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How the St. Javelin meme raised a million dollars for Ukraine

By Leila Barghouty

18 Sep 2022 · 3 min read

Editor's Note

The Washington Post reports on the significance of “Saint Javelin”—the unofficial saint of the Ukrainian resistance, a knockoff of Mary holding an U.S. made anti-tank missile instead of an infant.

Saint Javelin doesn't grace the stained-glass windows of any church. Her halo is a shade of yellow closer to that of sunflowers and wheat than the golden orb on a traditionally canonized saint. Instead of an infant, she tenderly cradles a Javelin - an American-made, handheld antitank missile.

The Mary knockoff might not be a church-sanctioned saint, but in just a few months, she's developed a following with devotion that rivals that of any high-holiday worshiper. More impressively, she's raised over 1 million dollars for the Ukrainian resistance against the Russian invasion.

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