All the prophecies of the Revelation (Apocalypse) of John the Theologian will come true (and are already coming true!). Thus, a gigantic computer center called “The Beast” has already been created in Brussels. The goal of this center in the near future is to collect data about every person on earth. Ostensibly in order to make it more convenient to carry out financial transactions (buying and selling), and other necessary political and administrative measures. "The Beast" operates on the principle of computer banking centers, which already widely use electronic cards to simplify payments. Some banking systems that use cards have set a common code for them - “666”. The Brussels computer has the same general (worldwide) code - “666”. This number will be followed by the digital code of the country, followed by the code of the area (city), followed by the personal digital code of the person. So the entire population of the Earth, all of humanity, will be marked with numbers under a common number for everyone - “666”. Electronic cards will gradually be phased out as expensive and inconvenient. Digital codes will be applied with some isotopes, invisible to the eye, directly on the forehead or on the right hand of each person. Laser devices in institutions, shops, banks and offices will quickly “read” such a code and, through the main computer, immediately provide data about the person, his position and financial capabilities. Such codes will replace bank checks (or cards) and passports, driver’s licenses, passes, and other documents (the savings on paper alone will be enormous!). Without such digital codes on the forehead or on the hand, people will not be able to sell or buy. This is the very “seal” of the Antichrist, the mark of the beast, containing his name or the number of his name, which is spoken of in the Revelation of John the Theologian, written 2000 years ago.
Digital markings also have a spiritual meaning. Rev. testifies to him. The Nile flows, conveying it as a dialogue between a man and the devil: “I am yours.” - “Yes, you are mine.” - “I go by will, and not by force.” - “And by your will I accept you.” Seal codes will be placed voluntarily: if you want, accept, if you don’t want, no. But in the latter case there will be almost no means of subsistence and certainly no opportunity to succeed in life and business. As under the Bolsheviks: if you want to be a believer, please! But then go to the janitors and sit quietly, otherwise you’ll end up in prison or a mental hospital... Everything is rehearsed. The Apocalypse indicated for quick identification by believers, as a special sign of the “seal” of the Antichrist, that those who do not have it “will neither be able to buy nor sell,” that is, they will not be able to conduct any financial and trading activities.
However, all of the above coincidences are only external signs of the mark of the beast, by which everyone could “recognize” it. Therefore, it is obvious that there must be some secret meaning of the “seal of the Antichrist”, which determines its role in the kingdom he is establishing. And this role should be much more significant than the one that would be assigned to the usual (for that time) means of formalizing dependence, subordination of a person to the world-wide atheistic anti-state.
The Orthodox philosopher and monarchist historian Lev Tikhomirov, well-known in pre-revolutionary Russia, focuses on the presence of another side in the management of the Antichrist, which constitutes “the very essence of his program, for which the restoration of a harmonious state order is only a means of disciplined unification of all human forces and wills to achieve the mystical goal -magical. This goal is to revolutionize the entire world existence, overthrow the power of God, subjugate to man all the material and spiritual forces of the universe and bring angels to serve people. The Antichrist will lead his subjects to conquer such supernatural power, subordinating them to a cruel dictatorship. Christians are inevitably subjected to exterminating persecution. It `s naturally. When starting a mystical struggle against divine forces, people use the tension of their will as a means of action. All "other-minded" must be destroyed. In mystical "action at a distance" a uniform effort of will is required to achieve influence over angels and other divine beings.
We see even now in spiritualistic and occult séances that everyone participating in the “chain” must equally and harmoniously tune their will. If, under the Antichrist, the struggle against God will be waged with the help of “psychic batteries,” then the presence on earth of people who are different-minded, unsympathetic, and even ready to oppose, can undermine all the efforts of the sorcerer’s army.
All such persons will be qualified as a most harmful element, undermining the efforts of mankind in the greatest cause of history, which will then be considered the rebellion of people against God in alliance with Satan.
A brutal war will begin against Christians. "And it was given to him (Antichrist) to make war with the saints and to overcome them; and power was given to him over every tribe and people and tongue and nation. And all who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names are not written in the Lamb's book of life "(Rev. 13; 7,8)." (Lev Tikhomirov. Recent times. M.: Publishing house "Library of the Serbian Cross" 2003).
Here attention is drawn to a very important point - unanimity, which is necessary in the Kingdom of Antichrist. This is a direct parallel with the Church of Christ: how in Her those who are like-minded (by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ) and living a life of grace are saved, although formally members of the Church organization may belong to members who, in fact, are not included in the mystical body of Christ, to which alone they are applicable the words "holy catholic and apostolic Church"; so in the Kingdom of the Antichrist being established, it is not enough to serve the latter “out of fear” or out of delusion, as was the case in Soviet times; unanimity is also necessary. But where does it come from?
As we know from Revelation and the interpretations of the holy fathers on it, the first half of the reign of the Antichrist will pass under the veil of all-pervading wickedness, “in order to deceive, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew 24:24), the second half will open by laughing “in a disgusting grimace of the face Father of Lies" (in the words of the Holy Martyr Bishop of Damascus) over fallen humanity, and the Antichrist will already show his bestial grin. “After people then receive the seal,” says St. Hippolytus of Rome, “and find no food or water, they will come to him and speak in a voice filled with despair... About misfortune, about regrettable trade, about treacherous agreement oh immense fall! How could the seducer entangle us? How have we bowed down to him? How are we caught in his nets? How entangled in his unclean net? How was it that when we heard the Scriptures we could not understand them?” (St. Hippolytus of Rome. Creations. Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra. 1997, vol. 2, p. 77).
Obviously, neither the faith of lies that prevailed during the first period of the reign of the Antichrist, nor the extreme despair, dissolved with disgust for the recently crowned world dictator after he “revealed his cards,” has nothing to do with the mood of such devil-worshippers as outright Satanists and Judaizers. Masons of the highest degrees of initiation.
If the latter will always be a minority, and the general deception will dissipate as soon as humanity completely surrenders itself to the power of the “son of perdition,” then who will constitute the so-called. "psychic batteries"? After all, even if he is a forced slave, a dissident slave is not suitable for such a role. This is where the “seal of the Antichrist” will manifest itself, no longer formally uniting those who have received it into a certain herd of numbered “goats,” but essentially – making them unanimous in their rejection of God and desire to fight against Him. This will give the Antichrist the properties of “Divine omniscience” and “providential” care - control of the souls of people led to destruction.
The establishment of the kingdom of the Antichrist became possible only after the completion of the apocalyptic event described by St. John the Theologian in chapter 20: “And I saw an angel descending from heaven, who had the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. He took the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and cast him into the abyss, and shut him up, and put a seal over him, so that he would no longer deceive the nations until the thousand years were ended; after this he should be released for a short time.” (Rev. 20; 1-3).
This liberation could only occur after the removal of the Retainer, by which we must understand the last Orthodox Emperor of the Third Rome. This is how Archimandrite wrote about it. Konstantin (Zaitsev): “The providential essence of the Orthodox Tsar was that, in symphony with the Church, he played the role of the Holder; the presence of such a king meant the bondage of Satan for a long period of time (“a thousand years” according to the Apocalypse). The fall of the Holder, the disappearance of the power blessed by God, the power that was intended to serve the Church and protect it, meant the advent of a new era - the final one in the history of the world, when Satan can not only seduce people (which he has always been allowed to do), but also gets the opportunity rule over them. This last thing happened immediately after the fall of the Holder in Russia itself: Satan began to directly rule in it, using as his weapons people united in the conscious service of evil - Satanocracy.” (The feat of Orthodox Russianness in the face of apostasy // “The Miracle of Russian History”, Jordanville, 1970).
Satanocracy is the power of Satan, which he received at the end of the predicted “thousand years” and first took shape in the form of a totalitarian anti-God anti-state. “At this stage, there is a massive depersonalization of people. – Wrote Archimandrite. Konstantin. “All kinds of terror serve this purpose.” Firstly, terror hanging over every person, not giving him the slightest respite, oppressing him with its everyday life, penetrating into every corner with surveillance. Secondly, this is “ration training”. There are no earthly blessings that a person could enjoy otherwise than by the grace of Satanocracy - depending on how he pleased it. At the same time, a person is preserved in an atmosphere of external impressions favorable to Satanocracy, with the expulsion of everything displeasing to it.
Thus, a person turns into an impersonal, weak-willed, thoughtless creature, set in motion by Satanocracy through the stimulation of certain instincts in him; and collectively they form a silent herd. Those that cannot be depersonalized are destroyed.” (Ibid.).
The power of Satan becomes total, not allowing any exceptions and using the most indulgences for even greater enslavement. This has never happened before in the history of mankind. And “it is clear that the very idea of a totalitarian system could not originate in national Russia. Even the most vast Russian space excluded its appearance. – Writes I. Ilyin, switching our attention from the spiritual to the accompanying technical side of the issue. – This idea could only arise in the era of all-pervading technology: telephone, telegraph, free aeronautics, radio speaking. It was born only during the real revolution as an abuse of this technology, which for the first time made it possible to create such centralization and such an all-pervasive statehood, which now awaits only technically and politically organized far-sightedness and far-hearing in order to make free life on earth completely impossible.
You have to imagine that 50 (and today it’s already 100 - editor’s note) years ago, a state courier in Russia rode from Irkutsk to St. Petersburg for a month and a half on horseback and the same amount on the other side... And from Yakutsk? And from Vladivostok? After the construction of the Siberian Railway, completed in 1906, mail traveled from Moscow to Vladivostok for twelve and a half days. And they started talking on the radio in Russia only before the revolution itself, during the war, and then only for military needs... That’s why the very idea of totalitarianism (in which “people are turned into numbered units,” as the author wrote in another of his works - approx. ed.) couldn’t occur to anyone.” (I. Ilyin. Sob. op. vol. 7. P. 342).
As we have seen, a totalitarian state was created on the ruins of the Third Rome, and confronted all of humanity with the fact of the advent of the post-Christian era (i.e., the end of the Kingdom of God on earth), the end of history and the last times. Only in the 20th century. The Jews were closer than ever to realizing their desired enslavement of the peoples of the earth. By God's permission for the sins of the human race, the “ancient serpent” handed over to his human tools the keys to technological progress, used by the devil as a surrogate for Divine omnipotence. From the very beginning, this made it possible to establish a totalitarian regime on the “fourth part of the earth” (Rev. 6:8). Recently, progress has stepped so far that it has become possible to control the entire world, each individual individually and everyone at the same time. As Hieromonk Seraphim Rose wrote: “It is known about the Antichrist that he will be the ruler of the world, but only in our time has the possibility become practically real that one person would rule the whole world. All world empires that existed before our time occupied only certain parts of the world, and only with the advent of modern means of communication did it become possible for one person to rule the entire world.” (Signs of the Times. Secrets of the book Apocalypse. M., 2000. P. 41).
Just as the Soviet state received secret injections from the West and was fueled by American Jewish banks, so subsequently the preparation of the technotronic base of the Kingdom of the Antichrist was carried out through the joint efforts of the world scientific community united for these purposes. Already from the 20s. last century, active developments were carried out in the field of effective control over the individual. First of all, it was necessary to learn to “read” a person’s thoughts. Of course, we are not talking about acts of the human spirit, such as prayerful communication with God, but about mental activity aimed at earthly existence in the flesh.
Due to the close relationship between the soul and the body, all “mundane” mental activity through the nervous system and its centers - the brain and spinal cord - leads to changes in the physical structure of a person. Every thought or feeling generates corresponding nerve impulses that are transmitted along nerve fibers to any part of the body and cause a corresponding reaction in the body. And since all people are the same, then the nerve impulses and the paths they follow are identical for everyone. With the help of increasingly improved technology, it became possible to track and identify them. In the end, based on the collected research results, a computer program was created that can “read thoughts” using sensors connected to a person.
At the same time, research was carried out in the opposite direction - by irritating areas of the brain, trying to obtain an adequate response from the body. This was also crowned with success, since, having learned to recognize nerve impulses, it was not difficult to learn how to send them to manipulate the human psyche. Such an undertaking was easy, of course, relative to the scientific and technical potential and colossal funds available at the disposal of the World Government, for which both the superpowers of that time and half of Europe worked, paying for the fictional Holocaust in the Second World War.
But the research did not end there; all efforts were made to make it possible to control the human psyche at a distance. Nowadays this can be done through various communication channels: radio, cellular, satellite. Special microprocessors implanted under the skin have been developed to perform the functions of a receiver-transmitter of nerve impulses. You also need special equipment that is sensitive and powerful enough to process these signals. And so, today our earth is controlled by 23 satellites, they are put into orbit at a certain distance from each other, communicating with each other, powered by solar panels and transmitting any changes on the earth’s surface, as well as any information taken from the earth to the earth. The satellites are equipped with modern, cutting-edge equipment, so powerful that they can read an autograph written with a ballpoint pen on a soccer ball or trace the path of an earthworm. This allows you to determine the exact location of the person carrying the chip at any time, regardless of where in the world (even underground) he is located. At the same time, it is possible to exchange information with the chip and control it.
From here it becomes clear what kind of base humanity has created over the past century. And, oddly enough, the Soviet Union was ahead of the rest. Remember the flight of the first man into space, the first orbital station "Mir". The pre-revolutionary orthography of the Russian language distinguished between two spellings of this word: “Peace” and “Mip” - the difference in spelling stemmed from the words of the Savior Himself: “... My peace I give to you; Not as the world gives, I give to you.” (John 14:27). And so, the Soviet people confirmed that all this technotronic magic, the secrets of which, by God’s permission, were revealed to fallen humanity by Dennitsa himself, is for them the desired “peace” that they are trying to get besides God - from His enemy.
I. Ilyin wrote half a century ago: “And in vain they admire (or only pretend to admire) the size of Soviet industrial construction: “what factories were built, what structures were erected, Russia has never seen anything like it”...
We only ask: why is all this being built? For what purpose? Answer: for the revolutionary conquest of the world at the cost of the destruction of Russia. That says it all. You cannot admire the means without sharing the ends. Anyone who rejoices at the successes of Soviet industry actually secretly sympathizes with these world plans and is only afraid to express it out loud.” (I. Ilyin. Sob. op. vol. 7. P. 357).
Now we are already convinced with our own eyes of the truth of these words, we know about the existence in Zelenograd of a plant for the production of a modern modification of implantable microchips, which have already passed (!) certification in the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation and are put on the assembly line. The first test subjects will probably be stray cats and dogs in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and then seriously ill people, law enforcement officers and intelligence agencies.
Note that this is not the first year that such chips have been implanted under the skin of pets. Implantable chips are becoming increasingly complex. Devices have been developed, for example, that monitor blood chemistry or link the nervous system to injured limbs. The next stage involves chips that interpret sensations and connect people physically separated from each other. “There is nothing to stop you from shaking hands with someone over a computer network,” says American futurist Ian Pearson.
For now, the matter is only about approving an international standard for the use of typeface...
Apparently, together with the implantation of a microchip, a laser bar identification code will be applied to the person. A person's digital code obtained from a microchip and checked against an indelible barcode on the forehead or hand will indicate the authenticity of the person's individualization. In addition, if for some reason the microchip fails, then until the malfunction is eliminated, the person can be identified by a barcode on the forehead or hand. The latter cannot perform other functions necessary for the Antichrist: influence the souls of people, control their physical condition, etc., but an implanted microchip can provide this.
You just need to try to imagine a situation when every inhabitant of the earth will receive such a sensor - they will no longer be people, but some kind of biorobots! What if from the main command post - the Brussels supercomputer "The Beast" - one command is given to everyone, for example: to blaspheme God, and everyone will blaspheme God. Further, another example: all men become homosexuals - and everyone will become... In the end, it will come to the point that, as it is said in Revelation: “And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered to fight with those who sat on horses and with His army." (Rev. 19:19). This will be a rebellion of people against God in alliance with Satan. “Psychic batteries” are more powerful and better than the global community of chipped half-humans, half-robots!
This is where there will be complete unanimity - in the struggle with God!
Archpriest Alexander Khlebnikov. The sermon was read in the Church of the Holy Royal Martyrs in Izhevsk on September 26, current year / October 9, current year. 2013 at the All-Night Vigil before the Six Psalms. Additions attributed to 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019.
There is an opinion that the Apocalypse is not read during worship, this is not so. According to the church charter, the Revelation of John the Theologian is supposed to be read in full on the day of his memory at the all-night vigil, before the Six Psalms, in the so-called. Great readings. The fact that such readings are omitted everywhere does not mean that believers should not know and read this book, which contains prophecies about the time before the Second Coming of Christ.
“The Apocalypse is read after the Epistles, it is probably assumed that it will be read during the period of Lent, although in those parts of the Typicon that relate to the rule of the Sundays of Lent, the reading of the Epistles, and not the Apocalypse, is mentioned. In addition, the Apocalypse is specifically listed as a Great Reading on the day of remembrance of St. John the Theologian on May 8 (Typikon. [Vol. 2.] pp. 623, 627), and this is evidence that in the late Byzantine era the ap. John was recognized as the author of the Revelation of John the Theologian. Thus, V. ch. is the only moment in the service where the Apocalypse can be read. (Orthodox Encyclopedia).
The situation is paradoxical and in some places even incomprehensible. The fact is that some of the prophecies of Revelation came true, some before our eyes. We are actually experiencing page after page of the Apocalypse. And, although Revelation was written as a warning, a warning for Christians in recent times, sometimes you hear the opinion that this book is almost harmful, if not dangerous, to read. The danger lies not in reading this book written by the Apostle John, but in ignorance of it, otherwise one should ask the question, at what historical moment should it be read?
The reluctance to heed the warnings written in Revelation is akin to the state in which the Lord reproaches the Pharisees: “He answered and said to them: in the evening you say: there will be a bucket, because the sky is red; and in the morning: today there is bad weather, because the sky is purple. Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of heaven, but you cannot discern the signs of the times” Matthew 16:2-3.
And we also talk so much about the weather, and what the weather will be like tomorrow, we watch the news, look on the Internet, but what we have to do is take an umbrella when it rains and put on a fur coat when it snows. At the same time, events occur before our eyes that change the face of the world overnight, but we do not notice or are asleep. People were also careless before wars, revolutions, the death of the Empire, the destruction of the state, but in one day, or even an hour, the entire normal way of life of people changed forever.
So those who disparage the prophecies of the Apostle of Love John also sin against the Truth and against common sense. The Lord, in great love, opens the curtain of the last times for us, not with the goal of scaring us, but with the goal of saving us, and somewhere even comforting us, so that we do not despair when we see the general Apostasy and the associated appearance of the Antichrist and the end of the world.
So let's take a quick look at some of the prophecies of Revelation. In contrast to the fearful, sleeping and those of little faith, the Apostle John writes to believers:
“Blessed is he who reads and hears the words of this prophecy and keeps what is written in it; for the time is near” Rev. 1:3. He calls those who read, listen and keep what is written in Revelation blessed. If it is written, then it really is so, for the words of Holy Scripture are the words of the Holy Spirit. But what is this bliss? Anyone who reads the Apocalypse before the end of the world will be truly blessed, for he will understand what is happening. And understanding, he will prepare himself. While reading, he will see in the events described in the Apocalypse certain contemporary events.
Perhaps the most important sign of recent times is spiritual lukewarmness.
Departure from God occurs primarily in the spirit. This is how the Apostle John describes the spiritual state of Christians of pre-end times:
“And write to the angel of the Laodicean church: Thus says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God: I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot; Oh, that you were cold or hot! But because you are warm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. For you say: “I am rich, I have become rich, and I have need of nothing”; but you don’t know that you are unhappy, and pitiful, and poor, and blind, and naked. I advise you to buy from Me gold purified by fire, so that you may become rich, and white clothing, so that you may be clothed and so that the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and anoint your eyes with eye salve so that you can see. Those whom I love, I rebuke and punish. So be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will give to sit with Me on My throne, just as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne” Rev. 3:14-21
The Laodocian church is a prototype of the church of the last times, showing the lukewarmness of Christians before the end of the world, mixed with pride, “I am rich, I have become rich and have need of nothing” - apparent spiritual prosperity, without repentance, correction of a sinful life, spiritual warfare, hypocritical faith, confusion of concepts good and evil, spiritual blindness, following those who have itching ears: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires they will heap up for themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they will turn away their ears from the truth and turn to fables.” 2.Tim.4:3-4.
Such a soul literally makes God vomit: “I will spew you out of My mouth.” How many Christians do you see who have been going to church for years, “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” 2 Timothy 3:1-7. Or, in their blindness, proud of their “spiritual” success, thinking that they have already read everything, been everywhere, comprehended everything, know everything, while they themselves are “unhappy, pitiful, poor, blind and naked,” deprived of any real spiritual activity, discernment of good and evil, love, true virtue, “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof” 2 Timothy 3:5.
“Know this that in the last days perilous times will come. For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unfriendly, unforgiving, slanderers, intemperate, cruel, not loving what is good, traitors, insolent, pompous, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God who have a form of godliness, His strength has been denied. Get rid of such people. These include those who sneak into houses and deceive women, drowning in sins, led by various lusts, always learning and never able to reach the knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these also resist the truth, men of depraved minds, ignorant of the faith. But they won't have much time; for their foolishness will be revealed to everyone, just as it happened to them... And all who want to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Evil people and deceivers will prosper in evil, deceiving and being deceived.” 2 Timothy 3:1-13.
The words of St. Theophan the Recluse about the last times are beginning to come true: “Then, although the name of Christianity will be heard everywhere, and churches and church ranks will be visible everywhere, but all this is just an appearance, but inside there is a true apostasy.”
This is how Archimandrite John (Krestyankin) writes about it in “A Sermon on Mortal Memory”:
“And God is forgotten! But again, won’t I hear objections to my words - has God been forgotten?! All around there is only talk about opening monasteries, churches, about grace, about God. Yes, our dears, there is a lot of talk, but the combination of the human and the Divine today is simply monstrous. In an unimaginable inner harmony, verbal piety and church-going are now combined with the cynicism of perversity.
Horrifying idle talk, slander, deceit, lies, falsity, selfishness and lawlessness of cohabitation coexist in the conscience of many with sighing, crying and the acceptance of the Holy Mysteries.
And a person thinks that he is with God. But no, in vain he thinks. This is not Christianity, this is its cynical extermination. And it has already broken into the Church itself, when many, calling themselves Christians, adapt the lofty truths of God to their needs, enveloping the truths in the mud of their earthly understanding and feeling.
This is not a revival of the Christian spirit in our world - it is its destruction. And what answer will the blasphemers give for mixing truth with lies, doing the works of the devil and using them to trample on the holy things of God, which they dare to touch! And the ax of death lies already at the tree of life. And God is waiting for repentance!
God is still waiting!
But won’t he soon – today, now – hear who is rich in himself and not in God: foolishly, this very night they will take your soul from you: and what have you prepared for whom will it be? (Luke 12, 21,20.)"
In “The Word on the Healing of the Bent Woman”:
“But now you and I are no longer distant examples, but our own lives make us aware of the violence and tyranny over us of both the devil himself and the sons of disobedience, that is, people who became the executors of his evil will on earth.
...All the little evil that we, sinful people, manage to do, is brought together by the great conductor - Satan, the one who sows small things in us. It is he who will grow the small into the greater. This is called the mystery of lawlessness (2 Thess. 2:7). And the mystery of lawlessness rises from strength to strength (Ps. 83:8) precisely because our resistance, our concept of it, has completely weakened.
In our seduction we forget God, we forget heaven, we forget eternity. And on this basis of people’s complete immersion in carnal life, monstrous depravity grows.
Babies conceived in lawlessness come into the world sick, possessed from birth by the spirit of evil, and are superior in wickedness to adults. The youths, not knowing the innocence of children, play at adults, and look for special visions and sensations in stupefying chemical reagents. Boys and girls, not knowing the very concept of innocence and purity, plunge into the bliss of such dirt, which is scary to think about and shameful to speak about. And for many, drug addiction becomes the only real life. And the roar of demonic noise that burst into our houses from television screens deafened, stupefied everyone, from small to large, and drew everyone into the whirlpool of hellish whirling, enslaving souls with violence.
...And it becomes the norm of life - walk over the corpses of those you have crushed, tear a piece out of someone else’s mouth and spit on all sorts of covenants. And the enemy who sowed the terrible weeds of malice and the pride of a false mind, a murderer from time immemorial, a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44) - admires the fruits of his deeds. He succeeded. He overpowered people. And now we don’t deny God so much as we force him out of a person’s heart with all his passions and worldly cares. God is simply forgotten.
…But no! The great “suitor” - the devil - at the very threshold of the Church steals from most of them the humble consciousness of who he is and why he came here. And a person does not enter, but “barges” into the Church with everything that is and was in him before, from the life he has lived, and from these positions he immediately begins to judge and order what is so in the Church and what it is time to change.
And he already knows what grace is and what it looks like, even before he begins to be an Orthodox Christian - he becomes a judge and teacher. So again the Lord is driven out of his heart by him.
And where? Right in the Church.
But a person will no longer feel this, because he is in the Church, because he has already leafed through all the books, and it is time for him, in his opinion, to take holy orders, and it is already time for her to dress in monastic robes.
But, our dears, they can and will accept holy orders, they will also accept monasticism, but all without God, led by the same power that led them in life before coming to the Church and that has so cleverly deceived them now. And then wait for other exceptional phenomena, possible only on the basis of distorted faith.
Without labor, without struggle and without suffering on the cross, Christianity accepted - without life, but only in name, and therefore without God, will reveal various seductions in visions and revelations.
And we must all remember that in a bright and pure soul, even one thought thrown from the devil will immediately produce confusion, heaviness and heartache, but in a soul darkened by sin, still bodily and defiled, even the presence itself he will be inconspicuous. And this inconspicuousness is helped by the spirit of malice itself, for it is beneficial to him. And he, tyrannically ruling over the sinner, tries to keep him in seduction, as if the person acts on his own, or inspires that the bright Angel, whose image the Evil One has taken, has already honored the person’s life with his appearance...
From the lives of the ascetic fathers we know that they recognized the demon, who even appeared to them in the form of Christ. The spiritual blindness of almost the majority of modern people, even those who call themselves Christians, will strike them with ever-increasing demonic temptations.”
This crafty combination of the human and the Divine is now completely unthinkable. A person goes to church, but at the same time, faith in astrology, omens, fortune-telling, going to various kinds of sorcerers, “grandmothers”, belief in the year of the pig, the dragon, and other pagan abominations coexists in his soul.
Life without a crown and even a marriage entered into before people, cohabitation with married people. Adultery, fornication - betrayal of one's closest people on earth, one's children, one's husband or wife. Killing your children through abortion, hormonal contraception, or other means. They even go so far as to conceive children in an unnatural way.
Actually, spiritual blindness leads to the fact that a person, outwardly doing and looking like a believer, an “Orthodox” who does everything, actually becomes on a par with the deicides - the Pharisees, and accepts the spirit of the Antichrist. A person who is unable to discern the ostentatious hypocritical service of God, a wolf in sheep's clothing, will easily accept the Antichrist. Antichrist is the greatest actor who will deceive the whole world. Behind the mask of kindness, love, piety will hide a terrifying Beast, an opponent of God, a misanthrope. Why will people accept it? Yes, because they have long accepted it in their spirit. And the spirit of Antichrist is hypocrisy. Apostasy itself, the apostasy from God, will occur precisely at the moment when the “mystery of lawlessness,” the apostasy, will occur within the Church. When that invisible threshold of outward believers, hypocrites, and Pharisees exceeds those who sincerely believe in God. This was how it was before the revolution of 1917, when the entire mass of believers in spirit had long ago abandoned Christ and brought only external Pharisee worship.
“Fear this hypocrisy,” teaches Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov), “fear hypocrisy, firstly, in yourself, then in others: fear it precisely because it is in the nature of the time and is capable of infecting anyone at the slightest deviation into frivolous behavior Pursue hypocrisy in yourself, expelling it from yourself; evade the masses infected by it, acting both intentionally and unconsciously in its direction, covering up the service of the world with the service of God, the search for temporary blessings with the search for eternal blessings, covering with the guise of holiness a vicious life and a soul completely devoted to passions. "Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov). Saint Ignatius himself recalls how much he suffered from almost constant meetings with spiritual “leaders who were sick with blindness and self-delusion, and how many bitter and grave shocks” he experienced from this.
Revelation is filled with images; some events can only be understood after they have occurred. “The third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a lamp, and fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of this star is “wormwood”; and the third part of the waters became wormwood, and many of the people died from the waters, because they became bitter” Rev. 8:10-11.
Elder Paisius the Svyatogorets (†1994), one of the greatest pillars of Athonite monasticism in the twentieth century, said that the Apocalypse is being fulfilled today, but, unfortunately, not everyone sees it. He pointed out that the Apostle John the Theologian gave us a detailed and clear description of future events. “Perhaps,” said Elder Paisios, “we will have to experience much of what is said in the Apocalypse. Apostasy has set in, and now all that remains is for the “son of perdition” to come 2 Thess. 2:3. Today, reading the Apocalypse is like reading a newspaper, everything is written so clearly.” As an example, he cited the prophecy about the fall of the star “wormwood”, which poisoned a third of the waters, which led to the death of many people Rev. 8.10-11. This prophecy, the godly elder asserted, had already come true in the form of the Chernobyl tragedy of 1986 (wormwood in Ukrainian - Chernobyl), and therefore “those who expect the fall of a star are deeply mistaken, and will not understand in any way that this has already come true.”
Wormwood in Ukrainian means “Chernobylnik”, it would seem that this has something to do with the star. The closest star to us; Sun. Basic processes in stars; nuclear reactions. Nuclear missiles are the stars that “will fall from the sky” Matthew 24:29.
The Lord showed the Apostle John the events of recent times. As a Galilean fisherman could describe it, the effects of nuclear weapons, rockets falling from the sky and a nuclear explosion. Just like falling stars, and even from a scientific point of view he is right, because the same processes occur in nuclear weapons as on stars. “And many of the people died from the waters, because they became bitter”—contaminated by radiation. The continuation of this prophecy can be seen in the tragedy in Fukushima, where not one, but several reactors are releasing tons of radiation-contaminated water into the world's oceans.
In the description of the world war we see modern technology, tanks, missiles:
“The number of the cavalry army was two thousand; and I heard his number. So I saw in a vision horses and their riders, who had armor of fire, hyacinth and sulfur on them; The heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and from their mouths came fire, smoke and brimstone. From these three plagues, from the fire, smoke and brimstone coming out of their mouths, the third part of the people died; for the strength of the horses was in their mouth and in their tails; and their tails were like serpents, and had heads, and with them they did harm” Rev. 9:16-19.
Doesn’t this evidence of Revelation point to modern military equipment (tanks spewing fire, etc.) In the Third Book of the Prophet Ezra, which is rightly called the Old Testament Apocalypse, we find, for example, the following episode from the upcoming war: “And great clouds (planes) will rise and strong, full of ferocity... and they will rain down on every place... a terrible star, fire and hail, flying swords (missiles, shells, bombs)” (3 Ezra 15, 40-41).
The Chinese army is the largest in the world with 2.5 million people, which in wartime, according to experts, can increase from 200-400 million people. “Two darknesses” (in Church Slavonic counting “darkness” is 10 thousand, which means: “two darknesses” is 2? 10.000? 10.000, i.e. two hundred million).
Explanatory Bible edited by Professor Alexander Pavlovich Lopukhin (1852–1904): The evil angels will be released then, at that exact hour of the day, month and year in which this release is appointed by Divine predestination, that is, when wickedness among people of the last time will reach the highest degree of its development. This time will also be the time of the coming of the Antichrist. Then, due to the action of evil spirits, terrible disasters will begin, which will entail the death of many people - a third of them, as the Apocalypse puts it. Even the elect Christians will be subject to these end-time disasters along with the wicked (Matt. 24:13, 21, 22). Disasters will come from a countless army, for which the four evil angels will be only secret inspirers, not excluding their ordinary natural leaders. Moreover, the specific number of this army - two hundred million - is taken not in the sense of the exact number of individual warriors, but in the sense of a vague indication of its enormity.
The only country in the world that can assemble such an army is China.
V.S. Soloviev (10/1/1894)
...From Malayan waters to Altai
Chiefs from the Eastern Isles
At the walls of fallen China
They gathered tens of their regiments.
Like locusts, innumerable
And insatiable like her,
Protected by unearthly power,
The tribes are moving north.
O Rus'! Forget the past glory:
The double-headed eagle is crushed,
And for the yellow children's fun
Scraps of your banners have been given.
Will humble himself in trembling and fear,
Who could forget the covenant of love...
And the Third Rome lies in the dust,
And there won’t be a fourth.
There are many prophecies of Orthodox saints about the end of the world. From the life of Andrew the Fool: “At that time the Lord God will open the gates of Indolia... and kings 70 and two will come out with their people, called unclean pagans, and will disperse throughout all lands, eating human flesh, and drinking blood, dogs and flies and eating frogs and all the filth of this world... Then the days will darken... And then Satan the Antichrist will arise from the tribe of Dan..." "I live by eating human flesh" - More precisely, you can’t say about the Chinese, medieval Chinese prose brings to us many cases of eating people, but Nowadays there are reports of human embryos being eaten. Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) 19th century. writes this: “To explain this to yourself, think about China, then look at yourself, see what the relationship of your mind and heart is to this country. .. You will see that your heart for this country is also dead, as if for a country that does not exist at all or exists only in fables.” Hieroschemamonk Aristoklius of Athos (1918): “...The end will be through China.” K.N. Leontyev Russian Orthodox philosopher (letter from Optina 3.5.1890): “Peoples incl. Slavic, “blooming” in the “hated European bourgeoisie” will be “devoured by the Chinese invasion.” Note that the religion of Confucius is almost pure practical morality and does not know a Personal God, and Buddhism in China, which is also so strong, is downright religious atheism - why not Gogi and Magog.” Saint Andrew, Archbishop of Caesarea (5th century): “... that it is said about Gog that he has been preparing since ancient times and will come in the last times, and finally, because in this Revelation, which predicts the future, it is said that Gog and Magog will appear at the end of the world."
Schema-Archimandrite Seraphim (Tyapochkin, + 6.4.1982) from Rakitny (1977): “During the memorable conversation, a young woman from a Siberian city was present. The elder told her: “You will accept a martyr’s death at the hands of the Chinese in the stadium of your city, where they will drive the inhabitants - Christians and those who disagree with their rule." This was a response to her doubts about the elder’s words that almost all of Siberia would be captured by the Chinese.
The elder said what was revealed to him about the future of Russia, he did not name dates, he only emphasized that the time for the fulfillment of what was said was in the hands of God, and much depended on how the spiritual life of the Russian Church would develop, how strong the faith in God would be among the Russians people, what will be the prayer feat of believers.
Unfortunately, we will be pitted against each other by politicians (the world elite, as they call themselves), while ordinary Chinese themselves are responsive, normal people who are even more welcoming than many Russians.
About Gog and Magog
St. Ephraim the Syrian and John Chrysostom by Gog and Magog meant the peoples who oppressed the Jews soon after their return from Babylon (Creations of Ephraim the Syrian. T. V. P. 58; Chrysostom. T. P. 668).
“The word Magog is used for the first time in the book of Genesis (X, 2). This is one of the sons of Japheth. Ezekiel's prophecy speaks of Gog and Magog; from it these names were transferred to the Apocalypse with the same concepts in which they were adopted by Ezekiel, but with different applications. Ezekiel’s Gog is portrayed as a glorious and terrible conqueror who invades with a large army into the land of the people of Israel (XXXVIII, 15,-16)... Gog was an instrument of God’s wrath against Israel, but then he himself, for his cruelty and wickedness, became the subject of vengeance for the wrath of God. The word Magog meant either the land or the people whom Gog commanded... From the Apocalypse it is clear that predictions sometimes in the same words also referred to God’s Judgment over the wickedness of the last times of the world’s existence, the time of the coming of the kingdom of the last Antichrist. The concept of Gog at all times was the concept of a fierce, warlike ruler, commanding diverse and numerous crowds of warriors, trampling on the statutes of God, a bloodthirsty villain, an enemy of God, His faith and Church and His worship. Gog - Antichrist; Magog is his army. Gog means the one who gathers, and Magog means the gathering of nations.” Blessed. Jerome. Tolkov. At 7 tbsp. XXth ch. Apoc. P. 259). Satan is unleashed at the end of times and will raise them up to battle with the city of God. Gog and Magog are those nations in which the devil is, for the time being, imprisoned, as it were, in the abyss. (On the same topic, S. Nilus “There is a door close”, chapter L “empire du Milieu - The Middle Kingdom).
“And I saw another beast coming out of the earth; he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. He acts before him with all the power of the first beast and forces the whole earth and those living on it to worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed; and performs great signs, so that fire comes down from heaven to earth before people. And with the miracles that it was given to him to perform before the beast, he deceives those who live on the earth, telling those who live on the earth to make an image of the beast, which has the wound of the sword and is alive. And it was given to him to put spirit into the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would speak and act in such a way that anyone who would not worship the image of the beast would be killed. And he will make it happen that everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, will receive a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and that no one will be able to buy or sell except the one who has this mark. , or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. He who has intelligence, count the number of the beast, for it is a human number; its number is six hundred and sixty-six.” Rev.13:11-18.
Revelation tells us that a world state will be built, covering the entire earth, all countries and peoples, social groups, built on total control and despotism, that without some mark of the beast it will be impossible to “neither buy nor sell.” Complete total world control. Under the rule of a single ruler, the Beast from the Sea - the Antichrist. Rev.13.1.
We see the fulfillment of this prophecy every day when we come to the store; now all products have a bar code; long parallel stripes; at the beginning, middle and end they indicate the number 6. Archimandrite (now bishop) Tikhon (Shevkunov), rector of the Sretensky Monastery in Moscow, wrote about this many years ago in his article “Schengen Zone”. http://www.pravoslavie.ru/shengen/shengen6.htm
The international spelling of the word “barcode” is bar-code, and the word bar translated from English is bar, bolt, rod, stripe, line... The Apocalypse was originally written in Greek, where the word “draw” literally means to draw deep straight lines lines, cut them out, scribble them. Encoding on magnetic tape in various types of bank cards is carried out using the same barcode.
There is a lot of debate about what kind of mark the beast-false prophet will put. Human number - i.e. it will be some kind of number instead of a name. The number will replace the person’s name; instead of the name that we are given in baptism, expressing our personality, there will be some kind of satanic depersonalizing digital code. This code will be a pass to the world economic system, and since such a system is built by the mystery of lawlessness (2 Thess. 2:7) with the sole purpose of enslaving humanity to one world leader, a false messiah, the Antichrist, then participation in this system is a direct renunciation of Christ and acceptance, agreement with the Antichrist. Therefore, all discussions on the topic of universal cards, biopassports, microchips, and laser application technologies are completely incomprehensible. No matter how a person entered into this anti-Christian system, the world kingdom of the Antichrist, he equally renounced Christ.
Moreover, when describing the mark of the Beast, the Apostle John directly speaks of three different types of seals: “the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name” Rev. 13:17. Or one, or the other, or the third. If, through a certain document, we enter the world economic system, then, using this document, we will be able to “buy and sell,” i.e. Let us quite consciously accept the mark of the Antichrist under whatever guise it may be. From a passport card, to a microchip and laser marks (this technology is registered in the USA).
All these cards, etc., are being introduced under the slogan of convenience and security, the words of the Apostle Paul come to mind: “For when they say: “Peace and security,” then destruction will suddenly befall them” 1 Thess. 5:3.
“The process of apostasy, the decomposition of a living and integral Christian worldview, predicted by the Lord Jesus Christ almost two millennia ago, is close to completion. Apparently, God destined us to become contemporaries of the “last times”. The Antichrist as a real political possibility of our days is no longer in doubt.” . Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and Ladoga John (Snychev).
Consecrated Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church
(February 2-5, 2013)
The position of the Church in connection with the development of accounting technologies
and processing of personal data
“The Church considers unacceptable any form of coercion of citizens to use electronic identifiers, automated means of collecting, processing and recording personal data and personal confidential information. The implementation of the right to access social benefits without electronic documents must be ensured by material, technical, organizational and, if necessary, legal guarantees. The Church considers it unacceptable to forcibly apply any visible or invisible identification marks to the human body, or to implant identification micro- and nanoelectronic devices into the human body.
Due to the fact that the possession of personal information creates the opportunity to control and manage a person through various spheres of life (finance, medical care, family, social security, property, etc.), there is a real danger of not only interfering in a person’s daily life, but also introducing temptation into his soul. The Church shares the concerns of citizens and considers it unacceptable to restrict their rights if a person refuses to consent to the processing of personal data...
The Church carries out a dialogue on these issues with the authorities of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Central Asian states and other countries, seeking to take into account and understand the position of believers. The Council considers it especially important to observe the principle of voluntariness when accepting any identifiers, which presupposes the possibility of choosing traditional methods of identification. The Council calls on the authorities of the states of the canonical space of our Church to adhere to this principle. At the same time, it is necessary to show respect for the constitutional rights of citizens and not discriminate against those who refuse to accept electronic means of identification.
In case of forced citizens to accept such means and discrimination associated with their non-acceptance, the Council invites these people to go to court, as well as inform the diocesan hierarchy and, if necessary, the Synodal Department for Relations between the Church and Society.
However, many things warn us that we may be faced with new challenges. If the narrowing of the boundaries of freedom, carried out including by means of electronic control, leads to the impossibility of freely confessing the faith of Christ, and if legislative, political or ideological acts that are mandatory for execution become incompatible with the Christian way of life, the time of confession will come, which the Book of Revelation speaks of. (Ch. 13-14).”
In response to the statements of modern Gnostics that there is nothing terrible, everything can be accepted, it is worth asking to whom and why the Apostle John revealed these terrible events. Why don’t we listen to the voice of the Church, to our Archpastors, who call to go to confession, but not to accept the mark of the Beast in whatever form it is offered to us. The Council of Bishops, referring to the 14th chapter of Revelation, had in mind the following words: “And the third Angel followed them, saying with a loud voice: whoever worships the beast and his image and receives a mark on his forehead or his hand. He will drink the wine of the wrath of God, the whole wine prepared in the cup of His wrath, and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone before the holy angels and before the Lamb; And the smoke of their torment will ascend forever and ever, and they who worship the beast and his image and who receive the mark of his name will have no rest, day or night.”
It is very important to note that this mark will be introduced before the appearance of the Antichrist as a person, the mark will be introduced not by the Antichrist - the beast from the sea (Rev. 13.1) as the Apostle John writes, but by the beast from the earth - the false prophet "And I saw another beast coming out of earth (Rev. 13:11)" - another beast - the forerunner of the Antichrist. Revelation makes this abundantly clear. Moreover, the seal will be introduced precisely as a world trading system, “no one will be allowed to buy or sell,” no one will demand an explicit renunciation of Christ, everything is done craftily, which is why the Apostle John writes, in order to understand that this will need to be discussed “Here wisdom. He who has intelligence." Modern interpreters believe that the false prophet is a collection of mass media with the help of which anti-Christian morality and ideology of the “new world order”, new paganism, the cult of violence, debauchery and profit are implanted, knowledge only necessary for earthly carnal, animal life, conveniences, although this will be and a certain personality. “And the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet, who performed miracles before him, with which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image: both were thrown alive into the lake of fire, burning with brimstone.” Rev.19,20.
See explanation. St. Andrew of Caesarea: the serpent is Satan (Rev. 12:3), he is also the beast emerging from the abyss (Rev. 11:7); the beast that comes out of the sea is the Antichrist (Rev. 13:1), and the beast that comes out of the earth is a false prophet (Rev. 13:11). The mark on the forehead or on the right hand will not be placed by the Antichrist, as many believers incorrectly believe today, but by the false prophet, who will precede the Antichrist in time.
“And I saw that one of his heads was, as it were, mortally wounded, but this mortal wound was healed” (Rev. 13:3) - writes the Apostle John about the beast from the sea - the Antichrist and further about the false prophet - the beast from the earth: “He acts before him with all the power of the first beast and makes the whole earth and those living on it worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed” Rev. 13:12. Christianity inflicted a mortal wound on paganism, but what we see now is a real revival of paganism “the wound is healed.” “Bread and circuses” is a pagan slogan that has become the slogan of modern humanity, “take everything from life,” the slogan of one Western company and the Church of Satan of America, “do whatever you want.” A complete overthrow of not only Christian ideals, but also human morality. The spread of unnatural debauchery, which was so widespread in the Roman Empire.
This very animal life, expressed in serving one’s passions, makes a person, even before accepting any mark, a servant of the Antichrist. The Antichrist is called a beast in the Apocalypse; a person living according to the flesh also becomes a beast. The absence of fasting, prayer, sincere service to God, and the search for God puts a person on a par with dumb animals.
“The distinctive feature of a sinner,” instructs St. Theophan the Recluse, “is not always obvious depravity, but actually the absence of inspired, self-sacrificing zeal for pleasing God, with a decisive aversion to everything sinful - that for him piety does not constitute the main subject of concern and labor, that he, caring about many other things, completely indifferent to his acquisitions, does not feel what danger he is in, does not care about a good life and spends a cold life in faith, although sometimes correct and impeccable from the outside.”
“A friend of the world,” writes Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov), “will certainly become, perhaps unnoticed by himself, the worst enemy of God... When serving the world, service to God is impossible, and it does not exist, even if it seems to exist. He does not exist! And what appears to be nothing more than hypocrisy, pretense, deception of oneself and others.”
“And without are dogs, and sorcerers, and fornicators, and murderers, and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices iniquity” Rev. 22:15. The Apostle calls dogs not animals, but people, just as the Apostle Peter writes: “They, like dumb animals led by nature, born to be caught and destroyed, speaking evil of what they do not understand, will be destroyed in their corruption. They will receive retribution for iniquity, for they put pleasure in everyday luxury; they are shameful and defilers, they delight in their deceptions, feasting with you. Their eyes are filled with lust and incessant sin; their hearts are accustomed to covetousness: they are the sons of curses, having abandoned the straight path, they have gone astray. , following in the footsteps of Balaam, the son of Bosor, who loved the reward of unrighteousness, but was convicted of his iniquity: the dumb donkey, speaking with a human voice, stopped the madness of the prophet. These are waterless springs, clouds and darkness, driven by a storm: for them the darkness of eternal darkness is prepared. , uttering inflated idle talk, they ensnare in carnal lusts and depravity those who are barely behind those in error. They promise them freedom, being themselves slaves of corruption; for whoever is conquered by someone is his slave. For if, having escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome by them, then the latter is worse for them than the first. It would be better for them not to know the path of righteousness than, having learned it, to turn back from the holy commandment handed down to them. But what happens to them is according to the true proverb: a dog returns to his vomit, and a washed pig goes to wallow in the mud." 2 Peter 12-22.
If a person’s entire life is devoted to acquiring wealth, seeking pleasure, idleness, and seeking power, then he truly becomes a beast. And everything is placed on the altar of this cult; from parents to their own wives and children. Divorces exceed all imaginable limits, abortions number in the millions; drug addiction, alcoholism, sexually transmitted diseases are comparable to an epidemic, people die out a million a year. And at the same time, someone is talking about spiritual uplift, when we should be talking about complete spiritual impoverishment.
“Nowadays Russia is one gigantic unhealed wound of spiritual and moral troubles prepared by its executioners over the last century. Never has it happened in it that indecency, the permissibility of debauchery, unbridledness and nakedness of vices were not so criminally proclaimed in all its corners, so that bribe-takers were so impudent and robbers, thieves and embezzlers, so that everyone who is not too lazy will gain freedom to drag, grab, plunder, get rich, turning not even into animals, but into some unknown monsters... The beast that you meet is dearer than man to man in the present Fatherland! - wrote the outstanding Russian scientist, academician F.Ya. Shipunov.
“But fornication and all uncleanness and covetousness must not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints. Also, foul language and idle talk and ridicule are not becoming for you, but, on the contrary, thanksgiving; for know that no fornicator, or unclean person, or covetous person, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for for this reason the wrath of God comes on the sons of disobedience; Therefore, do not be their accomplices” Eph.5:3-6. It is idle talk that one can commit sin and remain a Christian.
Holy Theophan the Recluse in the interpretation of 1 Cor. 5.11. “Now you will not mix with the writings, if a certain brother is called a fornicator, or a covetous, or an idolater, or a troublemaker, or a drunkard, or a predator; with such it is lower than food.”
This, he says, is the sense in which I wrote to you! – Do not mix, do not enter into relations, do not have close communication with someone who, bearing the name of a Christian, indulges in obvious vices. It is beneath you to deal with such a person - of course, ordinary hospitality - do not invite him to your place, do not go to him, and do not enter into transactions with him. Theodoret notes: “If one should not have fellowship with such people in ordinary food, then much less in mysterious and Divine food.” And in the course of the speech it is clear that if you yourself do not mix with those, then you should not allow them to mix with you; and if this is in the ordinary order of life, then even more so in the church. This means that the Apostle defines: to consider such people as alien to Christian society, the same as excommunicated, like that incestuous one - the discarded old kvass. The Apostle gives the reason for this - so as not to become infected from them, not to become sour. Christians should be so holy and so faithful to the commandments that it should not even occur to them that they could sin while remaining a Christian. If obvious sinners remained in their society, then this zeal for moral purity would be greatly shaken by the thought that, it is true, Christians can have a name and not actually be what the name requires. To prevent this general relaxation, the Apostle orders us to cut off communication with such persons.”
The Venerable Nile the Myrrh-Streaming One calls much-concern and covetousness the forerunners of the Antichrist. “Increasing worldly cares foreshadow the imminent embodiment of the dispensation of destruction in the world, i.e., the birth of the Antichrist... Much care will darken a person’s feelings in order to make a person insensitive to his salvation, so that he cannot feel salvation from the multitude of carnal worries, that is, people do not will feel neither the desire for an eternal future life nor the fear of eternal condemnation."
The Apocalypse describes the state of the world at the end of time, i.e. our time is a description of the society in which we actually live. Unprecedented development of trade, it seems that everyone and everything is trading. Among the goods there are also very scary ones: human bodies and souls.
“And the merchants of the earth will mourn and mourn over her, because no one buys their goods anymore, goods of gold and silver, and precious stones and pearls, and fine linen and purple, and silk and scarlet, and all kinds of incense wood, and all kinds of ivory products. bones, and all kinds of products made of expensive wood, copper and iron and marble, cinnamon and incense, and myrrh and incense, and wine and oil, and flour and wheat, and cattle and sheep, and horses and chariots, and the bodies and souls of men . And the fruits pleasing to your soul were no more, and everything that was fat and brilliant was removed from you; you will never find him again.” Rev. 18, 11-14.
Slave trade, trade in girls, children (“human bodies and souls”), sale for debauchery, isn’t that the sale of the soul, trade in human organs, cosmetics made from aborted babies, fetal therapy, etc.
We live in a consumer society, when the purpose of people's lives on earth has become the acquisition of various goods. Go to any shopping center, a huge number of people seem to be there from morning to evening; not a single Church, even on Easter, has as many cars as every day at any seedy shopping center. The desire of people to acquire goods and depend on everything “fat and brilliant” and “fruits pleasing to the soul” isn’t this a direct description of our time.
“And they did not repent of their murders, nor their sorceries, nor their fornication, nor their thefts” Rev. 9:21. The description of common sins before the end of the world corresponds exactly to our time. Killings in various wars are nothing compared to the killing of children - abortions, which are committed by millions, and there is no repentance for this sin. We ourselves kill our children, we kill in such a way that His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II exclaimed: The question is, is such a people even worthy of the sacred gift of life? Doesn’t it justly become a reproach for people?” And His Holiness Patriarch Kirill said that when flying by plane over Siberia, you see “colossal expanses where no one lives or so few people live that it’s scary.”
Witchcraft - the spread of various roles of occult sects, Satanism, magic, witchcraft, astrology - after all, every newspaper publishes forecasts of this pseudoscience, belief in the pagan Chinese New Year with their dragons, pigs and other animals, which is nevertheless preached from all television channels and other media, unheard of debauchery, it has become the norm to fornicate, cheat, betray, live without a marriage even concluded in front of people, and not just without a wedding, adultery, abandonment of a husband or wife, divorce, abandonment of children in maternity hospitals and orphanages, sodomy, perversion. Theft - they steal terribly and don’t know what to do with it, but they steal anyway.
The Lord still gives time for repentance, but seeing the hardness of many in sin, the Lord leaves such people to judgment: “Let the unrighteous still commit unrighteousness; let the unclean one still become unclean; Let the righteous still do righteousness, and let the holy one still be sanctified” Rev. 22:11.
“But the fearful, the unbelieving, the abominable, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone. This is the second death." Rev.21.8. We see that the Apostle John places the “fearful” together with the unfaithful, the abominable, murderers, fornicators, idolaters and liars, and therefore, when some who, out of fear, betray Christ by receiving the mark of the beast or “resigning themselves” to the advent of the kingdom of Antichrist, let They will ask themselves what is more terrible: to endure eternal torment or to “endure to the end” (Matthew 10:22) in order to be saved and be with God. Spiritual strength to everyone in the fight against their passions, temptations, seductions. Faith in God and faithfulness in keeping His commandments. “Hey, come Lord Jesus” Amen.
Archpriest Alexander Khlebnikov. The sermon was read in the Church of the Holy Royal Martyrs on October 26 at the All-Night Vigil before the Six Psalms.
Added 2016:
The notorious miracles of the false prophet and the Antichrist will occur in the air, the region of fallen spirits, these signs will amaze the imagination. The fact that “the icon of the beast speaks” can be said to be a purely technical “miracle”, when the technology that Tesla discovered will be used not to turn on light bulbs without wires, but to turn on any equipment that has an antenna (TVs, computers, phones , tablets). Like the very creation of the world trading system, where without some kind of mark “you can neither buy nor sell” implies a refusal of cash, and how we already see the use of technology (computers) for accounting and control over people.
They openly and frankly talk about the coming into the world of the Antichrist, who is called Imam Mahdi by Muslims, by Catholics, Protestants, and Jews as “Christ,” by Hindus as Bodistava, and by Hare Krishnas as the incarnation of Krishna. All false religions will accept him as their Savior. "The Pope called for the unification of Christians, Muslims and Jews, and to prepare for the coming." - the united religion is the religion of the Antichrist. I am increasingly inclined to believe that the false prophet is the Pope.
“Pope Francis told Iranian President Rouhani the biblical prophecies regarding the “end of times”, which are now being fulfilled, and that the world has entered a period of irreversible upheaval and will be changed ‘beyond recognition’ by next year (2017).
Responding to President Rouhani's assertion that the Mahdi is coming, Pope Francis confirmed that this is indeed so, but that his name is Christ.
The Pope called for the unification of Christians, Muslims and Jews, and to prepare for the coming.
“All who are of the Abrahamic religions, now is the time for unity, for the end of times is near.”
Several reports have already come out from the Vatican regarding statements made by Pope Francis and President Rouhani during visits to holy museums and churches. Considering that this was the first time an Iranian leader had met with the pontiff since 1989, the meeting was surprisingly pleasant for both leaders, as if they were trusted old friends.
However, the topic of discussion was gloomy - "a warning of dark days in the very near future."
“Many tears were shed,” confirmed an eyewitness from the Vatican.
“Both of them tried their best to support each other. They both know what's going on in the world. Pope Francis said that we have entered a phase - "the end of times." Bible prophecies are coming true.”
Saint Cosmas of Aetolia (1779): “The Pope is the Antichrist,” “Curse the Pope, because he will be the cause (of retreat)” (Prophecy).
St. Father Justin Popovich, professor of dogmatic theology (1979): “In the history of mankind there are three main cases of fall: Adam, Judas, the pope... the papacy with its morality is more than Arianism... the doctrine of the infallibility of the pope is not only a heresy , but also heresy. Because not a single heresy rebelled fundamentally and so comprehensively against the God-man Christ and His Church as did papism with its infallibility of the human Pope. There is no doubt about it. This dogma is a heresy of heresies, an unprecedented rebellion against Jesus Christ."
The Evangelist John says in his First Epistle: “Children... the Antichrist is coming and now there are many Antichrists.” ...
Ephraim the Syrian, the Antichrist will come “in such a form as to deceive everyone: he will come humble, meek, a hater (as he himself will say about himself) of unrighteousness, averse to idols, preferring piety, kind, poor-loving, extremely handsome, constant, affectionate to everyone.” .
Precisely “to deceive everyone,” both Christians and Muslims. and the Jews, “who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits in the temple of God as God, showing himself to be God” 2 Thess. 2:4
“First, Imam Mahdi will appear, then Dajjal (an analogue of the Antichrist) will come, after which the prophet Isa (peace be upon him) will descend. Dajjal will be one-eyed, red-skinned, broad-bodied and he will have curly hair” Muslim opinion about the Antichrist Alizadeh, A.A., 2007 - here comes a big mistake. With us, on the contrary, the Antichrist will come first, and then Christ. Moreover, the Antichrist will be meek in appearance, and so similar to Christ that only spiritually living people can distinguish him, while others will accept him with joy as a savior. People will gladly accept him, they have seen newsreels of how crowds of distraught Germans joyfully greet Hitler, it will be the same with this, after all, he will come as a savior, after a world (nuclear) war he will offer a plan of salvation, so they will accept it. Although the world war will be unleashed by those who are preparing his coming, in Holy Scripture this is called the mystery of lawlessness.
Mahdi - in Islam: the last successor of the Prophet Muhammad, a kind of messiah (masih), who will appear before the end of the world. The Koran does not mention the Mahdi, but the idea of the messiah is widely interpreted in the hadiths of the Prophet Muhammad.
Initially, the Mahdi was identified with the prophet Isa (Jesus), who was to herald the approach of the Day of Judgment (qiyamat). Then the Mahdi began to be thought of as an independent image of the “renewer of faith.”
Shiites believe that the Mahdi is alive and will soon restore justice on earth. Unlike Shiism, the Sunni Mahdi, according to I. Goldzier’s definition, is a Hungarian orientalist (Arabist, Hebraist, Islamic scholar) of Jewish origin. Since 1876 - corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, since 1897 - corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (with a break in 1916-1919). , “an uncertain face, a mythological decoration of the ideal of the future”
“First, Imam Mahdi will appear, then the Dajjal will come (whom Muslims mistakenly consider to be an analogue of the Antichrist), after which the prophet Isa (peace be upon him) will descend. The Dajjal will be one-eyed, red-skinned, broad-bodied and he will have curly hair” Muslims’ opinion about the Antichrist Alizade.A . A., 2007 Islamic encyclopedic dictionary. - this is where a big mistake turns out.
With us, on the contrary, the Antichrist will come first, and then Christ. Moreover, the Antichrist will be meek in appearance, and so similar to Christ that only spiritually living people can distinguish him, while others will accept him with joy as a savior.
Protestants have a similar opinion that first “Christ” will come and there will be a thousand-year reign of God on earth, and then the Antichrist, the concepts are also confused.
Saint Paisius the Holy Mountain - And then they will put forward a person who will say: “I am the imam, I am the fifth Buddha, I am the Christ Whom Christians are waiting for, I am the one whom the Jehovah’s Witnesses are waiting for, I am the Messiah of the Jews.” He will have five selves.
The word "dajjal" means "deceiver, charlatan."
Moreover, according to Muslim beliefs, it is not Imam Mahdi who will kill the Dajjal, but our Lord Jesus Christ, whom Muslims, in error, consider only a prophet.
“This will continue until the Lord of the worlds sends down Isa (Jesus), the son of Maryam (Mary) [which will be the second coming of one of God’s greatest messengers who was previously ascended to heaven]. He will descend to the earth east of Damascus, leaning on the wings of two angels...and will kill 'Isa (Jesus) Antichrist""
Hadith from Navwas ibn Sam'an; St. X. Muslim, at-Tirmidhi, etc. See, for example: an-Naysaburi M. Sahih Muslim. P. 1177, Hadith No. 110–(2937); an-Nawawi Ya. Sahih Muslim bi Sharh an-Nawawi. T. 9. Part 18. pp. 66–68, hadith No. 110–(2937); al-Qari ‘A. Mirkat al-mafatih sharkh miskyat al-masabih. In 10 vols. T. 8. pp. 3456–3462, hadith No. 5475; at-Tirmidhi M. Sunan at-Tirmidhi. 2002. P. 648, Hadith No. 2245, “Hasan, Sahih.”
The religion of the Antichrist is dangerous because outwardly no one will force you to renounce Christ or change your faith, there will be no changes in dogmas to the letter, there will be no union in its previous form, there will be no unification of religions into one. This is too rude and will alienate not only Orthodox Christians, but also representatives of other faiths. A new religion is being preached, and all that is required of you is to agree that all religions have one God, that others have the truth too, and that each religion goes to him in its own way. Remain Orthodox, just admit that there are no more heresies, heretics and apostates - acceptance of this devilish lie is a renunciation of the Holy Trinity, our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Orthodox faith and the Orthodox Church. Acceptance of this devilish lie is the legalization of the religion of the Antichrist!
This is to remain a cog in the system at any cost, which will be the most important thing even at the time of the adoption of the Antichrist seal. Remember “you cannot... neither buy nor sell” the same temptation with “bread”. And a person who has entered into a deal with his conscience many times for the sake of this “bread” will not be able to resist this temptation.
There will not even be any talk about any spiritual background to the temptation from the Antichrist. Convenient, versatile, modern and accepted the universal card. Safe, necessary and implanted a microchip in the arm, they are already being implanted everywhere. Or what kind of mark he stuck on his forehead.
Neither Christ nor the Antichrist will be chosen; for modern people, even many Orthodox Christians, there is no such question, but whether it is convenient or inconvenient, that will be the question. Benefit is the main selection criterion. Instant benefit.
In addition, in order not to be accused of something unclear, I would like to note that the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Synodal Department for Relations between the Church and Society spoke out on this issue (universal cards).
CONCLUSION: THE SPIRIT OF THE END TIMES.
1. "CHARISMATIC REVIVAL" AS A SIGN OF THE TIMES
An attentive observer of the modern religious situation - especially in America, where the most popular religious movements have been emerging for a century - cannot hide a very definite atmosphere of chaliastic expectation. And this is true not only in “charismatic” circles, but even in traditionalist and fundamentalist circles who have rejected the “charismatic revival.” So many Catholics believe in a chaliastic "age of Mary" before the end of the world, and this is only one version of a more widespread error - attempts to "sanctify" the world or, as the Bishop of the city of Seattle Thomas Conolly put it fifteen years ago, "transform the modern world into the Kingdom God in anticipation of the second coming." Evangelical Protestants, such as Billy Graham, in their erroneous interpretation of Revelation, look forward to the "millennium" when "Christ will reign on earth." Other evangelicals in Israel believe that their interpretation of the "millennium" and the "Messiah" is just what is needed to prepare the Jews for his coming. And arch-fundamentalist Carl McInt is going to build a life-size replica of the Jerusalem Temple in Florida (next to Disneyland!), confident that the time has come when the Jews will build that “temple to which the Lord Himself will return, as He promised” (“Christian Lighthouse ", November 1971; January 1972). Thus, even anti-ecumenists consider it possible to prepare together with unrepentant Jews for the solemn meeting of the false messiah-Antichrist - in contrast to the faithful Jews who will meet Christ, as the Orthodox Church preaches when the prophet Elijah returns to earth.
So a sane Orthodox Christian who knows the prophecies in Scripture regarding the last days finds little consolation in the fact that a “charismatic” Protestant pastor tells him: “Jesus can do something wonderful when we open ourselves to Him. No wonder people of different faiths can now pray together" (Harold Bredesan, in Logos magazine, Jan.-Feb. 1972, p. 24); or a Catholic Pentecostal assures that followers of all denominations will now “begin to look beyond these dividing walls, only to recognize in each other the image of Jesus Christ” (Kevin Ranaghan, in Logos Magazine, Nov.-Dec. 1971, p. 21). What kind of “Christ” is this, for the sake of whom accelerated not only psychological, but also physical training has been deployed all over the world? Is this our true God and Savior Jesus Christ, Who founded the Church in whose bosom people can find salvation? Or is it a false Christ who will come in his own name (John V, 43) and unite all who reject or pervert the teaching of the only Church of Christ, the Orthodox Church?
Our Savior Himself warned us: Then if anyone says to you, Behold, here is Christ, or there, do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. Behold, I told you in advance. So, if they say to you, “Behold, He is in the wilderness,” do not go out; “Behold, He is in the secret chambers,” do not believe it; for just as lightning comes from the east and is visible even to the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man (Matt. XXIV, 23-27).
The second coming of Christ will be certain: it will be sudden, from heaven (Acts I, 11); and it will end this world. For him there can be no “preparation” other than Orthodox Christian preparation - repentance, spiritual life, vigilance. Those who "prepare" for this in any other way, who say that He is somewhere "here" - especially "here" in the Jerusalem temple - or who preach the "soon coming of Christ" without warning of the great error that must precede His coming, these are obvious prophets of the Antichrist, the false Christ; he must come first and deceive the whole world, including “Christians” who are not or will not become truly Orthodox Christians. There will be no coming "millennium". For those who can accept it, the apocalyptic "millennium" has already arrived; life in the grace of the Orthodox Church for the whole "thousand years between the first coming of Christ and the time of the Antichrist", the fact that Protestants expect a "millennium" in the future is only an admission that they do not live in it now, that is, that they are outside the Church Christ and do not know Divine grace. http://www.pravoslavie.ru/put/biblio/rose_prb/rose38.htm
HIEROMONCH SERAPHIM (ROSE) ORTHODOXY AND THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE Chapter VI
"SIGNS IN THE HEAVEN"
5. THE MEANING OF A UFO APPEARANCE
In Christian language this means: a new invasion of demons is being sent to the human race. Based on Christian apocalyptic views (see the conclusion of this book), we can see that the power that has hitherto held back the last and most terrible manifestation of demonic activities on earth has already been taken from the environment (2 Thess. II, 7), the Christian worldview is more does not exist as a single whole, and Satan has been released from his prison, where he was held by the grace of the Church of Christ, and will come out to deceive the nations (Rev. XX, 7) and prepare them for the worship of the Antichrist at the end of times. Perhaps never before since the beginning of the era of Christ have demons appeared so openly and everywhere as today. The theory of “guests from outer space” is just one of the pretexts by which they are trying to instill in people the idea that “higher beings” are now going to take upon themselves the future fate of humanity.
Secondly, UFOs are just the latest in a series of mediumistic techniques by which the devil recruits followers of his occult world. They are a terrible sign that a person has become susceptible to demonic influence - as never before in Christian times. In the 19th century, it was usually necessary to find a dark séance room to get in touch with demons, but now you only need to look at the sky (though usually at night). Humanity has lost all that remained of the foundations of Christian understanding, and is now passively placing itself at the disposal of any “forces” that may descend from heaven. The new movie - "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" - is a stunning revelation of how superstitious modern man has become, ready to instantly, without hesitation, believe and follow almost unchanged demons wherever they lead.
Thirdly, this is the “mission” of the UFO: to prepare the way for the Antichrist; the savior of the apostate world is coming to rule over it. It is possible that he himself will come from heaven to be completely like Christ (Matthew XXIV, 30; Acts I, 11); maybe only “guests from outer space” will land in front of everyone to perform “cosmic” worship of their ruler; perhaps fire... from heaven (Rev. XIII, 13) will be only part of the great demonic spectacles of the last times. Be that as it may, the message to modern humanity is this: expect liberation, but not from Christian revelation and faith in an invisible God, but from space aliens.
This is one of the signs of the last times, when there will be terrible phenomena and great signs from heaven (Luke XXI, 11). Already a hundred years ago, Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov, in his book “On Signs and Wonders” (Yaroslavl, 1870; republished by the Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, New York, 1960), noted “the desire that is found in modern Christian society to see miracles and even to create miracles... Such a desire reveals self-deception, based on pride and vanity, which dwells in the soul and owns it" (p. 32). True miracle workers have become rare and are disappearing completely, but people “thirst for miracles more than ever before... We are gradually approaching the time when a wide field will open for numerous and amazing false miracles to lead to the destruction of those unfortunate descendants of carnal wisdom, who will be seduced and seduced by these miracles” (pp. 48–49).
This is what will be of particular interest to UFO researchers: the miracles of the Antichrist will mostly occur in the air element, where Satan’s main domain is located. The omens will mainly act on the sense of sight, charming and deceiving the eye. St. John the Theologian, contemplating in Revelation the events predicting the end of the world, says that the Antichrist will perform great signs, so that he will bring down fire from heaven to earth before people (Rev. XIII, 13). This is the sign indicated in Scripture as the most important of the signs of the Antichrist, and the place of this sign is in the air: “it will be a brilliant and terrible sight” (p. 13). http://www.pravoslavie.ru/put/biblio/rose_prb/rose27.htm
HIEROMONCH SERAPHIM (ROSE) ORTHODOXY AND THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE Chapter VIII
CONCLUSION: THE SPIRIT OF THE END TIMES. 2. RELIGION OF THE FUTURE
In our age of apostasy, preceding the appearance of the Antichrist, Satan is released for a short time (Rev. XX, 7) to work false miracles, which he could not perform during the “thousand years” of grace of the Church of Christ (Rev. XX, 3), and in order to reap in his hellish harvest those souls who did not accept... the truth (2 Thess. II, 10). That the time of the Antichrist is truly near is told to us by the very fact that this satanic harvest is now taking place not only among pagan peoples who have not heard of Christ, but even more among “Christians” who have lost the salt of Christianity. It is in the very nature of the Antichrist to represent the kingdom of the devil as if it were the kingdom of Christ. Today's "charismatic" movement, Christian "meditation" and the "new religious consciousness" of which they are a part are all harbingers of the religion of the future, the religion of the last humanity, the religion of the Antichrist, and their main "spiritual" activity is to introduce The everyday use of Christianity is demonic initiation, still limited only to the pagan world. Even if these "religious experiments" are often still cautious and random, and contain at least equal parts spiritual self-deception and genuine rites of demonic initiation; Of course, not everyone who has successfully "meditated" or thinks that they have received the "baptism of the Spirit" has actually received initiation into the kingdom of Satan. But this is the purpose of such “experiments”, and, undoubtedly, the techniques of initiation will be increasingly improved as humanity becomes more and more prepared to perceive them with an attitude of passivity and openness to the new “religious experiences” implanted by these movements.
What has brought humanity - and Christianity itself - to this desperate situation? Undoubtedly, the point is not in any open cults of the devil, which are always limited to a very narrow circle of people; this is something more subtle, which a conscious Orthodox Christian is even afraid to think about: this is the loss of God’s grace, which follows the loss of understanding of the meaning of Christianity.
In the West, there is no doubt that the grace of God was lost many centuries ago. Roman Catholics and Protestants of our day have not known God's grace, so it is not surprising that they are unable to recognize its demonic imitation. But alas! The success of false spirituality even among Orthodox Christians today reveals the extent to which they have lost the concept of the meaning of Christianity, and can no longer distinguish true Christianity from pseudo-Christianity. For for too long, Orthodox Christians have taken for granted the precious treasure of their faith, forgetting to put into circulation the pure gold of its teaching. How many Orthodox Christians even know about the existence of fundamental scriptures of Orthodox spiritual life, which teach precisely the distinction between true and counterfeit spirituality; scriptures that describe the lives and teachings of holy men and women who were honored with the full measure of the Lord’s grace in this life? How many have learned the teachings of the “Ladder” of St. John, sermons of St. Macarius, Lives of the God-Bearing Fathers in the Wilderness, “The Invisible War,” “My Life in Christ” by St. right John of Kronstadt? http://www.pravoslavie.ru/put/biblio/rose_prb/rose39.htm
"A number instead of a name, as is familiar, and then we hypocritically celebrate May 9, supposedly condemning fascism, while we ourselves, like in concentration camps, assign a number instead of a name. Ordinary fascism. Total control. Buchenwald, Auschwitz, Dachau... Death camps where millions were exterminated civilians and prisoners of war. Documentary books exposing the atrocities of Nazi criminals during the Second World War should today serve as a stern warning about the inadmissibility of the disgusting practice of inhuman numbering and marking of people, which is being implanted in many countries of the world in our time. Archival photographs dispassionately testify to the atrocities shocking the most indifferent hearts... Mountains of human skeletons, barely covered with skin. The souls of tortured sufferers cry out to the sky. In close-ups, concentration camp numbers are visible, tattooed on adults’ left arms, on babies’ legs...
At the Nuremberg Trials, which took place from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946, the International Military Tribunal, among other crimes of fascism, recognized the practice of assigning lifelong depersonalizing numbers to people and branding them with these numbers as a crime against humanity. [ 201 ]
From the materials of the Nuremberg trials:
“The Court’s question to the witness: “Were you branded?”
Witness's answer: “Yes” (shows the concentration camp number on his hand).
The Court's question to the witness: “How were children branded?”
Witness's response: “The children who were born in the camp were also tattooed. The number was tattooed on his leg.”
The Court's question to the witness: “Why on the leg?”
Witness's answer: “Because the child is very small, and the number, which is five digits, would not fit on a small hand. Children did not have separate numbers, they had the same numbers that adults had, in other words, a serial number” [202].
These are the terrible lessons of history that are now forgotten. The loss of historical memory and lack of proper sobriety clearly characterize the state of modern Russian society. With the almost complete silence of the people, zealous officials of the Ministry of Taxes and Duties (Ministry of Taxes), acting with all sorts of unjust seduction (2 Thess. 2:10), are carrying out wholesale stigmatization of Russian citizens, assigning lifelong depersonalizing taxpayer identification numbers even to newborn babies. The analogy with the branding of prisoners in fascist death factories is obvious. It is not difficult to understand that the issue here is not tax accounting, but rather the assignment of digital names to future prisoners of the “Russia” barracks of the global electronic concentration camp. The decisions of the Nuremberg Tribunal remain in force to this day, and crimes against humanity have no statute of limitations. At the same time, the International Military Tribunal recognized the “execution of official duties and orders of superiors” as a meaningless excuse that does not relieve the perpetrators of guilt and responsibility. Everyone - from the minister to the petty tax official, as well as the clergy who encourage the enumeration of people - must be aware that they are complicit in the construction of a worldwide totalitarian dictatorship. Dictatorship of the Antichrist!
But deliver us from the evil one: Legal problems as a reflection of the atheistic nature of the globalization of power Pravoslavie.By - Belarusian Orthodox information portal.
Addition 2017
The icon of the prophets of God Enoch, Elijah and the Apostle John the Theologian, was painted at my request by the daughter of my parishioner.
From the stichera on the Sunday stichera:
Council of forefathers, lovers of leisure, / come, let us psalmically praise: Adam the forefather, Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, / Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, / according to the law of Moses, and Aaron, / Jesus, Samuel and David, / with them Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, / and Daniel, and the twelve, / together Elijah, Elisha and all, / Zechariah, and the Baptist, and who preached Christ, / the life and resurrection of our race.
Troparion to the Prophet Elijah, tone 4:
In the flesh, an Angel, the foundation of the prophets, the second forerunner of the coming of Christ, the glorious Elijah, who sent from above the grace of Elisha to drive away illnesses and cleanse lepers, and also grant healing to those who worship him.
From the akathist
Chosen by God for the conversion of Israel from the deception of Baal, a formidable accuser of lawbreaking kings, shining with fiery zeal for God the Almighty, with holiness of life and miracles, caught up with your flesh into Heaven and having predated the Second Coming of Christ, let us sing praises to you, prophet of God Elijah, as you have great boldness towards the Lord, free us from all evils and circumstances through your prayers, those who cry out to you piously:
Rejoice, Elijah, great prophet, glorious forerunner of the Second Coming of Christ.
Rejoice, fiery zealot of Divine glory; Rejoice, for in the last days of the world you preached the True God and exposed the accursed Antichrist.
Rejoice, Elijah, great prophet, glorious forerunner of the Second Coming of Christ.
Rejoice, for in the brightness of the saints you have enjoyed the unspeakable glory and continually glorify the Lord; rejoice, for at the end of times great signs and wonders will be performed to confirm people in the true faith and to expose the Antichrist.
Rejoice, Elijah, great prophet, glorious forerunner of the Second Coming of Christ.
Troparion Ap. John the Theologian
Apostle to Christ God beloved, /
hasten to deliver the unresponsive people, /
accepts you falling. Those who fell into Percy are accepted. /
Pray for him. Theologian, /
and disperse the present darkness of tongues, /
asking us for peace and great mercy.
Prayer to St. Anatoly Optinsky
Deliver me, Lord, from the seduction of the godless and evil-cunning Antichrist who is coming, and hide me from his snares in the hidden desert of Your salvation. Grant me, Lord, the strength and courage to firmly confess Your holy name, so that I will not retreat from the fear of the devil, and may not renounce You, my Savior and Redeemer, from Your Holy Church. But grant me, Lord, day and night weeping and tears for my sins, and have mercy on me, Lord, at the hour of Your Last Judgment. Amen.
https://azbyka.ru/molitvoslov/protiv-antixrista.html
The Book of the prophet Malachi says that God will send the prophet Elijah back to earth: “Behold, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord” (Mal. 4:5).
About the prophets Enoch and Elijah: “And I will give to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the God of the earth.” Rev. 11, 3-4.
About John the Theologian: “When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus: Lord, what is he?
Jesus says to him: If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? you follow Me. And this word spread between the brothers that that disciple would not die. But Jesus did not tell him that he would not die, but: if I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? - This disciple testifies to this and wrote this; and we know that his testimony is true." John 21:21-23
Addition 2018
Report by Metropolitan Vladimir of Pochaev, abbot of the Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra, delivered at the round table “Issues of spiritual security in the information society”, which was held at the Holy Dormition Kiev-Pechersk Lavra on September 6, 2016
THE WILL OF MAN
AND CONSENT TO THE PROCESSING OF PERSONAL DATA
Scientific examinations carried out over the years in different countries have revealed that the identification number for the system is the name of the person; that the identification number, written in the form of a bar code, contains the number “666” - “the number of the beast”, and is indistinguishable from the “mark of the Antichrist”. Today it is already obvious that the “name of the beast” is the name that the “beast” (the Antichrist system) gives to a person, and the clarification “or the number of his name” indicates that the “beast” gives a person a name in the form of a number - digital Name.
Thus, a person’s consent to the processing of personal data is not only consent to any actions with any information about him, but also consent to replace his name in the system with a digital identifier (“the number of his name”), with a personal barcode (“inscription ") and to resubordinate oneself and one's will to the masters of the Antichrist system ("the beast").
The Message of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church dated December 29, 2003 states that the process of creating a technical base is underway, “which will facilitate the coming to power of the Antichrist.”
End-to-end personal identification. 02/13/2018 Round table in the RF OP Archpriest Leonid Vlasov
https://youtu.be/pyYrQSjYMac
BIOMETRICS
The mark of the Antichrist is a number instead of a name, no matter under what guise it comes.
People are labeled as commodities.
Research Article
"EXPRESS METHOD FOR BARCODE FORMATION
BY IMAGES OF FACES"
EXPRESS METHOD OF BARCODE GENERATION FROM FACIAL IMAGES
annotation
A method for generating a standard type linear barcode from facial images is proposed. The method is based on using the brightness histogram of the original image, averaging it over a limited number of brightness intervals, subsequent quantization in the range of decimal digits from 0 to 9, and tabular conversion into the final barcode. The proposed solution does not require large computational costs, as well as the use of specialized software packages for image processing, which creates conditions for the generation of barcodes within mobile systems, and the proposed method can be classified as express methods. Testing was performed on the Faces94 and CUHK Face Sketch FERET Database. As follows from the testing results, the proposed method offers a new solution for practical use in real conditions - the dynamics of changes in the parameters of facial images. It is shown that the result remains stable when changing the local dimensions of faces, tilting in the XY plane, changing the angle and mirror rotation around the vertical axis, as well as when changing facial expressions and the presence of shadows on it from local lighting. The proposed method for generating a standard barcode is built directly from the original face image and, thus, uniquely represents a specific person.
Scientific and technical bulletin of information technologies, mechanics and optics
Scientific and Technical Journal of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics
2014, No. 2 (90) the link is not displayed on poems ru, search by the title of the article, you can find it in full.
Addition 2019
About the spirit of Antichrist
And the Beast's roar is heard, from hellish madness.
The world is going wild and the Beast is coming to the throne.
And he absorbs the souls of evil people, liars
And he becomes stronger and stronger every day.
The grin of a hell-spawn is in the blood:
Innocent, poor, suffering people.
Everything is a joy to him, the pain of the unfortunate, the hunger of the beggars.
Every injustice is like a sweet dream to him.
He devours and insatiably the belly.
And every cry of a baby that killed its mother.
To him, like the sounds of a harp, moans and cries of pain.
And he is ready to devour everyone entirely.
Behind the mask of hypocrisy and smiles,
He is behind “justice” and “truth”.
And in every proud man, rich to the point of madness,
In the villain, the money-lover, the greedy HE.
Mercy with love has dried up,
There is no honor, humanity, and no more pity.
And the brutalized man is already waiting to be on the throne.
The Beast from the Abyss will rise to rule over everything.
About the Antichrist
Laughter, joy, screams and fun.
What happiness comes into the world.
The son of Satan is coming, to meet him
Happy, joyful people are running.
It came true. Came.
The seal of the Antichrist on the forehead.
A crowd of slaves screams and waits.
And just like that, casually, unnoticeably.
With a smile, one surrenders to God.
One priest sent me. I had a dream. Temple people around. Some place, I know that something bad, something terrible is going to come out of there. I'm trying to lock this place with someone so that evil doesn't break out. The people around are different, dressed in Orthodox style, different faces. And then something terrible happens, people turn into freaks with a disfigured female face, everyone has some kind of scar on their face, like a seal, they tear off their clothes, and under them there are long rags, and they rejoice when they tear off their clothes. I have an antidote somewhere in my room and I'm running to get it. All around are these terrible faces, who until recently were different people, men, women, children, but have become terrible monsters with a scar on their face, in rags like witches.
This is the only way I can explain it. When a person accepts the seal of the Antichrist, he loses the image of God, his personality, the grace of God departs from him, the soul becomes an ugly stamping monster, having no will of its own, a joyful slave of the Antichrist.
Father sent me this with the words: “You see this now.”
THE BLACK KING IS COMING
The black king is coming, drinking human blood.
He is going to conquer the world, he is taking power over the world.
He will rule everything, enslaving the souls and bodies of people.
The evil nature of Satan will be hidden under the mask of “love”.
They call me a peacemaker, there are nuclear bombs all around.
He proclaimed freedom to everyone, and bound the world with a strong chain.
Meek and kind in appearance, hides his teeth in blood.
Joyfully people are waiting for the eternal path of slavery.
They will betray Christ for bread, they will die of hunger and thirst.
The seal of Satan on the hand, burn in eternal fire.
He will work miracles to capture many souls.
The crooks are waiting for the “savior”; he is their savior and friend.
A carnal man runs after him joyfully.
“Friends” flew from heaven, demons and devils are here.
Death, hunger, thirst and pestilence, he is a liar and a deceiver.
There are no demons in hell anymore, they have moved into the souls of people.
People are evil demons, the kingdom of darkness on Earth.
But it won’t last long, only three and a half years.
The end of evil, untruth, deception and lies, the short reign of Satan.
The Cross shone upon the whole world and strengthened the souls of those faithful to Christ.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.
Deliver us from malice and untruth.
I wrote the poems at night, the previous evening I was in a very restless state that I couldn’t overcome it even with prayer.
To the priests, if they can be called that, who are afraid to stand for the truth, this is about you: “But the fearful and the unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and the fornicators and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars will have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone. This is the second death." Rev.21.8. We see that the Apostle John places the “fearful” together with the unbelievers, the abominable, murderers, fornicators, idolaters and liars.
The fearful are still in first place, apparently there will be more of them, which is actually the case.
This article makes value judgments. The article does not pretend to be documentary, and also does not call anyone to take active action and is not intended to offend anyone. The article is printed for informational purposes only.
This article is written for informational purposes only.
The author does not call for active action.
Everything written here is purely personal opinion.
Also, the author is not responsible for all the actions and actions of people who read this article.
In the text of the article, there is no need to look for hints of insults, since it only expresses in literary language the subjective opinion of the author, who does not claim to be fully right.
At all times there have been people of special spiritual vision who looked at the world not with physical, but with spiritual eyes. For these perspicacious elders there were no barriers or deadlines; for them the boundaries of time and space were expanded, the secrets of heaven and earth were revealed. “It must be said that we, the last representatives of the human race, must be grateful to God for allowing us to see and even participate in the most terrible war of good and evil, about which so many prophecies and predictions have been written more than anything else. And about predictions it should be noted; There are even more of them left by our saints than the prophecies of Holy Scripture. The saints who lived close to the onset of the end times made many predictions, as if they were in a hurry to warn the world about the coming tragedy. Particularly valuable warnings were given by Rev. Seraphim of Sarov and Rev. Myrrh-streaming Nile. In them we will find explanations and interpretations of the prophecies, and even valuable additions to them, which further clarifies the overall terrible picture. Particularly important for us are the predictions relating to our Russia with its special lot in God’s economic vision. The ancient Fathers of the Church, in brief statements, tried to emphasize that the future last times will be difficult, but God’s mercy towards those who have endured will also be special. Thus, in the “Fatherland,” compiled by Ignatius Brianchaninov, a conversation between the elders is given: “Once upon a time, the holy fathers of the Egyptian monastery spoke prophetically about the last generation of Christians. “What have we done? - they said. One of them, the great Abba Ischirion, answered: “We have fulfilled the commandments of God.” Then they asked: “What will those who come after us do?” “They,” said Abba, “will do half the work against us.” Then they asked him: “What will those who come after them do?” Abba Ischirion replied: “They will by no means have monastic work: but they will be allowed sorrow, and those of them who survive will be higher than us and our fathers.” St. said the same thing. Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem (386): “Therefore the Lord, knowing the great power of the enemy and condescending to the pious, says: then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains (Matthew 24:16). But if anyone recognizes in himself that he is truly strong and can resist Satan, then (without losing hope in the strength of the Church) let him become such and say: who will separate us from the love of God. and so on. Who is the blessed one who, out of piety, will then be a martyr for Christ, for above all the martyrs I place the martyrs of that time.” Also Rev. Niphon, Bishop of Cyprus predicted: “My son, until the end of the age the saints will not become scarce! But in recent years they will hide from people and will please God in such humility that they will appear in the Kingdom of Heaven higher than the first miraculous fathers. And such a reward will be for them because in those days there will be no one before their eyes who would work miracles, and people themselves will accept the zeal and fear of God in their hearts, for at that time the rank of bishop will not be skillful and will not become to love wisdom and reason, but will only care about self-interest. Monks will be like them because of the possession of large estates, but because of vain glory their spiritual eyes will be darkened, and they will despise those who love God with all their hearts, while the love of money will reign in them with all its strength. But woe to the monks who love gold: they will not see the Face of God!” However, many ancient prophecies do not have a Russian translation or have not even been preserved, but are revealed there, in a retelling, summarized in a general narrative. Such a list from the prophecies of one Russian learned monk is given by the archbishop. Seraphim of Chicago and Detroit (1959), it briefly describes the history before the enlightenment of Rus' and then begins the actual prophecy about the future, since predictions were written before the baptism of Rus' more than a hundred years ago. “The scepter of the Orthodox Kingdom falls from the weakening Hands of the Byzantine emperors, who failed to realize the symphony of Church and state. Therefore, to replace the decrepit spiritually chosen Greek people, the Lord Provider will send his third God-chosen people. This people will appear in the North in a hundred or two years (these prophecies were written 150-200 years before the baptism of Rus'), will accept Christianity with all their hearts, will try to live according to the commandments of Christ and seek, according to the instructions of Christ the Savior, first of all the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. For this zeal this people will love. The Lord God will give him everything else - large expanses of land, wealth, state power and glory. In a thousand years, this God-chosen people will waver in faith and in standing for the Truth of Christ, will become proud of their earthly power and glory, will stop caring about seeking the future City and will want paradise not in heaven, but on sinful earth. And for this great fall, a terrible fiery test will be sent from above to this people who have despised God’s ways. Rivers of blood will spill across his land, brother will kill brother, famine will visit this land more than once and gather its terrible harvest, almost all temples and other shrines will be destroyed or desecrated, many people will die. Still, the Lord is not completely angry with His third chosen people. The blood of thousands of martyrs will cry to heaven for mercy. The people themselves will begin to sober up and return to God. The period of cleansing testing determined by the Just Judge will finally pass, and holy Orthodoxy will once again shine with the bright light of revival in those northern expanses. This wondrous light of Christ will illuminate from there and enlighten all the peoples of the world, which will be helped by the providentially sent part of this people in advance into dispersion. Christianity will then reveal itself in all its heavenly beauty and completeness. Most of the peoples of the world will become Christians. And then? Then, when the fulfillment of time comes, the complete decline of faith and everything else predicted in Holy Scripture will begin throughout the world, the Antichrist will appear and, finally, the end of the world will come.” These prophecies are set out in different manuscripts and in different versions, but, basically, they all agree (S. V. Fomin “Russia before the Second Coming”). The second similar prediction, also collected from various Greek books by the Russian monk Anthony Savait, speaks of the pre-Tichrist time. “The last times have not yet arrived, and it is completely wrong to believe that we are on the threshold of the coming of the “Antichrist,” because the one and last flowering of Orthodoxy is yet to come, this time throughout the world - led by Russia. It will happen after a terrible war, in which either 1/2 or 2/3 of humanity will die and which will be stopped by a voice from heaven: “And the Gospel will be preached throughout the world!”<...> There will be a period of global prosperity - but not for long. In Russia at this time there will be an Orthodox Tsar, whom the Lord will reveal to the Russian people. And after this the world will again become corrupted and will no longer be capable of correction, then the Lord will allow the reign of the Antichrist" (S.V. Fomin "Russia before the Second Coming")." "St. Hippolytus, Pope of Rome (268) wrote: “...many who will listen to the Divine Scriptures, have them in their hands and meditate on them, will avoid the seduction (of the Antichrist). After all, they will clearly understand his intrigues and the lies of his seduction: they will escape His hands and will hide on the mountains and crevices of the earth and with tears and a contrite heart will look for that Lover of Mankind, Who will snatch them from his nets and save them from his painful temptations and in an invisible way, with His right hand will cover them for the fact that they deservedly and rightly fell to Him. Do you see what kind of fasting and prayer the saints will observe then? Pay attention also to what difficult times and days will befall all those who will be in cities and villages. They will then move from east to west and back from west to east; they will cry greatly and lament bitterly; and when the day has just dawned, they will wait for the night to calm down from their activities. When night falls, due to continuous earthquakes and air hurricanes, they will try to see the light of day as soon as possible and how to finally achieve at least a difficult death. Then the whole earth will mourn the sorrowful life, the sea and the air will mourn, the sun will mourn, wild animals and birds will mourn, mountains and hills and field trees will mourn - and all this thanks to the human race for the fact that everyone has deviated from the Holy God and believed into a seducer, having accepted the image of this wicked man and enemy of God, instead of the life-giving cross of the Savior. The churches will also mourn the great sorrow. After all, (then) there will be no offering, no incense, no service pleasing to God; but church buildings will be like huts designed to store fruit; The venerable body and blood of Christ will not be exalted in those days. Public worship will cease, the singing of psalms will cease, the reading of the Scriptures will not be heard: and there will be darkness for men, and mourning for mourning, and groaning for groaning. Then they will throw silver and gold along the roads, and no one will collect them, and everything will become disgusting. In fact, everyone will try to run away and hide and, however, will not have the opportunity to hide anywhere from the rage of the enemy, as those wearing his sign will be easily detected and recognized. There will be fear outside and trembling inside (there will be) both night and day. Both on the street and in the houses (there will be) corpses, both on the street and at home - thirst and hunger; there is turmoil on the street, and sobs at home. The beauty on the face will disappear; in fact, his features in people will be like those of the dead; Beauty will be destroyed in women and lust will disappear in all people.” “Blessed are those who will then overcome the tyrant, and they should be considered more glorious and greater than the first martyrs. In fact, the former martyrs defeated his (Antichrist’s) bodyguards; These same ones will defeat the devil himself, the son of destruction. And having become victors (over him), what great awards and crowns will they receive from our King Jesus Christ.” Saint Cyril (386 or 387), Archbishop of Jerusalem: “...The martyrs of that time, in my opinion, are higher than all the martyrs. The former martyrs fought with only people, but the martyrs under the Antichrist will wage war with Satan himself.” St. Andrew, Archbishop, Caesarea: “And go and make war with those who remain. - And when the best and chosen church teachers and those who despise the earth retire into the desert due to disasters, then the Antichrist, although deceived in them, will raise a battle against those who fight Christ in the world in order to triumph over them, finding them easily caught, as if sprinkled with earthly dust and passionate about everyday affairs. But many of these will overcome him, because they have sincerely loved Christ.” “But there is a third reason, and, one might say, an uncaused reason why the grace of the All-Holy Spirit sometimes deigns to abandon even a God-bearing person. And this is already allowed from the Lord God Himself - to experience this only for people who have been extremely strengthened in the grace of God as an extraordinary feat for extraordinary rewards for that: just as it was allowed to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself from God His Father when His Divinity remained completely on the Cross dispassionate, that is, not feeling the suffering of His flesh, the Divine Sufferer involuntarily deigned to cry out. “Eloi! Eloi! Lamma Savahvani? - What means. My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me? So, the same temptation will be allowed throughout the entire universe during the time of the Antichrist, when all the holy people of God and the holy Church of God of Christ, consisting of them alone, will be, as it were, abandoned from the protection and help of God. The wicked will triumph and exalt themselves over them to the point that the Lord God the Holy Spirit Himself, seeing their invisibly heavy suffering from afar, predicted from ancient times: “Oh, where is the faith and patience of the saints!” Immense temptations similar to this are being allowed and will be allowed until this time on the holy great saints of God and the saints of God in order to tempt their immeasurably great faith in Christ and to crown them with incomprehensibly great and incredible rewards for the human mind during the Rebirth and life of the Future Age (see . Apocalypse 20, 4-6, let the reader understand!).” To the brother’s question: “As now the saints have multiplied throughout the whole world, will it be the same at the end of this age?” - Rev. Niphon (| 11.8.1460), Patriarch of Constantinople replied: “My son, until the very end of this age the prophets of the Lord God will not fail, as well as the servants of Satan. However, in the last time, those who will truly work for God will safely hide themselves from people and will not perform signs and wonders among them, as at the present time, but will follow the path of work, dissolved in humility, and in the Kingdom of Heaven they will turn out to be greater than the Fathers who became glorified. signs; because then no one will do miracles before human eyes that would inflame people and encourage them to strive with zeal for exploits. Those who occupy the thrones of the priesthood throughout the world will be completely unskillful and will not know the art of virtue. The same will be the leaders of the monastics, for everyone will be overthrown by gluttony and vanity, and will serve as a temptation for people more than a model, therefore virtue will be neglected even more; the love of money will then reign, and woe to the monks who are rich in gold, for such will be a reproach to the Lord God and will not see the face of the living God. A monk or layman who gives his gold at interest, if he does not deviate from such extortion, will be plunged into deep tartarus, because he did not want to sacrifice (his gold) to God through doing good to the poor. Therefore, my son, as I said before, many, being possessed by ignorance, will fall into the abyss, being mistaken in the breadth of the wide and spacious path.” Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) regarding these words of the Rev. Niphon of Tsaregrad wrote: “What profound instruction, what consolation for us in these prophetic words of the sign-bearing and spirit-bearing Father! Due to the multiplication of temptations, due to their universality and dominance, due to the forgetting of the Gospel commandments and their neglect by all humanity, it is necessary for those who wish to be saved to withdraw from human society into external and internal solitude. Due to the drying up of grace-filled leaders, due to the multiplication of false teachers, deceived by demonic delusion and dragging the whole world into this deception, it is necessary to live dissolved in humility, the most precise living according to the Gospel commandments is necessary, it is necessary to combine prayer with crying for oneself and for all humanity, caution is necessary against any passion for passion, thinking of doing the work of God with human forces alone, without God acting and doing his work. Let the one who saves save his soul, it is said to the remnant of Christians, it is said by the Spirit of God. Save yourself! Blessed if you find one faithful collaborator in the work of salvation: this is a great and rare gift of God in our time. Beware, if you want to save your neighbor, that he does not drag you into a pernicious abyss. The latter happens hourly. The retreat was allowed by God: do not try to stop it with your weak hand. Stay away, protect yourself from him: and that’s enough for you. Get acquainted with the spirit of the time, study it, so as to avoid its influence if possible. “Nowadays there is almost no true piety,” says Saint Tikhon (Zadonsky) a hundred years before this. “Nowadays it’s just hypocrisy.” Fear hypocrisy, first, in yourself, then in others: fear precisely because it is in the nature of the time and is capable of infecting anyone at the slightest deviation into frivolous behavior. Do not strive for show to people, but in secret for your salvation, in the eyes of God, and your behavior will be cleansed of hypocrisy. Do not condemn your neighbors, leaving judgment over them to God, and your heart will be cleansed of hypocrisy. Pursue hypocrisy in yourself, drive it out of yourself; turn away from the masses infected by it, acting both intentionally and unconsciously in its direction, covering the service of the world with the service of God, the search for temporary goods with the search for eternal goods, covering with the guise of holiness a vicious life and a soul completely devoted to passions.” "Before the Second Coming of Christ<...>Christianity, spirituality and reasoning will become impoverished to the extreme among humanity<...>“Opponents of the Antichrist will be considered troublemakers, enemies of the public good and order, will be subject to both covert and open persecution, torture and execution.” “In times of sorrows and dangers, visible and invisible, prayer is especially needed: it, being an expression of the rejection of arrogance, an expression of hope in God, attracts God’s help to us.” “When the great tribulations come during the time of the Antichrist, all true believers in God will cry out in intense prayer to God. They will cry out for help, for intercession, for the sending of Divine grace to strengthen and guide them. People's own strength, although faithful to God, is not enough to withstand the united forces of rejected angels and people who will act with frenzy and despair, anticipating their imminent death. Divine grace, having overshadowed God’s chosen ones, will make for them the seductions of the seducer invalid, his threats unthreatening, his miracles despicable; she grants them to courageously confess the Savior who accomplished the salvation of people, and to expose the false messiah who came to destroy people; she will place them on scaffolds, as on royal thrones, as on a wedding feast.” The Lord “even in the very times of the Antichrist will guide His servants and prepare for them places and means of salvation, as is testified in the Apocalypse.” Rev. Lavrenty (Proskura, 1868 February 20, 1950), schema-archimandrite of the Chernigov Trinity Monastery: “Immediately (after the reign of the Antichrist) persecution will begin on the land of Jerusalem, and then throughout all places on the globe the last blood will be shed for the Name of our Redeemer Jesus Christ. Of you, my children, many will live to see this terrible time.<...>Christians will be killed or exiled to desert places, but the Lord will help and nourish His followers.<...>In those days there will still be strong fighters, pillars of Orthodoxy, who will be under the strong influence of the heartfelt Jesus Prayer. And the Lord will cover them with His Almighty grace and they will not see those false signs that will be prepared for all people. I repeat once again that it will be impossible to go to those churches, there will be no grace in them. Hieromonk Nektary of Optina (between February and October 1917): “And in the last times the world will be girded with iron and paper. The days of Noah are a type of our days. The Ark is the Church, only those who are in It will be saved. You need to pray. Through prayer, through the word of God, all filth is cleansed.” “The time for prayer is coming. While working, say the Jesus Prayer. First with the lips, then with the mind, and finally, it will move into the heart...” One sister, listening to this conversation, asked: “What should I do? I wouldn’t want to live to see this time.” “You’re young, you can wait,” said the old man. "How scary!" “And you choose one of two: either earthly or heavenly.”<...>The sister asked: “So they all died?” “No, if believers wash themselves in blood, they will be counted among the martyrs, and if they are not believers, then they will go to hell,” answered the priest. And until the number of fallen Angels is filled, the Lord will not come to judge. But in the last time the Lord will number the living, who are written in the book of Life, among the Angels of the missing number of those who have fallen away.”<...>Father talked with one hierodeacon (George) about the last times, bitterly shedding tears, saying: “Many clergy will perish under the Antichrist.” And George says: “How can I not die? After all, I’m a deacon?” And the priest said, “I don’t know.” Father Deacon began to cry, falling at his feet, asking him to pray for him so that he could escape hell, and he prayed and answered: “Okay. This is how it happens: he got sick in the head, and then he himself got sick, died and entered the Kingdom of Heaven.” And this prediction came true. We knew this deacon in the Kyiv Lavra, he was a very virtuous and singing monk, suddenly fell ill with a headache and soon died. Father often lamented and prayed tearfully, or told something with tears. The sisters reassured him, to which he objected: “How can one not cry when the abyss of human souls is full.” The priest had a strong love for everything that the Lord gave him for<даром>prayers of heart and insight. “There will be an abyss on the earth,” said the priest, “and the “sirki” (demons) will all come out and will be in people who will neither be baptized nor pray, but will only kill people, and murder is the original sin. It is interesting to seduce people more with this sin. Amen". Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) writes: “St. Athanasius the Great says that one of the signs of the approaching coming of the Antichrist will be the transfer of church government from the hands of archpastors to the hands of secular dignitaries. The sign is very true! This cannot happen otherwise than when the clergy loses its essential spiritual meaning, its energy generated by a decisive renunciation from the world. The bureaucracy has destroyed the essential significance of the Hierarchy in the Church, the connection between the shepherds and the flock has been destroyed, and the love of peace, the insatiable desire for vain honors, for the accumulation of capital has destroyed Christians in the shepherds, leaving in them only despicable, hated policemen due to their hatred of the people, abuse and immorality.” . Hieroschemamonk Kuksha (Velichko) (1875-1964): “The last times are coming. Soon there will be an ecumenical Council called “holy”. But this will be the same “eighth Council, which will be a gathering of the godless.” On it all faiths will unite into one. Then all posts will be abolished, monasticism will be completely destroyed, bishops will be married. A new style calendar will be introduced in the Universal Church. Be carefull. Try to visit God's temples while they are still ours. Soon it will be impossible to go there, everything will change. Only a select few will see this. People will be forced to go to church, but we will not have to go there under any circumstances. I pray you, stand in the Orthodox faith until the end of your days and be saved!”
Man is a creature gravitating toward mysticism. Even if he considers himself an atheist. If an individual does not believe in anything, he still comes up with some kind of religious surrogates for himself - higher intelligence, astrology, the theory of evolution (with all due respect, but the attitude towards Darwin's legacy among some pundits often acquires signs of religious fanaticism). Prophecies and predictions are especially popular among both believers and non-believers, the passion for which has noticeably intensified recently.
Opinion leader
The best representatives of the human race have been working in the field of predictions since time immemorial - remember the prophetic Cassandra, who predicted the death of Troy. If we analyze the popularity of the prophets, whom our contemporaries regard with the greatest reverence, at least in the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet, then the opinion leaders will be the Bulgarian fortuneteller Vanga, the medieval doctor Nostradamus and, strange as it may sound, the apostle and beloved disciple of Christ - John the Theologian . The latter owns the most mysterious book of the New Testament - Revelation or Apocalypse, interest in which is only growing every year.
And this interest is not accidental, since John’s work tells about the end of the world, and what is happening in very real life sometimes makes even optimists think about the finitude of existence: endless wars, earthquakes, tsunamis, the fight against traditions, cloning, epidemics, climate change. All of the above leads many to look for modern parallels in Revelation.
The special love of many for this book is due to the fact that the apostle’s work is included in the Bible, which has been and remains the unconditional authority for billions of people. Revelation was written by a disciple of Christ already at the end of his life, when he was imprisoned on the island of Patmos. As the Theologian himself writes, the events indicated in the book were revealed to him when he was “in the spirit,” that is, in a particularly prayerful state. Christ appeared to John and told about what should happen before his second coming to earth: about cataclysms and miracles, heavenly punishments, the resurrection of the dead, the appearance of angels and, most importantly, the appearance of the Heavenly Jerusalem, called to replace the existing human civilization with a new one. The latter, according to the apostle, will live under the direct control of Christ, after it there will be no other civilizations. Over time, the word “apocalypse” has become a household word.
Despite the fact that the ending of Revelation is very optimistic, the events preceding it have at all times caused fair fears among humanity. Even over the past couple of decades, there have been several occasions when the public began to speak loudly that John's prophecy was beginning to be fulfilled.
Star from the sky
A great stir of minds was associated with the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986. The reason was verses 10 and 11 of the eighth chapter of Revelation, which say: “The third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a lamp, and fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of this star is “wormwood”; and a third of the waters became wormwood, and many of the people died from the waters, because they became bitter.” The parallel was drawn quite clearly, since “Chernobyl” is precisely “wormwood”. The same thing that began to happen after the disaster at the nuclear reactor was quite consistent with the description of the consequences of the fall of a star described by John.
Fallen Babylon
A similar reaction was observed among mystically minded citizens to a sad event - the terrorist attack on the New York Twin Towers in September 2001. Hand on heart, it must be said that this event could not help but touch people’s minds: the picture shown live, similar to footage from a standard American action movie, actually happened and made a stunning impression. Immediately after these events, people appeared who said that this was the embodiment of the 18th chapter of the Apocalypse, which describes the fall of Babylon (in this case, the name has a symbolic, not an actual meaning).
John describes how everyone in the world related to trade “wept” as they watched the city perish, which had actually subjugated the rest of the world due to the fact that the main financial flows were concentrated in it. After this, Theologian lists the losses caused by trading in goods, the nomenclature of which suspiciously coincides with the list of futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange. At the same time, it also says that punishment befell the city because: “your merchants were the nobles of the earth, and all nations were deceived by your magic.” Why not a description of the American oligarchy led by the Rothschilds and Rockefellers?
Of course, such parallels could not go unnoticed. But, fortunately, New York was not completely destroyed, and stock trading is still thriving.
Armageddon
Today, if they begin to remember Revelation, they associate it with the field of the last battle - Armageddon. The etymology of this word comes from the geographical name in Hebrew - Mount Meggido. This is the name of a hill 10 km from the city of Afula in northern Israel. According to a number of interpretations, the choice of this hill for the last battle of mankind as the site of the final battle in which the forces of good (Christ) and evil (Antichrist) will collide is due to the fact that it was here that the first documented battle took place. It was in this place that in the 15th century before Christ, the Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III defeated the Canaanite kings. Accordingly, where the first battle took place, the last one must also take place.
Well, I think there is no need to describe in detail what is happening in the Middle East now. During the period when Russia had not yet participated in the conflict in Syria and the troops of the “Islamic State” (a terrorist group banned on the territory of the Russian Federation) were quite vigorously moving towards Israel, in the marginal part of the Internet there was quite active talk about the approach of Armageddon.
Nothing new
However, panic has always been inherent in humanity. For example, throughout the Christian world, the end of the world was expected with great fear when the year 666 A.D. was approaching. The second strong outbreak occurred at the moment when Paschal (the system for calculating the date of the celebration of Christian Easter) ended in the 15th century. At the end of the 17th century, thoughts about the end of the world were prompted by the reforms of Patriarch Nikon, which ended in a split in the Russian Orthodox Church, and then by the innovations of Emperor Peter the Great. The latter, by the way, was not called anything other than “Antichrist” by many. A similar epithet was applied to Napoleon I Bonaparte. At the end of the 19th century, if you read Russian literature, apocalyptic expectations simply hung in the air. The end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century were also marked by panicky expectations. Nowadays, numerous sects and self-proclaimed “gods” like to spread them. Moreover, both in Russia and abroad. In any case, when what John the Theologian prophesied will actually happen, it is apparently not given to us to know. However, you shouldn’t be afraid of all of the above, since Apocalypse is an optimistic book and it ends well!
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Archpriest Andrei Rechitsky, rector of the Church of Elijah the Prophet in Kitai-Gorod: Humanity has always been characterized by eschatological expectations - both in the Middle Ages and in our time. So, for example, in 1492, many began to prepare themselves for the coming of Christ, since Paschal was ending and the same year was the 7000th since the creation of the world. Medieval people saw this as a secret sign indicating the end of times. In 2007, a whole group of sectarians in Penza immured themselves underground in anticipation of the end of the world. This is due to the fact that, unfortunately, we tend to pay more attention to external signs rather than internal ones. However, Christ spoke directly: “It is not your business to know times and seasons.” And as a sign of His second coming, he pointed precisely to the internal structure of man, which must change in recent times: “And because iniquity will increase, the love of many will grow cold (Matthew 24:9).” Thus, no matter how similar the events taking place around us to the images given to us in the Revelation of John the Theologian are, we should not treat them as evidence that the prophecy is being fulfilled right now. Otherwise, you may find yourself hostage to your own fears. |
The main feature of his moral character is manifested in the doctrine of love. For this, John was even called the apostle of love. Love runs like a red thread through all his writings, and the main idea is that God in his being is love, that is, it is the ineffable love of God for the world and man, and the service of love is the entire life path of John the Theologian.
He was harsh and passionate, but at the same time gentle and devoted. From the Gospel we learn that Christ was often forced to cool his impulses, which reached the point of violent jealousy. Jesus even called John and his brother James sons of thunder. At the same time, John possessed rare modesty, as well as such character traits as observation and sensitivity to current events and sensitivity to the suffering of others.
The Apostle John always listened with reverence and awe to his Teacher speaking about grace and truth; not a single feature from the earthly life of Christ the Savior passed him by without leaving a deep mark on his soul. The thoughts of John the Theologian were just as complete. He always said that where there is no complete devotion, there is nothing. He chose the path of serving Christ as the goal of his life and followed it to the fullest. He spoke about devotion to Christ, about his life in Him, therefore he considered sin not as weakness and defectiveness of human character, but as evil or a negative principle, the opposite of good. According to him, a person can belong either to Christ or to the devil, there is no third option.
The Apostle John was destined to express the last word of Divine Revelation, which introduced man into the secrets of the inner divine life, forced him to listen to the Only Begotten Son and his eternal word. John affirms or denies the eternal truth, but he always speaks with absolute accuracy, since he hears the voice of the Lord, revealing to the world what he himself hears from his Father.
The writings of the Apostle John blur the line between the present and the future. Seeing the world around him, he understands that this is temporary, and does not dwell on it. He turns his gaze to the eternal in the past and to the eternal in the future. He calls everyone to observe holy truths and declares that “whoever is born of God will not sin.” When communicating with God, every true Christian thinks about his participation in divine life, because the future of humanity takes place on earth. In one of his writings, the Apostle John leads humanity into the realm of the eternal present, in which heaven has descended to earth and the renewed earth is illuminated by the light of heavenly glory.
John the Theologian, through his Revelation, revealed to people the secret of the universe and the fate of humanity. Every year on May 8, the Orthodox Church celebrates the feast of the Holy Apostle John the Theologian.
"Revelation of John the Evangelist" and other prophecies
Saint John the Theologian, in his Revelation, mentioned the day when all people, both living and dead, resurrected from their graves (Fig. 23), will appear before the judgment of God.
The Revelation of John the Evangelist is believed to have been written in 68–69 AD. e. Researchers do not exclude the fact that around the mid-90s AD. e. it was edited by scribes. This happened after the defeat of the First Jewish revolt against the Romans. The indicated date practically coincides with the reference to Irenaeus, which is given in his “Ecclesiastical History” by Eusebius of Caesarea (between 260 and 265–338 or 339), a Roman church writer, bishop of Caesarea (Palestine). The prophetic Revelation of John the Evangelist presents a truly grandiose picture of the coming Apocalypse, which concludes the New Testament.
John the Theologian told the first Christians, who were subjected to terrible persecution by the Roman authorities, a great and comforting message: “Blessed is he who reads and hears the words of this prophecy and keeps what is written in it; for the time is near.”
It is necessary to hold out a little longer, not to deviate from the faith of Christ, and soon the suffering will end, and all those who resisted will be generously rewarded. In a series of visions, John saw something that was soon destined to happen: he learned about the impending end of the world and the terrible events associated with it.
The revelation descended on John the Theologian at a time when he was on the island of Patmos, in the Aegean Sea, where he suffered “for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.” One Sunday, the sky suddenly opened above the soothsayer, and he saw seven golden lamps and among them “one like the Son of Man.” John the Theologian describes the appearance of Jesus Christ this way: “His head and hair are white, like a white wave, like snow; and His eyes are like a flame of fire; and His feet were like chalkovan (a type of amber), like those red-hot in a furnace; and His voice is like the sound of many waters. He held in His right hand seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sword sharp on both sides; and His face is like the sun, shining in its power.” The seven lamps symbolized the seven churches, and the seven stars in the right hand of the Lord symbolized the angels of these churches.
Struck by such an unusual phenomenon, John fell at the feet of the Son of Man, who greeted him with the following words: “Do not be afraid, I am the first and the last, and the living; and was dead; and behold, I live forever and ever, Amen; and I have the keys of hell and death. So, write what you saw, and what is, and what will happen after this.” John the Theologian fulfilled Christ's command and later recorded everything that happened that day in his Revelation.
Jesus invited him to step into heaven to see with his own eyes what “must come to pass after this.” John followed him and saw “a throne standing in heaven, and one sitting on the throne.” By the Seated One, the soothsayer meant the Creator God himself.
Around the throne of God, from which “came lightning, and thunder, and voices,” were twenty-four more thrones. Twenty-four elders sat on them, dressed in white robes, with golden crowns on their heads. In front of the throne stood seven fiery lamps, personifying the “spirits of God.”
Here sat four animals, “full of eyes in front and behind,” the first of which resembled a lion, the second a calf, the third a man, and the fourth an eagle. Each of them “had six wings around, and inside
they are full of eyes; and neither day nor night they know peace, crying out: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, who is, and who is to come.” While the animals sang the glory and honor of the One sitting on the throne, the elders fell prostrate before him and laid crowns at his feet.
In his right hand God held a book sealed with seven seals. The angel proclaimed with a loud voice: Is there anyone who is worthy to open the book by breaking its seals? But there was no one either on earth, or in heaven, or under the earth.
Then one of the elders sitting at the throne of God stood up and told John the Theologian that now “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has won and can open this book and open its seven seals.”
At the same moment, John saw a Lamb “as if it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent into all the earth.” In the image of the Lamb, of course, Jesus Christ himself appears (Fig. 25), considered by Christians to be a descendant of King David. The horn of the ancient Jews was a symbol of power.
The Lamb received from the hands of God the book sealed with seven seals. The act of transferring the book from God the Father to God the Son symbolizes the enthronement of Christ, who takes power from the Father. Animals and elders surround the Lamb on all sides and begin to sing in his honor: “Thou art worthy to take the book and open the seals from it; for You were slain, and with Your blood you redeemed us to God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and made us kings and priests to our God; and we will reign on earth."
Following them, this song was repeated by a huge number of elders, animals and angels, surrounding the throne on all sides. “And their number was ten thousand ten thousand and thousands upon thousands,” says Revelation. The end of the world was approaching.
However, according to the predictions of the soothsayer, God will definitely protect all true believers who have lived a righteous life, while severe punishment awaits all those who reject God and unrepentant sinners.
Jesus Christ one by one removes the seals from the book, as a result of which four horsemen sitting on four assorted horses descend to the ground. They are the harbingers of the end of the world and the great disasters that will precede it.
So the Lamb opened the first seal, and one of the four living creatures proclaimed: “Come and see.” John the Theologian saw a white horse (Fig. 26). On it sat “a horseman having a bow, and a crown was given to him; and he came out victorious, and to conquer.”
Christ opened the second seal, and the second animal said in a thunderous voice: “Come and see.” Then a second horse appeared, a red one. The rider sitting on it was ordered to “take peace from the earth, and that they should kill each other; and a great sword was given to him.”
After the Lamb opened the third seal, John heard the voice of the third animal: “Come and see.” At that moment a black horse came down from heaven, and a rider sat on it, “having measure in his hand.”
The Lamb opened the fourth seal, and the fourth animal said, “Come and see.” A pale horse came out. The most terrible horseman sat on it, personifying death. The Revelation says: "And hell followed him, and power was given to him over the fourth part of the earth - to kill with the sword and with hunger and with pestilence and with the beasts of the earth."
It should be noted that the same horses of four colors and the riders sitting on them are mentioned in the book of the prophet Zechariah, and there they symbolize the four spirits of heaven, “who stand before the Lord of all the earth.”
Further events are stunning pictures that make quite a strong impression.
If we turn to the real history of those distant times, we can draw some analogies with the events of the last years of Nero's reign, when there were endless, bloody wars, and the imperial throne was shaken by the uprisings of a number of Roman governors who wanted to take Nero's place, as well as uprisings in Judea and Gaul . In addition, in those years famine often raged in Rome. In 65 AD e. The Mediterranean suffered a new terrible disaster - a plague that claimed thousands of lives. Around the same time, devastating earthquakes occurred in Italy, Greece, Asia Minor and along the entire eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. So the rider on the pale horse reaped a rich harvest of human lives.
The first Christians experienced particularly terrible persecution during these years. Anyone who religiously followed the faith of Christ faced inevitable death after painful torture. Therefore, it is no coincidence that Revelation says that when Christ opened the fifth seal, the souls of “those who were slain for the word of God” appeared under the altar. They prayed to God to take revenge on those living on earth for the suffering that had befallen them. The Lord calmed them down, gave them white robes and said that the Last Judgment would soon take place and many righteous people would join their ranks.
After the Lamb opened the sixth seal, there was a great earthquake. “And the sun became dark like sackcloth, and the moon became like blood; and the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree, shaken by a strong wind, drops its unripe figs; and the sky disappeared, curled up like a scroll; and every mountain and island moved from their places.” All people: kings, nobles, freemen, and slaves - sought to hide in the caves and gorges of the mountains and prayed for stones to fall on them and hide them “from the face of Him who sits on the throne and the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of wrath has come.” His".
Then John the Theologian tells that he saw four angels standing at the four ends of the earth, who held the four winds so that they would not blow “neither on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.” But from the direction of the rising sun, another angel moved towards them, having the “seal of the living God.” And he commanded those four destroying angels, who were ordered to “harm the earth and the sea”: not to do harm until seals were placed on the foreheads of the servants of God, that is, those who, in spite of everything, remained devoted to the true Christian faith. There were one hundred and forty-four thousand of them. They all gathered around the throne of God, dressed in white robes. From now on, they were to serve God in His temple and received deliverance from suffering, for “the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will feed them and lead them to living springs of water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
And then came the most terrible moment. When Christ opened the last, seventh seal, complete silence reigned in heaven. John the Theologian saw seven angels come forward with trumpets - the arbiters of God's judgment - and an angel with a golden censer in his hands, which he filled with fire from the altar and “threw to the ground.” On earth from this came “voices and thunder and lightning and an earthquake.”
Seven angels prepared to sound the trumpet, announcing that “the day of the Lord” had come.
After the first angel sounded the trumpet, “hail and fire mixed with blood” fell on the earth. As a result, a third of the trees and all the green grass were destroyed.
After the sign given by the second angel, a huge mountain, resembling a ball of fire, fell into the sea, causing the death of a third of the living creatures living in it, and the drowning of a third of the ships sailing on the sea. The third part of the sea water turned into blood.
The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a “great star, burning like a lamp,” whose name is “wormwood,” fell from heaven to earth. Because of this, the water in a third of the rivers and springs became bitter and poisonous, “and many of the people died from the waters.”
The sound of the fourth angel's trumpet caused the defeat of a third of the Sun, Moon and stars, causing a third of the day to become night.
After this, John the Theologian saw an angel flying in the middle of heaven, who in a loud voice proclaimed: “Woe, woe, woe to those who live on earth from the remaining trumpet voices of the three angels who will blow.”
Then the fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and a star fell from heaven to earth. She was given the key with which “she opened the well of the abyss.” Thick smoke came from there, darkening the Sun and the air, and from the smoke came hordes of monstrous locusts. She was like “horses prepared for war; and on her heads there were crowns like gold, and her faces were like human faces; and her hair was like the hair of women, and her teeth were like those of lions. She had armor on her, like iron armor, and the noise from her wings was like the sound of chariots when many horses run to war; she had tails like scorpions, and in her tails were stings.” John learned that its king was the angel of the abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek Apollyon (that is, “the destroyer”).
The terrible locusts, reminiscent of earthly scorpions, were supposed to attack not earthly vegetation, but people whom God did not mark with his seal, that is, the sinners remaining on earth (Fig. 27). But do not kill them, but torture them for five months, and this torment will be like “the torment of a scorpion when it stings a person.” In this regard, in the “Revelation of John the Theologian” there is a terrible phrase: “In those days people will seek death, but will not find it; they will wish to die, but death will flee from them.”
The trumpet of the sixth angel heralded terrible pictures of the invasion of a huge cavalry army, numbering two times darkness, coming from the Euphrates River. It was intended by God to destroy the third part of people, who were destined to die “from fire, smoke and brimstone” coming out of the mouths of horses with lion heads. Their tails, like snakes, had heads and also brought harm to people.
The army killed a third of the people, but those who survived did not repent of their sins, and another punishment awaited them.
John saw a gigantic angel “descending from heaven, clothed in a cloud; over his head was a rainbow, and his face was like the sun, and his feet were like pillars of fire.” He stood with one foot on the land and the other on the sea and held an open book in his hands. With a voice that sounded like seven thunders, he told John about the secrets of the future. The prophet was about to write down what was said, but heard the voice of God coming from heaven, which forbade him to do this. The angel standing on the sea and on the earth raised his hand to heaven and announced that when the seventh angel sounded, “there will be no more time” and “the mystery of God” known to the ancient prophets will be completed. After this, a voice from heaven commanded John to take the book from the angel’s hands and eat it, because he had to “again prophesy about the nations and tribes.”
And finally the seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and loud voices sounded in the sky: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ, and will reign forever and ever.”
At this time, the twenty-four elders who were seated on thrones around the throne of God bowed before Him and proclaimed: “... Your wrath has come and the time to judge the dead and to give retribution to Your servants, the prophets, and the saints, and to those who fear Your name, small and great and destroy those who destroy the earth." And the third woe came: “The temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant was revealed in His temple; and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and earthquakes, and great hail.”
Thus, John the Theologian brought comforting news to the believers: the day of judgment is already near, we must wait and be patient a little longer. In the end, those who suffered for their faith will be rewarded for their righteous torment, and they will find peace and happiness, and severe punishment will inevitably overtake their executioners. However, John in his Revelation does not stop there and continues to describe his visions.
He talks about a miraculous sign that appeared in the sky - “a woman clothed with the sun; under her feet is the moon and on her head is a crown of twelve stars.” The wife gave birth to “a male child who is to rule all nations with a rod of iron.” While everyone was celebrating the baby, the wife fled into the desert, where she was ordered by God to spend one thousand two hundred and sixty days.
Then in heaven there was a battle between the Archangel Michael and his angels with “the great dragon, the ancient serpent, called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world,” and his evil angels. Mikhail won this fight. There was no place for the dragon and the angels in heaven, and they were cast down to earth.
It was at this moment that John heard a loud voice from heaven, which announced the overthrow of the devil and that salvation had come in heaven - the kingdom and power of Christ.
The devil was defeated “by the blood of the Lamb,” as well as by the steadfastness and faithfulness of Christians, those who “loved not their own souls unto death.” Great grief descended upon all those living on earth and sea, since the devil, cast down to earth, became especially furious, because he knew that he had little time left.
Having descended to earth, the dragon began to pursue the wife who had given birth to a baby. But God gave her two wings, similar to those of an eagle. She rose into the sky and flew into the desert, where she took refuge from the dragon. The enraged serpent launched a river after her, which poured out of his mouth. But in vain: the earth itself came to the aid of the wife, she opened her mouth and swallowed the river.
The dragon failed to overtake the wife, so he decided to “make war with the rest (that is, those who came) from her seed, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimonies of Jesus Christ.”
In the next chapter, John describes two unusual animals that appeared to him in the following vision. He stood on the sand of the sea and suddenly saw a monstrous beast with seven heads and ten horns emerge from the sea. He had ten diadems on his horns, and “on his heads were blasphemous names.” In appearance he was “like a leopard; His legs are like those of a bear, and his mouth is like the mouth of a lion; and the dragon gave him his strength, and his throne, and great authority.” One of the heads of the beast was “as if mortally wounded,” but this wound was miraculously healed.
All who lived on earth worshiped the beast and the dragon who gave him power, except those whose names were “written in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world” and who showed “the patience and faith of the saints.” The beast declared war on the saints, and “it was given to him to make war with the saints and defeat them.” But his power was not established for long - only for forty-two months.
In his next vision, John described another beast, a red dragon (Fig. 28): “And I saw another beast coming up out of the earth; he had two horns like a lamb, and spoke like a dragon.” He forced people to worship the image of the first beast, and threatened those who refused to do so with the death penalty. At the instigation of the dragon, all people were to put “the mark of the name of the beast on their right hand or forehead.” In the same chapter there are words that became a mystery for many generations and subsequently received a rather contradictory interpretation: “Here is wisdom. He who has intelligence, count the number of the beast, for it is a human number; the number is six hundred and sixty-six.”
Here it is necessary to make a digression. The meaning of all these terrible visions and global cataclysms was quite accessible to the first readers of Revelation. However, people living at the beginning of the 3rd millennium are unlikely to understand John’s allegorical stories. They are more likely to perceive them as a myth or a fairy tale, so we will focus on explaining some concepts.
What did John the Theologian talk about when he described the images of a wife who gave birth to a baby and two animals, and has the mystery of the number “six hundred and sixty-six” been solved? It turns out that the prophet had in mind very real historical events.
The woman crowned with twelve stars represents the people of Israel. The dragon with seven heads and ten horns is a symbol of the Roman Empire, the red color is the purple of the imperial robes, the seven dragon heads crowned with horns are the seven emperors who ruled in Rome before the Revelation of John the Evangelist saw the light: these are Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho. The ten horns of the dragon most likely symbolize the ten governors of the Roman provinces. The “male child” is none other than Jesus Christ, who is destined to “rule all nations with a rod of iron.” God took Him into heaven under His protection, so the dragon was not able to destroy “one like the Son of Man.”
John the Theologian represents Rome in the image of Satan, the devil. He is powerful, but he will not be able to slander God so much by blaspheming him that those who testify to Christ will turn away from him and betray their faith. John is confident that they will definitely win victory over the devil thanks to their righteousness and steadfastness, since they are ready to accept death for their beliefs. This is probably not just an allusion to the severe persecution to which the first Christians were subjected in the Roman Empire. These lines also sound a stern warning to Rome. The author seems to predict complete destruction threatening the Eternal City in the near future.
The mystery of the number “six hundred and sixty-six” is also explained quite simply. Many ancient peoples, including the Jews, denoted numbers using various letters of the alphabet.
So, if you substitute Hebrew letters instead of numbers into the “animal number”, you get two words: “Nero Caesar.” This means that the beast, whose one head was mortally wounded, but was healed, is an allegory personifying the image of the Roman emperor Nero. The fact is that John the Theologian, as well as his like-minded people, were convinced that the power of Rome and the unlimited power of the emperors came from none other than the devil himself. That's why
The miraculously healed dragon's head is a direct indication of the fate of Emperor Nero. This is evidenced by a real historical fact. In 68 AD e. The governors of the provinces raised an uprising, the purpose of which was to overthrow Nero. As a result, the emperor committed suicide, and soon rumors appeared that Nero survived.
So, those who kept the commandments of God won the victory over the dragon. Let us now return to the Revelation of John the Theologian. What else did the prophet see on that great day of God's wrath? On Mount Zion stood the Lamb with all the redeemed “from among men, as firstborn to God and to the Lamb.”
In the middle of the sky, three angels appeared one after another - heralds of the beginning of God's judgment. The first angel, with the eternal Gospel in his hands, addressed the people remaining on earth in a loud voice: “Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come.” Another angel, who followed the first, announced the fall of the great city of Babylon, which “made all nations drink of the wrathful wine of her fornication.” The third angel declared: “Whoever worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he will drink the wine of the wrath of God, the whole wine prepared in the cup of his wrath, and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone before the holy angels and the Lamb.” ; and the smoke of their torment will rise up forever and ever, and they will have no rest day or night.”
And John heard a voice come from heaven, which told him to write down these words: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.”
Soon the prophet saw a light cloud appear in the sky. On it sat “one like the Son of Man” with a golden crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hands. Another angel called on Jesus to lower the sickle to the ground and reap the harvest, “for the harvest on earth is already ripe.” The Son of Man brought the sickle to the ground and carried out his judgment, like the harvest and the pruning of grapes.
In the next sign, “great and wonderful,” seven angels appeared to John with the seven last plagues, “with which the wrath of God ended.” The prophet heard the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb, which was sung by “those who defeated the beast and his image,” glorifying the power of the Lord. After the voices fell silent, the gates of the heavenly temple opened and seven angels came out, dressed in clean and light linen clothes. One of the four animals gave them seven golden bowls containing God's wrath. The temple was filled with smoke, and no one could enter there until “the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished.”
A loud voice coming from the temple commanded the seven angels to pour out the seven bowls of God's wrath on the earth. After the first angel poured out his cup, “there were cruel and disgusting wounds on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped his image.”
The second angel poured the cup into the sea, and all life in it perished. The third angel poured the cup into the rivers and springs, and the water in them turned into blood, for those who “shed the blood of saints and prophets” were worthy of it.
The fourth angel poured his cup onto the Sun, which began to mercilessly burn people. However, the sinners did not repent and continued to blaspheme God for sending them suffering. Then the fifth angel poured the cup onto the throne of the beast, the sixth - into the Euphrates River, in which the water immediately dried up, and the seventh angel - into the air. A loud voice came from the heavenly temple. He announced that God's judgment had been completed.
“And there were lightnings, thunders and voices, and there was a great earthquake, which has not happened since people were on earth... And hail, the size of a talent, fell from the sky on people; and the people blasphemed God because of the plagues from the hail, because the plague from it was very grievous.”
In the following chapters, John predicts the fall of the ancient city of Babylon, which in the text of Revelation is presented in the form of an allegory - a harlot sitting “on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, with seven heads and ten horns.” Babylon fell because “it became a habitation of demons and a refuge for every unclean spirit, a refuge for every unclean and disgusting bird; for she (the harlot) made all the nations drink of the wrathful wine of her fornication.” The great city was burned to the ground and devastated. This is how God's judgment was accomplished on Babylon. What caused the wrath of God?
There is a myth about the “Babylonian pandemonium”, which tells that once all people spoke the same language and lived together between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. And they decided to build a city, which they later called Babylon, and a huge pillar - a tower reaching to the sky. And God came down to see the city and the tower that the people were building. He became angry at human pride and made it so that people began to speak different languages and could not understand each other.
Then disorder and confusion began. The tower remained unfinished, and people scattered across the land in all directions. From them came different peoples, each of whom spoke their own language.
After the judgment of the people was completed and God took revenge on the great city, John had another wonderful vision: the heavens opened up and a white horse appeared with a rider sitting on it, who was dressed in clothes stained with blood. His name was the Word of God.
He was followed by the armies of heaven on the same white horses and in white robes. The beast and the kings of the earth came out to engage in battle with Him who sat on the horse and His army. The beast was captured and thrown into the lake of fire.
Then an angel descended from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the abyss and a large chain. He cast the devil in the form of a dragon into the abyss and “set a seal over him, so that he would no longer deceive the nations until the thousand years were completed.” During this time, faithful followers of Christ are destined to reign and be priests of God and Jesus.
Those who apostatized from the faith and worshiped the image of the beast will not rise from the dead until the millennium is over. They, unlike the righteous, are not worthy of the first resurrection.
John further predicts that after a thousand years Satan will be released from his prison, but not for long. He will again go out to deceive the nations and gather them to fight against the saints. However, God will send fire from heaven on them, and the devil will be “cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”
After dealing with Satan, all the dead, small and great, will appear before Him who sits on the great white throne. And the sea, and death, and hell will deliver up the dead, who will be judged by God “according to their deeds.” Those who faithfully followed the faith of Christ will be written in the book of life. This will be the second resurrection. The righteous will descend to earth with God. “And He will dwell with them; they will be His people, and God himself with them will be their God; and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death; there will be no more crying, no crying, no sickness; for the former things have passed away.”
“But the fearful, and the unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone; This is the second death."
And John saw a new heaven, a new earth, and a new holy city, Jerusalem, which would come down from God, from heaven, and would not need “neither the sun nor the moon for its illumination; for the glory of God is
its branch and its lamp is a Lamb. The saved nations will walk in its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory and honor into it. Its gates will not be locked during the day, and there will be no night there... And nothing unclean will enter into it, and no one devoted to abomination and lies, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”
The last chapter of “The Revelation of John the Evangelist” tells about the instructions that Christ gives him and about John’s blessing for prophecy. The fortuneteller was supposed to guide people on the righteous path, that is, on the path of serving the faith of Christ. According to Revelation, this is the only way to avoid the severe punishment of the Lord that will befall the infidels during the Last Judgment.
In conclusion of the conversation about the biblical Apocalypse, it should be mentioned that the question of the authorship of Revelation still remains open, and the answers to it are quite contradictory. Although most scholars working on this issue unanimously attribute authorship to John the Theologian, many priests dispute not only this assertion, but also the authenticity of the text of Revelation itself. They suggest that this prophecy was not written and included in the Bible in the 1st century AD. e., and much later, therefore it has no connection with John the Theologian. Thus, K. Jerusalemsky, I. Chrysostom, F. Karsky, G. Theologian do not even name “Revelation” among the canonical books.
Doubts about the authenticity of the text telling about the end of the world were also expressed by Dionysius of Alexandria (III century), Eugene of Caesarea (IV century) and other fairly well-known theologians, both ancient and modern. And their suspicions can be considered quite justified. Having carefully studied the “Holy Gospel of the Life of Jesus Christ,” written by John the Theologian in 95 AD. e., scientists have expressed doubt that he was in 6 8–6 9 AD. e. d eis tweet spruce but nap and -sal prophecy about the Apocalypse awaiting people. Indeed, in the “Holy Gospel” he did not say a word about his “Revelation” and did not give a single quote from it.
However, the author of Revelation clearly enjoyed enormous prestige among his contemporaries, as evidenced by the contents of the first four chapters of the prophecy. He addresses a number of Christian communities in Asia Minor, assesses their fidelity to the teachings of Christ, praises some, condemns others for their weakness, for having been seduced by the teachings of the false prophets who appeared among them. One can feel his excellent awareness of the secret life of various Christian communities. Based on this, it can be assumed that the author of Revelation is the same John the Theologian, who, as is known, was one of the apostles of Christ.
In addition, there are other reasons to see the Apostle John in the author of Revelations. Many early Christian theologians mention in their works that he was more strongly associated with the old faith, Judaism, than all the apostles. In contrast to Paul, the “Apostle of the Gentiles,” who considered it possible, for example, not to observe the rituals of the Sabbath and circumcision and who argued that for God, Jews, Scythians and Greeks are equally equal. John considered himself more a Jew than a Christian.
In his Revelation, John the Theologian not only talks about the details of the end of the world that were revealed to him from above, he even indicates the date of the onset of the Apocalypse: in 1260 days, i.e. 42 months.
“The Revelation of John the Theologian” was only the first sign. Soon works by other authors on this topic appeared: Peter's Apocalypse, describing visions of heaven and hell, and Hermas' Shepherd, which contains parables and ethical instructions. The second work received its name from the visions it tells about. The main character here is a man dressed as a shepherd.
The Gospel of Mark also contains a passage that talks about the Last Judgment, which is supposed to end the “age of Satan.” The prophet predicts terrible events that will occur before the second coming. It is these cataclysms that will become a test for humanity, for the sake of which the Son of Man accepted martyrdom.
In the non-canonical description of the end of the world by the Apostle Paul, Jesus Christ utters the following words: “For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not warn those who have died; Because the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first; Then we who are left alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.”
From the book: S. A. KHVOROSTUKHINA Predictions of disasters. (Great Mysteries)
