Barbara Grabner
Mission Butterfly

Pioneers Behind the Iron Curtain

(Revised Edition 2026)

296 Pages, Paperback, English

This book is a compilation of testimonies of missionaries of the Unification Church who worked in Eastern Europe from 1980 to 1992. These young men and women experienced the oppression of communist regimes as well as the peaceful transition to a free Europe. The missionaries were called “butterflies”, an analogy to the insects which are not restricted by borders.

Barbara Grabner, born in 1955 near Salzburg, Austria, is a graduate in Eastern European History and Journalism of the University of Vienna. Starting in 1988, she wrote many articles about Eastern Europe during and after the end of communism. The first edition of Mission Butterfly (2006), was published in three languages.