Editor's Note: This article was generated by machine translation, so our staff cautions the reader about possible inaccuracies that may have resulted from this. However, it was deemed worthwhile to still publish such a piece because of the intrinsic value of the message - which remains evident even in its translated form.
Archpriest Alexander Shargunov, Doctor of Theology, rector of the Church of St. Nicholas in Pyzhas (Moscow), wrote this piece in January 26, 2009.
I will begin this article with two quotations from the holy fathers of the Church, which I think most readers know.
The words of St. Theophan the Recluse are well known:
"The royal power, having in its hands ways to restrain the movements of the people and holding on to Christian principles itself, will not allow the people to deviate from them, will restrain them. As Antichrist will have his main goal to draw people away from Christ, he will not appear while the royal power will be in force. It will not allow him to turn around, will prevent him from acting in his spirit. This is what holds him back. When the royal authority falls and nations everywhere start to run things on their own (republics, democracies), then there will be room for the Antichrist to act. Satan will have no trouble to prepare the votes to renounce Christ, as the experience of the French Revolution showed. There will be no one to say a commanding veto. No one will listen to the humble declaration of faith. So, when such an order is established everywhere, conducive to the disclosure of anti-Christian aspirations, then the anti-Christ will appear. Until that time he will wait and hold on."
- Bishop Theophanes, Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians.
And here is how the holy righteous John of Kronstadt talks about it:
"The Apostle says that as long as there is an autocratic power, the Antichrist will not appear on earth. The mystery of lawlessness is already being dealt with, he says, but until it is accomplished, until the sovereign authority is taken from us - until such a time as the sovereign authority will be taken from our midst. And then the lawless one will appear, whom the Lord will kill with the Spirit of His mouth (2 Thess. 2:7-8)." [New Words, spoken in 1902.]
The authority of the Orthodox monarch is from Christ's anointing. The Holy Fathers say that the mystery of the withholder lies not only in the keeping of the Church by the grace of the Holy Spirit, but also in the keeping of legitimate state authority, especially that which is based on Christian principles. The meaning of the ministry of the Orthodox King, as we know, was to defend the Church and the Orthodox faith against external threats.
On these two quotations the theme of Orthodox monarchy in this article essentially ends. The meaning of the article is not only to show, using examples of ancient and new history, the prophetic depth of these words, but also, so to speak, in a negative way - in the light of the construction of a new world order - to designate the enduring significance of the Orthodox monarchy and the martyrdom of the last Russian tsar.
In the third millennium the phrase "new world order" begins to sound more often in the mouths of politicians, philosophers and theologians. The so-called perestroika in Russia was marked by the emergence of a "new way of thinking. Although there is nothing new in the concept of a "new world order. It was the basic principle on which Nimrod proposed building the Tower of Babel thousands years ago. The purpose of building the Tower of Babel was to reject God's authority, to expel Him from human life. It was Satanism and demonization, and it was expressed in the occult symbols with which the tower was adorned.
In the 6th century BC, the kingdom of Babylon was the first of the great empires that spread its power everywhere in the then civilized world. From a purely historical, "earthly" point of view, the Babylonian kingdom was the most magnificent and most vicious the world had ever seen. God's people keep the memory of this time as the Babylonian captivity. We also know the great empires of the Medes and Persians, who in turn sought world domination. Their kingdoms, established on idolatry, extended from central Europe to India.
And as many modern historians argue, the most progressive "world order" was established in ancient Greece, where democracy was exercised in its purest form. This experience of democracy was in fact very brief and limited. More than half of the population of ancient Greece were slaves. And of those who were free, half were women, who had no right to vote, no right to own property, no right to testify in court. They were not even counted in the official census. The famous "pure" Greek democracy was beautiful in its happy twenty-five percent. Isn't this the "golden billion" idea nurtured by today's Western politicians?
The Roman Empire, the last ancient "world order," was famous for its militant anti-Christianity. Under Emperor Nero, Christians were thrown to the lions and lit as living torches in the garden where the emperor's entertainment took place. It should be noted that St. John Chrysostom and the other holy fathers referred to the Roman Empire, based on the famous Roman right, as one of the main powers of withholding. But at the same time, we can see in the disintegration of its statehood and morality (as in the other "world orders" we are considering) the disintegration behind which the features of the future kingdom of the Antichrist clearly emerge.
"The beast which I saw was like a leopard; his feet were like a bear's, and his mouth was like the mouth of a lion; and the dragon gave him his power, and his throne, and great authority" (Rev. 13:2). According to the interpretation of St. Andrew of Caesarea, the leopard signifies the Greek Kingdom, the bear signifies the Persian Kingdom, and the lion signifies the Babylonian Kingdom (cf. Dan. 7), over which anti-Christ will rule, coming as the Roman king to destroy their dominion.
After all, Satan himself, tempting the Lord, offered to establish a "new world order": "All these things I will give you, if you fall and worship me." "The devil lied when he said this," writes St. Irenaeus of Lyon, "for he does not rule the world, but God. The authority was actually established for the benefit of the heathen nations, not by the devil, who never has peace and still less desires the nations to live in peace, but by God, so that men, fearing this authority, would not devour one another like fish, but would resist the manifold injustices of the heathen by means of laws."
In a sense, however, these kingdoms did belong to the "prince of this world," Satan, because it was up to him, by God's permission, to distribute power in a world where evil triumphed. Today he is still stingy with promises, offering in one program or another to "put an end to hunger and war," and to establish paradise on earth. But the word of God says that this will soon turn to hell before eternal hell.
Since ancient times, politics has been intricately intertwined with mysticism. Political and social life in ancient Greece was under the absolute dictate of the Pythians, the mysterious Delphic oracles. The pagan priests would take an ordinary woman, summon "spirits" upon her, and when she finally fell into a trance, they would ask her to answer the questions that determined the life of society. Strangely enough, after two thousand years of Christianity, in many traditionally Christian countries today, fortune-tellers and sorcerers of all kinds are playing an almost equally important role again.
A vivid illustration of the connection between mysticism and politics during the last centuries is also the history of the so-called Illuminati. There are many exaggerated and unsubstantiated essays written about this organization. But it takes finding the essence to separate fact from fiction. One thing is certain: the Illuminati did exist. It was a super-secret European organization of international financial power whose original purpose was to create a world economic system. But thanks to its rapid successes and at times strong resistance, it set itself the more grandiose goal of world domination. The Illuminati are known to have taken an active part in the Protestant movement against the official Catholic Church, as well as in the French Revolution. Their leadership was for the most part atheistic, with the exception of a few "practicing" Satanists. At various periods in the last centuries the power and influence of this organization among the world's financial and governmental circles has been staggering. A veritable banking and government mafia.
Look at the back of the American dollar and you will see three Latin words: "Novus ordo saeclorum" (new world order). These words are inscribed as if on a waving banner under a pyramid made of thirteen stones, above which is an "all-seeing eye". Some say that it represents the providence of God. Others believe it represents the eye of the ancient pagan deity Osiris. This seal, approved by the U.S. Congress in 1782, was designed by Charles Thompson, a member of the Masonic Order, Secretary of Congress.
In recent history, attempts to establish a new world domination are associated with the names of Hitler and Stalin. On the eve of the election of 1932 Adolf Hitler addressed to the people of Germany, literally with these words: "If you elect me as leader of this nation, I will establish a new world order that will last a thousand years. A collection of Hitler's speeches, published in English abroad, was appropriately titled: "My New Order."
Only after the Nuremberg Trials did researchers begin to understand how deeply mystical and satanic the conspiracy carried out by the leaders of Nazism was. Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS, included in his program much of what we could directly attribute to modern spirituality and "New Age" culture. Himmler and his SS staff replaced Christian sacraments and rites of baptism, wedding and burial with neo-pagan ones. The feast of Christmas, for example, became "Julfest," the "Feast of Julius," and was moved to December 21. Compare this to the attempt to establish Soviet rituals in Communist Russia like "Octobers" and other things, and the prohibition in today's American schools to say "Merry Christmas" - it is allowed to say "Happy Holidays" instead.
Initiation rites for high-ranking SS officers included an oath before the sixteen flaming altars of the Nazi "temple of honor" in Munich. The names of the sixteen dead Nazis were called out solemnly loudly and the new officers had to respond with a chorus of "here". Himmler himself believed in reincarnation, announcing to the people that he was the new incarnation of King Henry of Saxony. In 1937, the remains of the ancient king were solemnly transferred to the Quedlinburg Cathedral. Historians believe that some one hundred million people were sacrificed to Hitler's "new order.
One of today's prominent "New Age" ideologues, Randall Bayer, tells in his books, which have become bestsellers, of a certain "spirit of cosmicism", how "the cosmic gods paved the way for him to do the important work of bringing about the "New Age" revolution and a unified world order. Curiously, Bayer, who claims that he wrote his books at the dictation of the spirits, often uses the ancient Illuminati symbol imprinted on the American dollar: "The spirits told me to take twelve quartz crystals and, laying them out in a circle, imprint another circle for the occult third eye, and hang a large pyramid over them."
As for the role of communist ideology in establishing a "new order" and creating a "new kind of man," this role is all too well known to all of us. Despite the failure of the "Trotskyite-Leninist" attempts to bring about a "world revolution," Stalin and his Politburo began secretly developing their own program of communist reorganization throughout the world even before the defeat of Hitler. We know about the millions of innocent people exiled to hard labor and exterminated behind the barbed wire of the Gulag.
Communism was a powerful ideology that seduced the masses, but its promises of a "bright future for humanity" concealed a brutal reality based on ruthless violence.
We have already said that from the beginning the main point of the assassination of the Anointed King of God was the removal of the withholder, external protector of the Church. And the main blow, while this ideology of deception was in force and in the years that followed, was directed precisely at the Church. We remember Stalin's promise that "by May 1, 1937, God's name will be forever forgotten in the USSR," and the mass closures of churches under Khrushchev, who promised in 1980 to "show the last priest on TV". Today it has become obvious that Khrushchev's persecution was the last convulsion of dying communism.
And as the last recurrence of communism, we can recall the Khmer Rouge rule led by Pol Pot in Cambodia, when the entire country was turned into a concentration camp. Pol Pot, as you know, sentenced to death all doctors, teachers, journalists, priests, artists and cultural figures. If anyone wore glasses, his name was blacklisted because a person who wore glasses might be able to read. And if he could read, he was better eliminated.
But the communist era was only one stage of evil. Moreover, we can say that in the Soviet Union, during the last period of communism, life gradually began to go back to normal. The Russian people, thanks to thousands of years of Christian culture, as the writer Valentin Rasputin put it, digested the poison of that ideology. However, few could have foreseen that the incomparably worse would come.
A new, unsurpassed in cynicism and cruelty, a deception that went beyond politics and took on an all-encompassing, mystical meaning, was established. "By their fruits ye shall know them." The presence of the "father of lies" and the "man-killer from the beginning" became all too obvious after these events.
What happened politically in August 1991? Did Russia have a historical chance, or it was intercepted by its enemies, who were frightened of its revival and, like a disturbed anthill, scurried? Now it is clear that it was an international, finely planned conspiracy, which had long been secretly prepared. All this backstage arrangements we will not know to the end, and that is not the main point. The point is a global deception that affected absolutely everyone, because it exploited the feelings of people who had suffered from the horrors of communist ideology. In 1991, even the putschists themselves were deceived, because they were dragged into the staged action, as if to give them an opportunity to act, while in fact, to show their stupidity and clumsiness, the supposed threat to "democracy" and individual freedom, the whole inhumanity of the unpopular regime, which had compromised itself for 70 years. Everyone was so tired of the Soviet regime's deception, and that was exactly the plan - when a person was so worn out and tired, he could be lured by promises, which resembled truth, that everything would be fine now. Was not the truth about the revolution, the truth about the murder of the Royal Family, the historical truth about the Decembrists, about Lenin, finally debunked, already told in the era of so-called glasnost? So they will continue on the path of truth (and freedom). Among those who believed the deception and supported it were decent people, who cared about what would happen to Russia, not like some peddlers. When "perestroika" began, Academician A. Migdal said: "If it's a hoax this time too, I'm going to die." And he did die of a heart attack in the very midst of it.
Things went on like they were escalating. People were frightened: "Do you want democracy or Bolshevik power?" Finally, the new authorities showed their face, and everyone went numb. They found themselves: murderers, that's all, true neo-Bolsheviks, yesterday's Communists. In order to finally seize the power, which ensures the redistribution of good and evil in their favor, they went to any lengths.
In October 1993, they used the usual Bolshevik method, like Lenin in October 1917. And these so-called "New Russians" who came to power showed who they were. Like the criminals in the camp, the bosses from the class, they put on a bloody show.
Many people after this shooting, as if they are still sick to this day. Terrible time - we are in the hands of criminals, and all this with the full guidance of the West. Everyone has understood what the concerns of the "world community" about Russia mean. But by deceiving others, the West deceives itself first and foremost. "Russians are fools, let them do whatever they want, let them kill each other, as long as it is very profitable for us". But sooner or later it will fall on their own heads.
The worst thing is that, thanks to the media, most of the Russian people don't understand what is going on at all. Doomed, with animal fear, as if ready to be slaughtered, millions of people live. The word "genocide" as a definition of what is happening in Russia today, has become common even in the democratic press.
We hear the protest of some:
"Again you talk about the lies and crimes of politicians. But what does this have to do with the Church? Politicians do this; there is always corruption, theft, and lawlessness in power, and could it be any other way? What does this have to do with Christian preaching, which should speak only of salvation? Leave these topics to the publicists and mind your own business. Stop embarrassing Orthodox people and don't deviate from what Scripture says."
And by the way, much of Scripture speaks precisely of the lies and crimes of politicians. Much of Scripture is composed by or addressed to those who have been in charge. Many pages of the Bible are biographies, biographies, as we now say, of the national leaders of God's chosen people and other nations. The Books of Kings and Chronicles chronicle historical events in all their relentless reality. It shows how God works through good or evil rulers. The great and small prophets addressed the leaders of the nation, and their prophecies are deeply connected to the political and social life of their day and its relation to divine law. After all, the Apocalypse, like all scripture, is a book of judgment on the nations and their rulers.
True personal piety cannot be blind to events on which the fate of a nation depends. The day will come when we will have to give an account of what we have or have not said, what we have or have not done in the face of the evil that prevails in the world.
In January 1991 (the crucial year of "perestroika" in Russia), then U.S. President G. Bush announced the beginning of war in the Persian Gulf. "The stakes in this war," he said, referring to Kuwait, "are not just one small country. The great idea here is the idea of a new world order." How is it that these words coincide with Hitler's famous boastful speeches and with Communist promises of a "bright future for humanity" that turned into a nightmare? For us Orthodox Christians, the phrase "new world order" evokes associations with the coming catastrophes of which Scripture prophetically speaks. It will be the peace and security of a single world government, which will suddenly turn into a disaster for all mankind (1 Thess. 5:3).
What do these words mean: "new world order"? What do they mean to you when you hear them? Judging from the Scriptures and the annals of history (all of which testify to the same phenomenon), the desire for world domination, whether dictated by good intentions or ordinary greed, is almost always associated with idolatry, atheism or Satanism. We have already mentioned Babylon, ancient Greece, Rome, Hitler, Stalin and their followers. It is always anti-Christian. Not an anointing with divine grace to build up life on Christian foundations, but an anointing with satanic spirit to rob, kill, and "destroy to the ground".
It is quite clear that the time of the new world order is not an abstract future. We can see its essential signs even now. The ancient prophecies of the Old Testament warn of the coming of this time. Christ Himself proclaims it as a time leading up to His Second Coming. This new world order will be headed by the anointed one of Satan, whom the word of God calls the Antichrist. When the world rejects truth, it is left with only lies. When mankind rejects "the Light that enlightens every man that cometh into the world," darkness ensues. When Christ and those who have an anointing from Him are cast out of life, Satan's anointing comes.
The mystery of iniquity is revealed in the ages. "My people, what have I done to you?" - Christ cries out - "You have always tried to get rid of me", as the parable of the wicked vinedressers testifies. You have killed the prophets sent by God, you have killed the only begotten Son of God, saying: "This is the heir, let us go and kill Him, and the inheritance will be ours." You have always tried to stifle the word of God. Let it be as you want it to be. I will allow you to establish a new world order. You were not willing to repent of your sins, you rejected the meek and godly King I gave you. The anointed one of Satan, the Antichrist, will come to you to rule the earth with an iron hand, establishing a new world order. Rivers of blood will flow through the streets of your cities.
Russia and the whole world went through terrible ordeals in the XX century. But if there is no repentance, the worst will come. According to the Apocalypse, one-third of humanity will be killed, and the atrocities of Hitler and Stalin will pale before it. Long before computer technology made this possible, the Revelation of God described how the Antichrist would control all world commerce. Every person living on earth will have to take a sign on his right hand and forehead. Without this sign no one will be able to buy or sell, neither a thread nor a piece of bread. The Antichrist will have absolute control of all money, as he will have one world government and one world currency under his rule. The Holy Church warns that in the end he will try to put himself in the place of God (2 Thess. 2:4). Then will come the long-awaited New World Order.
The director of the World Health Organization at the United Nations recently put it this way: "To arrive at a one world government, it is necessary to free people from their individuality, from their attachment to family, their national patriotism and the religion they profess". According to the prophecies, he is (at least in part) right. Four conditions must be met before this can happen. And this means a war against the Church, against statehood and morality, against the family, education and patriotism, which the anti-Christ is waging in history.
Four defenses of life, which provided the power of the Orthodox monarch, must be broken.
The first and foremost of these, of course, is the Church. The entire history of mankind in this sense can be defined as a war against the Church. All Scripture, all the prophets warn of a great persecution of the Church. There have already been recently unheard of persecutions, and new, more terrible ones cannot be avoided. Why? Because Antichrist claims absolute power, and Christians are citizens of the Kingdom of God, those who recognize only one absolute, supreme authority - the authority of God.
The Church manifests the authority of God on earth, and where the claim to absolute earthly authority is made, it is the main obstacle to the establishment of the new world order.
We have already said that, according to the teachings of the holy fathers, it is not only the grace of the Holy Spirit, but also the lawful authority of the state that withholds the coming of the Antichrist. After the removal of God's Anointed One - the power based on Christian principles - there is a rapid de-Christianization of power around the world with the increasing loss of signs of legitimacy of power.
And in essence, it is only the Church with its grace - the fortress of the divine life that holds. They must either force the Orthodox Church to merge with all false doctrines and deprive it of grace, or physically eliminate it. After the failed attempt to wipe the Church off the face of the earth, the main task of the enemy of the human race is the destruction of faith and that which constitutes its gracious content. Faith - trust in God, faithfulness to Him, and confidence in the invisible - must be destroyed first. "Will the Son of Man, when he comes, find faith on earth?"
In the arsenal of means used against the Church by her enemies, one of the most important is the undermining of trust in pastors. "I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered." This was, for example, the meaning of the "Church and KGB" campaign carried out in the media at the beginning of "perestroika." This is the meaning of constant "exposé" articles about the clergy in newspapers like MK. Woe to us if we give even the slightest excuse to slanderers! But when the slanderers run out of material, the devil speaks for them.
He needs to undermine confidence in the Church as such, in Orthodoxy. The enemies of Orthodoxy and Russia are trying above all to create in the people an atmosphere of despondency, confusion, disbelief in the fact that the outcome of the current disaster is possible. In the fact that Orthodoxy will survive the overall collapse under the onslaught of new "spiritualities" and faiths. A significant role is assigned here to neo-renovation, which is designed to create a "Orthodoxy" that would conveniently merge with other Christian confessions and dissolve into them.
One of the first steps in this direction must be the prohibition of a principled spirituality that is intolerant of other spiritualities (e.g., paganism and Satanism). Thus, the unity of the new world order is achieved necessarily at the cost of the sacrifice of the truth.
The war against the Church in so-called democratic society, which increasingly rejects Christian values, will be conducted through the media, through television, through education, through the adoption of new laws. And we see how this war is already being waged. The propaganda of sin as a norm in the media and in schools - what has become state policy in Russia - is this not an open declaration of war on the Church? Is this not a war of total destruction of the Church and her spiritual and moral principles?
As for the adoption of new laws, let us turn to the experience of the U.S., which is a model of "democratic freedoms" for today's Russia and the entire civilized world. In 1990, Congress passed the "law against intolerance," which, among other things, outlaws "negative comments on the sexual preferences of others". According to interpretations of this law, if a priest in a sermon from the pulpit called homosexuality "an abomination before God," he would be in violation of federal law and could be fined or imprisoned. This is not something that is somewhere in the uncertain future: it is happening now in the most democratic country in the world. There is no doubt that Russia, if it does not undergo radical change, will be "ahead of the rest of the world" in this respect.
In one school in the U.S., the Ten Commandments were posted on the wall of a classroom. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that this violates the Constitution because it "restricts the free moral choice of students and violates the law of separation of church and state".
You can be as indignant as you want: don't they realize that these Ten Commandments are the foundation of all culture and all knowledge, and it is impossible that this most important knowledge should not be taught to children! But in fact, the horror is that they understand it. They understand that by abolishing these commandments, they can freely do anything they want. And unhindered gain power over the souls of these children. Here it is a question of power - the power to rule the world, all people.
We see in these examples that the war against the Church is inseparable from the war against education. The American National Education Association, founded by the Rockefeller Foundation, has openly declared that one of the main goals of education in America is to drive God out of the schools. Already, children can read the "Satanic Bible" in school, but they are forbidden to hear about the Ten Commandments. Isn't the same thing happening in Russia, which is carefully copying America's "achievements": we know of many cases where teachers were expelled from schools for preaching Orthodoxy, while at the same time in these same schools yoga, occultism, magic and molestation are being taught.
What can we say about "sex education" programs in schools, about the free circulation among children of pornographic magazines like "COOL", published weekly with a circulation of about 1 million copies? "Freedom of conscience" and "freedom from shame and conscience," just as "freedom of religion" and "freedom from religion" are not the same thing. A new dictatorship, more terrible than any Nazism or Fascism, is coming. It does not take a sage or a prophet to realize that when God's Ten Commandments are banished from schools and teachers hand out condoms to children, the path that humanity is taking is utter destruction.
Here it is natural for us to move on to talk about the destruction of the third defense that the Orthodox monarchy provided-the war against the family.
We have said many times that the Royal Martyrs are the icon of the Orthodox family. This is both literally true-just look at the pictures of the Royal Family; it is also true in a spiritual-historical sense: the murder of the Royal Family was followed by the destruction of many millions of Orthodox families. The main task of the revolution, according to Trotsky - the destruction of the family - which was not fulfilled during the Revolution, is being carried out in Russia today. It is the destruction of not only the Orthodox family, but of any normal traditional human family. Before the establishment of a new world order, Satan must commit this destruction.
Where depravity becomes state policy, the goal of the state is to free children from the power of their parents (although the destruction of the family means nothing less than the destruction of the state itself). This process is developing rapidly around the world. The failed communist experiment was only "flowers". Recently, the UN held the International Year of the Child, in the program of which this goal was clearly expressed.
The anti-Christian, anti-human nature of such aspirations. today has long ceased to be just a theory. Margaret Zanger, who founded the International Planned Parenthood Federation in the 1920s, funded by the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, calls for freedom of sexual activity for teenagers, as well as the sterilization of all "colored," "retarded" and "fundamentalist Christians".
The war against the Church, education (culture) and the family is inextricably linked to the destruction also of the fourth "defense" exercised by the Orthodox monarchy: patriotism. As St. John of Kronstadt prophetically wrote, after the "removal of the Autocrat, which the famous public is harassing," the enemies will try to destroy the very name of Russia. Today Russia in the eyes of the world is a defeated country. As the saying goes, what Hitler could not even dream of, was accomplished by the Democrats.
We see the Americanization of the entire world. One standard "mass culture" is being imposed everywhere, so that people living in Moscow and Ryazan are no different from those living in New York or Seoul. In every nation, just as in every man, his uniqueness and uniqueness is revealed as truth and goodness are realized in his life. Sin erases the singularity and uniqueness of every person and every people.
The true unfolding of all natural gifts is only possible in Christ. Therefore, the struggle with Orthodoxy in Russia is inseparable from the struggle with patriotism (although professional politicians, whose only goal in life is to get reelected, diligently exploit the pain of the people for the ruined Fatherland, creating movements like "Fatherland", "Sovereignty", "Our Home is Russia", etc.).
In general, all of these four "defenses", of which we spoke, is one inseparable phenomenon of holding back. Indeed, if the very notion of family is destroyed, what kind of Motherland can we talk about? "Who needs such a Russia?" Many say now that our enemies are ready to provoke a popular uprising in order to bring NATO or UN troops into the streets of Moscow and take control of nuclear weapons. But here is a school or a family where children are watching a pornographic video with their teachers or parents. No NATO troops should be introduced (or vice versa, why not): these particulars no longer matter where everything has already been conquered by the devil himself.
"Judging by the Scriptures and by the character of the present people, the end is near, at the door," the Venerable Silouan of Athos said 60 years ago. The appearance of the Antichrist will be sudden. The collapse of life in all spheres - the financial and economic crisis, the decline in morals - will reach its limits. In one hour the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, the World Council of Churches, the United Nations, etc., will have signed a treaty recognizing the supreme power of the new dictator, whom they will honor as the last and only hope of mankind. As God's word testifies, the whole world will marvel at him and follow him.
Some may say, "You are exaggerating, it can't be. Russian believers have always had an apocalyptic view of the world. It cannot happen so quickly". We don't talk about timing, but until two decades ago, academic history professors in free Europe argued that the age of communism was coming. Many remember the scandalous story of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, when a Canadian journalist overheard him say in a low voice at a reception that the Soviet Union was gaining strength and America's time had passed. In their lectures, political science professors explained to students that it would take at least a hundred years before the Berlin Wall, the symbol of the strength of the Communist system, would be torn down. But the Berlin Wall came down in one day. And no one could have predicted that the collapse of the Soviet Union would follow. And now only the blind do not see the "acceleration of history" when essentially the same forces are preparing the collapse of Russia.
The word of God gives a detailed description of the anointed of Satan. After the general catastrophe he will in a short time establish unprecedented prosperity and peace. Finally, he will be accompanied by great mystical spiritual phenomena. The Book of Revelation says he will be wounded in the head and miraculously healed. He will have all the mysticism of the New Age at his disposal. The great spiritual leader, described in the Apocalypse as a false prophet, will bring all religions together. "Why do we need Christ?" - people will say - "Look at how many millions of people died in various wars (not excluding persecution of the Church) fighting for Christ. And what did it accomplish? Here is a man of peace, he is with us here, he was killed and rose from the dead. What more could we want!"
But what follows is a time of unprecedented horrors. The Antichrist, the unifier of the world's religions, the one who ended all wars, will reveal his true face to mankind, sowing death and destruction all around him. It will be the highest manifestation of cruelty and violence that ever existed on earth.
It is said of the Antichrist that he was given "a mouth that speaks proudly and blasphemously". The time will come when the "mark of the beast" will be accepted. Many will say, "We have no other choice. We can neither buy nor sell without it." And when they accept this seal, they will ruin their souls forever.
We find it hard to believe that some here will live to see it. But we will all be given a glimpse of the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. He came the first time as "a swaddled baby lying in a manger. The second time He will appear in glory as "King of kings and Lord of lords," and "His kingdom will have no end". The first time he faced the judgment of Pilate and Herod's earthly power. The soldiers mocked him and spat on him. The second time, when He appears in glory, Herod and Pilate and all the rulers of the world will stand before Him in the Last Judgment. Scripture says that "every knee shall bow before Him, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is to the glory of God the Father."
The first time He was crucified on Calvary, the second time He will appear in glory with the holy angels to judge the living and the dead.
Do not be deceived by what is happening in Russia and in the world. Do not be dismayed by the corruption of peoples, the cruelty and magic of new politicians, the lies of the media, and the disturbing rumors of new and worse catastrophes. Christ warned that all these things would happen. And His promise is firm: "In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer: I have overcome the world."
Source: derzava.com (Russian)
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