Shrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

On 15 November 1991, ownership of the upper and lower churches in Berdychiv was restored to the Roman Catholic Church. Parish and pastoral work continued under difficult conditions in the ruined shrine.

The Carmelites undertook the demanding task of rebuilding both churches. Crowds of pilgrims began coming to the shrine. A new icon of Our Lady of Berdychiv was painted. Pope John Paul II blessed the new image of the Virgin Mary on 9 June 1997 in St Hedwig’s Church in Kraków. The icon was crowned with papal crowns during the patronal celebration of Our Lady of Mount Carmel on 19 July 1998. Jan Purwiński, Bishop of Kyiv-Zhytomyr, performed the coronation on behalf of the Pope. Our Lady returned to her shrine, to the ruins left by the communist era, to heal wounded hearts, give sight to the blind, reveal the true meaning of life and lead everyone into the freedom of God’s children. On 27 October 2011, the bishops’ conference of Ukraine decided to proclaim the previously diocesan Shrine of Our Lady of Berdychiv a national shrine for all Ukraine. Its official name thus became the All-Ukrainian Shrine of Our Lady of the Holy Scapular. The shrine’s upper church was dedicated on 9 June 2012. Archbishop Mieczysław Mokrzycki, Metropolitan of Lviv, was the principal consecrator, with Archbishop Petro Malchuk and Bishop Stanislav Shyrokoradiuk as co-consecrators.