Part 5

APOSTASY AND ANTICHRIST ACCORDING TO THE HOLY FATHERS OF THE CHURCH

THE EPOCH OF ANTICHRIST

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

The entire life and activity of Antichrist can be viewed in three periods:

THE FIRST PERIOD of Antichrist, from the day of his birth to the moment of his debut will pass in obscurity.  St. John Damascene says that, “Antichrist will be raised secretly”.

THE SECOND PERIOD of the life of Antichrist will be opened with his conspicuous entry into the role of universal teacher or “prophet”.  It is very possible that he will begin his activity under the conditions of a world war, when man, having endured all the horrors of it, will not see any way out of his calamitous blind alley, because all the means for the resolution of it will be in the hands of a secret society co-acting with Antichrist.  He will offer a plan for the successful resolution of the world crisis, based on social and political wisdom – the establishing of a uniform political and social structure over the whole world.

Having wearied of the agitation of war and crime, mankind, being spiritually blind, will not recognize this project as a cunning snare luring it into the most merciless, continued slavery.  To the contrary, man will hail Antichrist’s manifestations of great erudition, wisdom and genius.

Worldwide publicity of Antichrist as a genius thinker, a new leader and a saviour of all people will flash throughout all nations in the shortest period of time.  “Evil spirits dispersed over the universe will excite in men a universal, most exalted opinion of Antichrist; a general rapture and irresistible attraction to him,” says St. Ephraim the Syrian.  [These predictions were made long before TV and the Internet.]

During this period of his activity, Antichrist will not use any violent methods but will strive to win the confidence and affection of people by means of deceit and a hypocritical, theatrical mask of virtue. [Such predictions are very believable in view of the kind of deceit and gullibility that holds sway over our society at election times.]  He will, says Vladimire Soloviev, “throw a shining cover of good and truth over the mystery of iniquity.”  St. Ephraim states that he will come “in such a manner as to deceive all.  He will appear humble, meek, a hater (as he will say himself) of unrighteousness, shunning idols, showing a preference to piety, good, a lover of the poor, beautiful to the extreme, steadfast, affable to all and especially esteeming the Jewish people because the Jews will be awaiting their Messiah…He will take cunning measures to please everyone in order that the people will quickly come to love him; he will not accept gifts nor speak in anger nor show a gloomy appearance but with a decent exterior he will set about deceiving the world, until he is enthroned.”

From the richest ascetic experience of our great spiritual athletes, it is known to us that when the dark demon cannot vanquish the spiritual athlete, encountering his steadfast resistance, a more powerful devil comes in the image of “an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14).    This “angel of light” strives to instill sympathy and confidence towards himself into the spiritual athlete, thus luring him to his destruction.  Therefore, we are able to conceive how easily and quickly the radiant image of Antichrist will be able to attract general sympathy. 

The result of this deceit will be that, from mankind, there “will arise a demand for an invitation to Antichrist.  A voice of appeal will issue forth in human society, expressing the urgent need for a ‘genius of geniuses’, who would elevate material development and progress to a higher plane and bring about prosperity on earth” (Bishop Ignaty Brianchaninov).

The hypocrisy of Antichrist during this period will go so far that he will not only demonstrate tolerance toward  Christianity, but will even offer his readiness to patronize it.  Externally, he will strive to imitate Christ.  The majority of Christians, not being guided by the spiritual understanding of the Church, but rather by worldly wisdom, will not see through this deceit and will acknowledge Antichrist to be Christ in His second advent.

The monks of the Solovetsky Monastery have handed down an answer which Saint Zosima gave to his spiritual children who asked him how to recognize Antichrist when he comes.  The holy monk gave this precise reply, “When you hear that the Christ has come to the earth or has appeared on earth, then know that it is Antichrist.”  And this answer is also most precise: “The world of man will not recognize Antichrist; it will acknowledge him to be Christ, it will proclaim him as Christ… But it will be neither necessary nor even possible for men to give a report to each other of the coming of the Son of God.  He will appear suddenly; He will appear in His omnipotence to all men and the whole world at one time” (Bp. Ignaty Brianchaninov).

The Saviour Himself forewarned, “Then if any man shall say to you, ‘Lo here is Christ, or there’; do not believe it… Wherefore if they shall say unto you, ‘behold, he is in the desert’; do not go out: ‘behold, he is in the secret chambers’; do not believe it.  For as the lightning comes out of the east and flashes unto the west, so shall the coming of the Son of man be” (Mat. 24:23-27).

In order to deceive men, Antichrist will show forth many stupefying miracles.  His “coming”, says the Apostle Paul, “is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and false wonders” (2 Thes. 2:9).  And St. Cyril of Jerusalem adds, “Being the father of falsehood, he will deceive the imagination by means of false actions so that the multitude may think that they see a dead man raised who is not raised and lame men walking or blind men seeing when no cure has been wrought” (Catechetical Lectures).

All these measures of Antichrist – his teaching and fame as a genius, his false miracles and his whole hypocritical, theatrical life – will have one goal: to seize in his own hands all the power of the world over all people.  The attaining of popularity amongst the Jews will be the first stage on this road.  Antichrist will make every effort so that the Jews will acknowledge him as their promised Messiah.  He will succeed in completing the organization of the Jewish government and will set about realizing the age-old dream of the Jews – the restoration of the temple of Solomon.  After this “he will be constrained by men and will be proclaimed king and the multitudes of the Jewish people will love him; he will restore Jerusalem and will erect the temple for them” (Synaxarion, Triodion of the Fast).  [This has profound implications for the multitudes of Evangelicals who also anticipate the restoration of Jerusalem and the millennial reign of Christ on earth from Jerusalem.  This doctrine, known as Chiliasm, was condemned as heretical by the Church centuries ago.  It was this very materialistic and earthly kingdom understanding that caused the Jewish nation to reject Christ when he came saying my kingdom is not of this world.]              End of part 5 – to be continued

Part 4

APOSTASY AND ANTICHRIST ACCORDING TO THE HOLY FATHERS OF THE CHURCH

THE APPEARANCE OF ANTICHRIST

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

Throughout the history of the Church of Christ, there has appeared a multitude of opponents who have striven to destroy Christ’s faith: Nero, Valerian and others, Mohammed, all the false-teachers and heretics from Simon Magus to the present.  But in the last times, there will arise a special, infinitely more powerful opponent of Christ in the person of Antichrist.  This will be the last and mightiest battle of the devil against the Church.

The Day of the Lord, the final Judgment will not come until Antichrist is revealed.  Saint Paul, in his letter to the Thessalonians said, “Let us turn, brethren, to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and how we shall all be gathered round him; do not become alarmed too soon by any prediction or rumor or any letter claiming to be from us, implying that the Day of the Lord has already arrived.  Never let anyone deceive you in any way.  That day will not come until the Great Apostasy has occurred and that man of sin, the inheritor of perdition, has appeared” (II Thes. 2:18).

St. Cyril of Jerusalem and other teachers of the Church refer the prophecy of Daniel (7:23-35) to Antichrist who has to come before the end of the world and who will be the ruler of the Jews.  Once he is received by the Jews, then he will show his true self and begin his struggle against Christ’s Church.  [This should be food for thought for those who are looking for a worldly kingdom of Christ on earth with headquarters in Jerusalem.] He will repudiate the Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ and will try to destroy His Church and Mysteries [Sacraments], replacing them with himself, claiming to be a god and demanding that people bow to him as God.

According to the teachings of the Holy Fathers, every moment in the life of Antichrist will be dominated by Satan.  This domination will appear even from his conception and birth.  The devil’s instrument, in the words of Saint Ephraim the Syrian, “In truth, will be born from a defiled maiden”, and St. John Damascene concludes: “The man (Antichrist) will be born of prostitution”.

The fathers Irenaeus, Hippolytus and Ambrose of Milan as well as the early Christian writers Jerome and Augustine, mention that Antichrist will be of the Jewish race from the tribe of Dan.  Antichrist will arrive (as St. Hippolytus says), born from a defiled woman, a supposed virgin from amongst the Jews, from the tribe of Dan.”

            1. In the prophecy of the patriarch Jacob concerning each of his sons who became the founders of the tribes of Israel, the fate of the posterity of Dan is portrayed in such a way as to relate to Antichrist: “Dan will be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path” (Gen. 49: 17).

            2. In the prophecy of Jeremiah: “The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan: the whole land trembled at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones; for they are come and have devoured the land and all that is in it; the city, and those that dwell therein” (Jer. 8:16).

            3. In the prophecy of the Revelation, which enumerates the remnant of all the tribes of Israel which are sealed by the angel for salvation, the tribe of Dan is completely excluded (Rev. 7:4-8).

From the teachings of the Holy Fathers, we learn that Satan, in establishing Antichrist, will strive to give him all the appearances and signs of the coming of the Son of God on earth.   [Once again, this has fearful and profound implications for those who expect a worldly reign of Christ on earth from Jerusalem.]

Of course, the resemblances of Antichrist with Christ will be only external and, in essence, only illusory, for the whole life of Antichrist will be an obstinate revolt against Christ and His Church.   Since Christ was born of an all-pure virgin, Satan will bring forth his special instrument from an impure maid who appears as a maiden.  She will be filled with every vice and satanic filth.

Then, just as the Lord remained in obscurity until His thirtieth year, so Antichrist, one must suppose, will remain hidden until a like age.  As Christ began His saving work by preaching of His holy teaching and with miracles, so also will Antichrist begin his pernicious work by deceiving men with his false teaching, false hopes and false miracles.  As it was pleasing to the Lord to reveal Himself publicly as the Messiah by His triumphal entry into Jerusalem and into the temple, so Antichrist will reveal himself as the (false) Messiah expected by the Jews, the monarch of all the world, in his own triumphant ceremony of entering into Jerusalem and taking up his seat in the temple of Jerusalem, which by that time will be restored.

In his book, “The Last Days of the Earthly Life of Jesus Christ”, Archbishop Innokenty of Kherson states that Christ’s entry into Jerusalem was “a general declaration for all Jews that Jesus Christ is the true Messiah.  His own words, which He spoke before the gates of Jerusalem, serve as an indisputable testimony of this; ‘If you had known,’ He said, turning to the people, ‘even you at least in this your day, the things which belong unto your peace’ (Lk. 19:42).  On that day, with their rejection of the Messiah, the fate of the Israelite people as a whole was decided.”  [This was later confirmed in the words of the Savior when he addressed the people of Israel saying,  “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks, but ye would not.  Behold your house is left to you desolate.”  This does not preclude a large-scale conversion of Jews to Christ before the final day of judgment]

On that future day of the coming into Jerusalem of the false messiah, Antichrist, the fate of mankind contemporary with him will also be decided irreconcilably and eternally.  Blessed are those who, on that last day, will be able to recognize Antichrist as the servant of Satan.

Finally, just as the Lord revealed Himself to the world and accomplished His work as Prophet, King and High Priest, so also will Antichrist concentrate this threefold authority in his own hands and accomplish his pernicious work as the teacher of all mankind, as the monarch of a universal monarchy and as the supreme high priest of all religions, demanding worship of himself as a god.  [We can see how the stage is being set for all of this in the continuous movement of the world in the direction of one world government and one world religion that is essentially humanism. These movements include the United Nations, the European Union, the North American Union, the World Council of Churches, the World Council of Religions, and the Ecumenical movement in general.]

End of part 4

To be continued in part 5

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

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

APOSTASY AND ANTICHRIST ACCORDING TO THE HOLY FATHERS OF THE CHURCH

Part I

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

Preface

“First, be aware of this: In the last days scoffers will enter…saying, ‘where is the promise of His coming?  For…all things continue to be as they were since the dawn of creation’”.

True to this prophecy of the Holy Apostle Peter, there are many such scoffers amongst us.  There are even many who bear the name Christian who have, nevertheless, ceased to hope on the return of Christ.  Now they are planning better things of their own.  Having resolved that there will be no God-created “new heaven and new earth”, these scoffers have decided to forge a man-created new world.

To this, Saint Paul admonishes, “Let no man deceive you by any means?  That day will not come before there first comes the great apostasy and that man who is sin personified is revealed, the inheritor of perdition who will oppose himself to and exalt himself above all that is called divine or that is worshipped by man, even sitting in the temple of God, claiming to be a god himself…Therefore, brethren, stand firm and hold fast to all the traditions which you have been taught, whether by word or by our epistle.”

The Orthodox Christian Church has always taught that the cause of the ultimate destruction of civilization will be the religious and moral decay of humanity; that the time would arrive when vast segments of the Holy Orthodoxy Church would apostatize, when a counter church, formed under Satan’s leadership, would arise and when evil will reign so strongly in the life of mankind that life on earth will become almost impossible.  Then the world will lose its right and its reason for existence.  The destruction will come about according to God’s sentence, but the cause of the sentence will be the evil of mankind.

Concerning the fulfillment of such prophecies, our attention must turn to Revelation 8:7-12 and the ninth chapter, where the visionary, Saint John, persistently emphasizes that various disasters and miseries will descent upon one-third of mankind and upon one-third of the earth’s surface at the beginning of the culmination of time.  “If one considers,” says Father Alexander Kolesnikov, “those nations and peoples which have become a sacrifice to wars and revolutions in the twentieth century, then it will be seen that they make up approximately one-third of the earth’s surface and population.”

Most especially, the “permanent” disasters, which include true martyrdoms and open warfare against he Church, have befallen Orthodox Christian nations – almost entirely in the first half of the twentieth century and general as one of the results of the first general war.  Communism captured all of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus before 1950.  Nor was Greece spared fro the Venezelists and several defiled Church leaders launched their attacks upon Holy Orthodoxy in Greece in the 1920’s, almost as if to counter the holy teaching and saintly example of Saint Nectarios of Pentapolis.  Alexandria, Antioch and the Church of China have also fallen under Communist controlled governments since the second general war.  [Since the publication of this book we have seen other huge Orthodox populations in the Middle East be almost wiped out by the Muslim invasions.]  One cannot help but have the impression that the evil forces of the world have set themselves to the task of weakening the Orthodox Christian peoples in order to remove the main obstacles to the realization of their future plans.  [St. Paul spoke of the force that would hinder the arrival of the antichrist until that force would be taken away reminding us also of God’s willingness to spare Sodom and Gomorrah if ten righteous men could have been found.]

In addition to the shock of world events and of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man, authors of anti-Christ philosophical, political and religious theories and systems have attacked Christianity especially heavily in recent times.  For the most part, these philosophies have taught, and still are teaching, that a “law of progress” reigns in the history of mankind.  Accordingly, humanity, in all aspects of its existence, has, throughout its history, evolved upward.  These philosophers teach that the political, social and ideological forms of the life of the human race are continually improving and that man will eventually find and bring about, by his own power and human development, the most complete and ideal political and social order of life; an order in which reason, science, peace, safety, justice and material well-being will be complete.  As a matter of fact, a large number of defiled, nominal Orthodox Christian leaders have begun to present such thesis.  Most notable amongst these are hierarchs of the Ecumenical Patriarchate which has begun to teach these things “so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect”. 

Christ, on the other hand, taught something completely the opposite.  Christ foretold that there would be “wars and rumors of wars”; that there would be “not peace, but the sword”; that the “love of many will grow cold because of the violence of mankind”.  Let us look at the history of the twentieth century and ask: who has been proven to be right, Christ or the wistful philosophers?  There has arrived no reign of reason, but rather a reign of the most coarse materialism and animalistic passions in man.  In place of peace and safety there are terrible wars and the almost daily rumor of new wars; instead of justice we have witnessed violence, rioting, murders, mass executions, concentration camps; instead of material well-being, there are regular reports of mass starvations and deprivations of millions.  Instead of accord with the reason of religion there is the almost daily appearance and strengthening of sects with the darkest of teachings – freemasonry, Theosophy, Baha’i, Kabala, Islam, so-called Christian Science, open Satan worship and witchcraft cults to name only a few.

What is more significant is the fact that the will to resist all these evil movements has begun to leave mankind.  Now, people can accept Satan cults with little or no shock, pausing only briefly to be dismayed or horrified [before returning to their favorite movie happy hour].  That society in general is willing to condone Satanic acts is clearly demonstrated in the legalization of abortions.  The mass extermination of babies for immorality and convenience has not only ceased to shock most people, but has become accepted as a “norm”.

END OF PART I – TO BE CONTINUED