionary saw the Blessed Virgin Mary 7 times.   Our Lady had miraculously saved Josyp's life in Hrushiv, Ukraine, his native country which is very well documented in his Autobiography Witness with Michael Brown (copyright 1991, Faith Publishing Company, ISBN #: 1-877678-17-1).

Mystic, accomplished master fine art painter, and world renowned Marian Visionary Josyp Terelya (1944-2009) - who saw Mary 7 times, PAINTED THE IMPRINTED, BEATIFIC and PERFECTED "HEAVENLY FACE OF MARY" on OUR LADY MEDIATRIX OF ALL GRACES® Icon known as THE MIRACULOUS ICON® using "Mary's Earthly Face" that Saint Luke painted on his Icon - as a further guide!

From Medjugorje Magazine 1990, in an article entitled Modern Martyrs, which stated:

“Josyp’s story, plus his account of things to come; things that have recently come to pass or are happening today. There are events unfolding right now in the world which are exactly what Josyp foretold. For example, he told the elite of the Soviet Communist Government their empire would collapse by 1991! The book also contains some of the messages from Our Lady to Josyp.

“It was at the early age of fourteen that Josyp Terelya began working to evangelize the Russians, through promoting devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. During the 1960’s, one thousand young men at a time would gather to worship the Eucharist. They organized discussions and seminars in secret, in barns and private homes, with guards watching. By the time a young man became fifteen, he knew his faith and he was ready to speak it to others with conviction. It was real Catholic action, and even then Josyp was seen as a leader by his peers.

“At nineteen, Josyp was conscripted into the army.  He arrived at the recruiting center carrying his Bible and Catholic literature. He told them he was joining the Soviet army to evangelize the soldiers to Catholicism. They sent him home and two weeks later he was arrested. This was in 1962. He was given a four year sentence, which was extended over and over until he had spent 15 years in prison, living under extreme torture.

“In February, 1972, Josyp was thrown into a cell one evening to be frozen to death. The Soviets would lower the temperature of the room and the prisoner would freeze to death by morning. He had only a thin blanket. Josyp said that as his body began to freeze he was in intense pain. He could even feel sharp stabs of pain in the individual roots of his hair as they froze. There was one light in the room and Josyp climbed up a screen and tried to warm his head by that light. A guard looked through the tiny opening in the door, saw what he was doing, and turned out the light.

“Within a few minutes Josyp was so cold he could no longer move. He couldn’t more his limbs or even open his lips or eyelids. Only his mind continued to function. He lay on his cot, eyes closed, waiting to die. Suddenly he felt the touch of a woman’s hand on his forehead and over his eyes. It was warm and it had the fragrance of milk. He felt the whole room becoming warm and his own body also. He heard a voice, ‘You called me and I have come to you.’”

Josyp Terelya’s Autobiography Witness with Michael Brown, the back of the book review has this further to say about:

“The account you are about to read is the story of a mystic, a visionary, a suffering servant, a victim of Communism. It is the story of a nationalist, a rebel, a Catholic activist. It is the account of a man who spent much of his life behind bars because of his faith and evangelism. It is also the story of extraordinary events – allegedly supernatural events 0 that are said to have occurred in the Ukraine.

Josyp Jaromyr Terelya has fought for the cause of Christianity all his life and in the most hostile of circumstances. This is his autobiography. It details 20 years in prisons and camps. It is truly remarkable. We publish it, simply because we believe in it.

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• “Josyp Terelya is the stuff of Hollywood epics. Terelya’s is an adventure story of classic proportions.”

                                          Patrick F. Brennan Sr.

                                          In Mission of the Immaculata

•  “Josyp Terelya spent 20 long years in the Soviet prisons, labor camps, and psychiatric hospitals because he fought for the right of all Ukrainian Catholics to practice their religious beliefs.”

                                         U. S. Senator Frank Lautenberg

• “Another Alexander Solzhenitsyn is crying out to us from deep within the Soviet prison system.”

                                         Columnist Jack Anderson

• “Terelya is one of the lay leaders who have helped keep the Church alive through more than 40 years of persecution.”

                                         The Boston Globe

• “Reads like a chilling resume of one whose career has been based on how to survive in the Soviet gulag. His ‘crimes’ center around his leadership in the Ukrainian Catholic Church.”

                                          Senator Dennis DeConcini

                                          Commission on Security in Europe.