APOSTASY AND
ANTICHRIST ACCORDING TO THE HOLY FATHERS OF THE CHURCH
Part 2
(Exerted from a booklet published by Holy Trinity Monastery,
Jordanville, NY in 1992, no longer in print.)
A NEW BABYLON
As the day of the glorification of the Holy Church approaches,
a new edifice arises in the world, an edifice contradictory to the truth of
Christ’s Building – this is the mystery Babylon. The actions of the ancients who dreamed of
immortalizing themselves on earth, of creating a name for themselves, is being
repeated. Today’s Chaldeans, however, do
not dream of having their names written in heaven, but rather of leaving a name
and a memory of their deeds on earth.
Here is a new Babylon in the fullness of the word: mixing
truth with untruth. Instead of the clear
light of the teaching of the Holy Church, founded on the Gospels, the prophets,
apostles, fathers and Councils of the Church, these new Babylonians thirst for
apostate teachings and dark philosophical systems in which truth is mixed with
lies and interwoven with untruth. This
manner of thinking is the foundation of the new Babylon. This tower of false teaching grows
daily. Great indeed is the danger of
losing one’s way on the path of salvation because of the spreading dust from
this Babylonian construction of a monument to the dreamers and those who seek
to inscribe their own names on earth.
How great the enmity between Satan’s principality and the
kingdom of God is has been revealed to us in the Revelations, especially at 12:
1-8 and 13:14. According to the Holy
Fathers these words reveal to us that, in the last days, Satan will be allowed
to make war against the saints of God, and the Church (the woman vested in the
sun) will flee away into the wilderness.
The Holy Church will have returned to the catacombs and house churches,
becoming very small, scattered and persecuted.
The Church will have no place of honor or protection in society. It will be much the same as it was for the
Church in the first century under pagan Rome.
Christ’s Church has been persecuted and oppressed in all
ages by the prince of this world in different ways at different times. The early years saw severe persecution from
without - from society, the world, the government, the Jewish religion and
pagan Greek and Roman religions.
Once the Church became recognized and under the protection
of Constantine in the fourth century, the persecution of the Church by Satan
came from within in the form of schisms and heresies. Satan used members of the Church to attack
the dogmas of the faith, seeking to create disunity and to destroy the
doctrines necessary for salvation. To be
sure, in both periods many souls abandoned the Holy Church and joined the ranks
of Satan.
A third period of persecution began with the rise of
Mohammed and again the Church was submitted to open physical persecution. During this period the Orthodox Christian
population of entire areas of the East was slaughtered for refusing to renounce
Christ. It is notable that the Moslem
conquest of the Orthodox Christian world took place at about the same time as
new heresies were arising in Western Europe; first Papism and then
Protestantism and finally such cults as Freemasonry. At this time Satan began using both
persecution from within and from without to try to destroy the Church.
A forth period of persecution came in the form of the
anarchist and social revolution movements, attacking every social order on
earth, striving to throw the world into a state of conflict and confusion to
pave the way for the extermination of Christianity, notably Marxist Socialism,
Communism and Nazism.
Satan continues in our day to use all types of persecution
against the Church. Orthodoxy today is
in a type of Babylonian captivity, suffering loss from without at the hands of
the Moslems in the Middle East, materialistic and humanistic socialism and the
heresies of Rome and Protestantism in the West, and from the heresy of
Ecumenism from within. The special
snare-words that Satan has used in order
to entice people into these movements include: “freedom”, “love”, “brotherhood”, “equality”, and “unity of
mankind”. How many are following after
these meaningless slogans, not caring who originated them or what the actual
manifestations of these so-called humanitarian movements are. How clearly they are being led by the prince
of this world, by artificial enticements, how quickly they are headed for the
anarchy which will bring about the last tormentor of mankind, Antichrist.
End of Part 2
To be continued with Part 3
