Part 3

APOSTASY AND ANTICHRIST ACCORDING TO THE HOLY FATHERS OF THE CHURCH

THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THIS WORLD AND OF THE EARTHLY SOJOURN OF CHRIST’S CHURCH

(Exerted from a booklet published by Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, NY in 1992, no longer in print.)

According to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures and the holy Fathers of the Church, the end of the world and the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ will be heralded by a great, visible spread of lawlessness and impiety amongst all peoples, the completion of the preaching of the Gospel throughout the world, including to the Jews in a restored Israel, extreme physical troubles and the coming of Antichrist and his struggle with Christ’s Holy Church.

The holy Apostles teach that in the very last times, the various ruinous heresies and false teachings will multiply and gather great strength while unbelief will increase.  Mankind as a whole will be morally deaf and blind and insensitive to everything that concerns salvation.  People will willingly believe any falsehood and reject Christ’s law.  Every possible vise and error will be accepted by the world at large.

Saint Paul, in his Epistle to the Thessalonians, says that when Antichrist appears, [there will be many antichrist spirits, movements and forerunners before the final man of sin is revealed] he will be allowed to entice many.  “…there will be all sorts of miracles and a deceptive show of signs  and wonders, and everything evil that can deceive those who are bound for destruction because they would not obey the truth which would have saved them.  The reason why God will send a power to delude them and make them believe what is untrue is to condemn all those who refused to believe in the truth and chose wickedness instead”  (II Thes, 2:10,12).

In his epistle to Timothy, the Apostle instructs, “You may be quite certain that in the last days there are going to be difficult times.  People will be self-centered and grasping; boastful, arrogant and rude; disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, irreligious; heartless and unappeasable; they will be slanderers, profligates, savages and enemies of everything that is good; they will be treacherous and reckless and demented by pride, preferring their own pleasure to God.  They will keep up the outward appearance of religion but will have rejected the inner power of it.  Have nothing to do with people like that” (II Tim. 3: 1-5).

Of course, all these vices have always been present in the world, but in the last days they will become the dominant characteristics of society.

End of Part 3

To be continued in part 4