The Miracle of Maglavit

Overview

Was it a deception or did God speak to the people through a deaf-mute shepherd? In the summer of 1935, over 2 million people went to Maglev to see God. All the newspapers of the time wrote about Maglavit, a poor village in Oltenia, where the shepherd Petrache Lupu claimed to have seen and spoken to God. And then he began, like a deaf-mute, to speak to crowds of hundreds of thousands of people. There were only a few newspapers and most of the population couldn't read. Nevertheless, it turned into a mass pilgrimage, as big as the one at Lourdes. A huge amount of money was raised from donations and people claimed to have been cured of serious illnesses. Where is the money? Was Petrache Lupu a saint or a fraud? Was the whole movement suppressed or is this the story of a holy shepherd oppressed by the Communists?