{{short description|Brazilian school teacher}} {{Infobox saint |honorific_prefix= Saint |name= Maria Beruski |birth_date=c. 1959 |birth_place=Joaquim Távora, Paraná, Brazil |death_date={{Death date and age|df=yes|1986|04|04|1959||}} |death_place=Joaquim Távora |image=Santa Maria Aparecida Beruski.jpg |imagesize=245px |caption= Icon of St. Maria Beruski by Michel Qapeluk, 2006 |titles=Martyr of Joaquim Távora }}
'''Maria Aparecida Beruski''', also known as '''Berushko'''<ref group="note">Her ancestral Ukrainian name was '''Berushko''', but it was derived as '''Beruski''' in Brazil. Posthumously, many prefer to address her by her ancestral surname.</ref><ref name="MRC">{{cite web|url=https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2018/04/maria-berushko-of-brazil-and-eight.html|website=Mystagogy Resource Center|title=Maria Berushko of Brazil and Eight Students who Died Trying to Save Children During a Fire in their School (+1986)|last=Sanidopoulos|first=John|date=April 4, 2018}}</ref> (c. 1959 – 4 April 1986), was a school teacher who died saving her students in a school fire in Brazil. She may become the first Orthodox saint in Latin America.<ref>''Religious Information Service of Ukraine Portal News, in Ukrainian''</ref>
Maria, being of Ukrainian descent, was born in 1959, in Joaquim Távora, Paraná, Brazil.
When a school caught fire in 1986, Maria refused a chance to leave the building, instead she stayed inside and assisted her pupils in escaping. Beruski assisted in saving the lives of 5 children, but 8 children died together with the teacher in the fire.
In 2007, the Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Latin America placed the issue of Maria's glorification to the Ecumenical Patriarchate.<ref>''Orthodoxy in Ukraine Portal, 15.10.2007, Ukrainian language''</ref> It was expected the final decision to be made within three years, but the Patriarchate later discarded the glorification.
A street in the Brazilian town of Curitiba has already been named after Beruski (Rua Maria Aparecida Beruski).
==References== {{Reflist}} {{notefoot}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beruski, Maria}} Category:1959 births Category:1986 deaths Category:Brazilian people of Ukrainian descent Category:Brazilian educational theorists Category:People from Paraná (state) Category:People from Curitiba Category:20th-century Christian saints Category:Christian female saints of the Late Modern era Category:Eastern Orthodox Christians from Brazil Category:Members of Ukrainian Orthodox church bodies Category:Deaths from fire Category:Accidental deaths in Brazil Category:20th-century educational theorists
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