The first incident actually occurred two weeks before World War I, May 12, 1914, in the village of Hrushiv. Twenty-two people, who were moving fields near the local church of the Holy Trinity, all witnessed an apparition of the Virgin Mary. She said to them, There will be a war. Russia will become a godless country. The Ukraine, as a nation, will suffer terriby for eighty years - and will have to live through the world wars, but it will be free afterwards."