“Immediately
after this St. John was shown the spiritual beauty and greatness of the new
Jerusalem, that is, the Church of Christ, which is to be revealed in all her
glory at the Second Coming of Christ after the victory over the devil.”
(Archbishop Averky)
21.1. And I
saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were
passed away; and there was no more sea.
For there shall be a new heaven and
a new earth; and they shall not at all remember the former, neither shall it
again come into their mind. But they shall find in her joy and exultation; for
behold, I make Jerusalem a rejoicing, and My people a joy (Isaiah 65.17-18).
We, according to His promise, wait
for a new heaven and a new earth, in which dwelleth righteousness (II Peter 3.13).
“Here
mention is made, not of the passing away into non-existence of creation, but of
its change to a better state, as the apostle witnesses: the creature itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption
into the glorious liberty of the children of God (Romans 8.21). And
the divine Psalmist says: As a vesture
shalt Thou fold them, and they shall be changed (Psalm 101.27) The
renewal of that which has grown old signifies, not the obliteration and
annihilation, but the removal of old age and wrinkles.” (St. Andrew of
Caesarea)
“This
newness of heaven and earth will consist in their transfiguration and in the
newness of their forms and qualities, not in a change in their very substance.
The sea, as the inconstant and volatile element, will disappear.” (Archbishop
Averky)
St.
Irenaeus writes: “The predicted blessing belongs unquestionably to the times of
the Kingdom, when the righteous shall bear rule upon their rising from the
dead; when also the creation, having been renovated and set free, shall
fructify with an abundance of all kinds of food, from the dew of heaven, and
from the fertility of the earth: as the elders who saw John, the disciple of
the Lord, related that they had heard from him how the Lord used to teach in
regard to these times, and says: The days will come, in which vines shall grow,
each having ten thousand branches, and in each branch ten thousand twigs, and
in each true twig ten thousand shoots, and in each one of the shoots ten
thousand clusters, and on every one of the clusters ten thousand grapes, and
every grape when pressed will give five and twenty metretes of win. And when
any one of the saints shall lay hold of a cluster, another shall cry out, ‘I am
a better cluster, take me; bless the Lord through me.’ In like manner [the Lord
declared] that a grain of wheat would produce ten thousand ears, and that every
ear should have ten thousand grains, and every grain would yield ten pounds of
clear, pure, fine flour; and that all other fruit-bearing trees, and seeds and
grass, would produce in similar proportions; and that all animals feeding
[only] on the produce of the earth, should [in those days] become peaceful and
harmonious among each other, and be in perfect subjection to man.
“And
these things are borne witness to in writing by Papias, the hearer of John, and
a companion of Polycarp, in his fourth book; for there were five books compiled
by him. And he says in addition, ‘Now these things are credible to believers.’
And he says that ‘when the traitor Judas did not give credit to them, and put
the question, “How then can things about to bring forth so abundantly be
wrought by the Lord?” the Lord declared: “They who shall come to these [times]
shall see.”‘ When prophesying of these times, therefore, Isaiah says: The wolf also shall feed with the lamb, and
the leopard shall take his rest with the kid; the calf also, and the bull, and
the lion shall eat together; and a little boy shall lead them. The ox and the
bear shall feed together, and their young ones shall agree together; and the
lion shall eat straw as well as the ox. And the infant boy shall thrust his
hand into the asp’s den, into the nest also of the adder’s brood; and they
shall do not harm, nor have power to hurt anything in My holy mountain. And
again he says, in recapitulation: Wolves
and lambs shall then browse together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox,
and the serpent earth as if it were bread; and they shall neither hurt nor
annoy anything in My holy mountain, saith the Lord. (11.6-9) I am quite
aware that some persons endeavour to refer these words to the case of savage
men, both of different nations and various habits, who come to believe, and
when they have believed, act in harmony with the righteous. But although this
is [true] now with regard to some men coming from various nations to the
harmony of the faith, nevertheless in the resurrection of the just [the words
shall also apply] to those animals mentioned. For God is rich in all things.
And it is right that when the creation is restored, all the animals should obey
and be in subjection to man, and revert to the food originally given by God
(for they had been originally subjected in obedience to Adam), that is, the
produce of the earth.”[1]
St.
Narses says: “The heavens are made new, the earth is made new; it is green and
puts forth leaves in gladness. And the kingdom is thirtyfold, as also the
garden sixtyfold, and the heavens hundredfold.[2]
And there shall not be on earth any toil or sweat; no crafty serpent nor
beguiling woman; but there shall be trees that fade not with their fruit, and
all pain and sorrow shall be removed, and there shall be only joy and delight.
And to some he will give a kingdom upon earth; but for the martyrs there gleam
scarlet crowns and robes and glory. With them are the virgins, who polluted not
themselves on this earth; along with the Virgin Mary shall they receive the
adornment of the crown of glory, transfigured. Like the sun among the stars,
even so shall excel the glory of the virgins amidst the wedded ones.”[3]
21.2. And I
John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven,
prepared as a bride for her husband.
I looked back with mine eyes, and
upon the right side I saw a woman… I looked, and behold, the woman appeared to
me no more, but there was a city builded… This woman, whom thou sawest, is
Sion.. even she whom thou seest as a city builded. (II (4) Esdras 9.38,
10.27, 10.44)
“There
meeteth me a virgin arrayed as if she were going forth from a bridechamber, all
in white… veiled up to her forehead, and her head-covering consisted of a
turban, and her hair was white. I knew from the former visions that it was the
Church…”[4]
Here is the revelation of the Heavenly
Church, consisting now of all the elect who ever lived, both those who died
before the Coming of the Lord in glory and those who are alive, who are left to be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air (I
Thessalonians 4.17). She is prepared
as a bride because all her members are clothed in the glorious resurrection
body (John 5.29; I Corinthians 15.35-51). She is prepared for her
Bridegroom, Christ, Who comes at the midnight of world history to take His
Bride into the heavenly Bridal chamber (Matthew 22.1-14; 25.1-13).[5]
Let my soul rejoice in the Lord; for
He has clothed me with the robe of salvation, and the garment of joy: He has
put a mitre on me as on a bridegroom, and adorned me with ornaments as a bride (Isaiah 61.10).
I feel a divine jealousy for you,
for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one Husband (II Corinthians
11.2).
St. Irenaeus writes: “Of this Jerusalem the
former one is an image - that Jerusalem of the former earth in which the
righteous are disciplined beforehand for incorruption and prepared for
salvation. And of this tabernacle Moses received the pattern in the mount (Exodus
25.40); and nothing is capable of being allegorized, but all things are
steadfast, and true, and substantial, having been made by God for righteous
men’s enjoyment. For as it is God truly who raises up man, so also does man
truly rise from the dead, and not allegorically, as I have shown repeatedly.
And as he rises actually, so also shall he be actually disciplined beforehand
for incorruption, and shall go forwards and flourish in the times of the
Kingdom, in order he may be capable of receiving the glory of the Father.”[6]
St. Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis writes: “As
the presbyters say, then those who are deemed worthy of an abode in heaven
shall go there, others shall enjoy the delights of Paradise, and others shall
posses the splendour of the city; for everywhere the Saviour will be seen,
according as they shall be worthy who see Him. But that there is this
distinction between the habitation of those who produce an hundredfold, and
that of those who produce sixtyfold, and that of those who produce thirtyfold;
for the first will be taken up into the heavens, the second class will dwell in
Paradise, and the last will inhabit the city; and that on this account the Lord
said: In My Father’s house there are
many mansions (John 14.2); for all things belong to God, Who
supplies all with a suitable dwelling-place, even as His word says, that a
share is given to all by the Father, according as each one is or shall be
worthy.”[7]
“Under
the image of this new Jerusalem is
represented the triumphant Church of
Christ, which is adorned as the bride of the Lord with the purity and good
works of the saints. ‘This city,’ says St. Andrew, ‘which has Christ as its
corner-stone, is composed of the saints, of whom it is written: holy stones are rolled upon His land (Zechariah
9.16).’” (Archbishop Averky)
21.3-4. And I
heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with
men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself
shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from
their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying,
neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
St. Germanus of Constantinople says: “The
Church is the earthly heaven in which the heavenly God dwells and moves.”[8]
“The
Old Testament tabernacle was only a type of the dwelling of God with men, which
will begin in the future eternally blessed life and will be the found of
blessedness for men, now freed from all the sorrows of the present earthly
life.” (Archbishop Averky)
And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and
will be glad in My people; and there shall be no more heard in her the voice of
weeping, or the voice of crying (Isaiah 65.19).
21.5-6. And He
that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And He said unto
me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. And He said unto me, It is
done.
“That
is: I create a new life, completely different from the former one; all that was
promised will be fulfilled.
21.6. I am the
Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End.
“That
is: everything that I promise is already as it were fulfilled, for before My
eyes the future and the present are one and the same undivided moment.
21.6. And I
will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
“That
is: the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is prefigured in Holy Scripture under
the image of living water (cf. John 4.10-14; 7.37-39).
21.7. He that
overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be My
son.
“That is: all these good things shall he who conquers in the battle with the unseen demons receive, and he shall be made a son of God.” (Archbishop Averky)
And I shall be to you a Father, and
you shall be My sons and daughter, says the Lord Almighty (II Corinthians
6.18).
21.8. But the
fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers,
and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake
which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
“The
fearful who do not have courage in the battle with the devil, the sinners,
those given to passions and vices, will be condemned to the second death, that is, the eternal torments of hell.”
(Archbishop Averky)
For God did not give us a spirit of fear,
but of strength and love and chastity (II Timothy 1.7).
21.9. And
there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of
the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew
thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife.
“As
is evident from the above, bride and
wife of the Lamb are names for the Church of Christ. ‘Rightly is she
called,’ says St. Andrew, ‘the bride
and wife of the Lamb, for when
Christ was immolated as the Lamb He betrothed her to Himself by His Blood. Just
as a wife was created for Adam in his sleep through the taking of one of his
ribs, so the Church was established by the outpouring of blood from the ribs of
Christ as He was voluntarily sleeping the sleep of death on the Cross, and was
joined to the wounded One for our sakes.’” (Archbishop Averky)
St.
Clement of Rome writes: “The Church is not of the present age, but is from
above. For She is spiritual, like our Jesus, and was revealed in the last times
in order to save us. And the Church, though spiritual, was revealed in the
Flesh of Christ…”[9]
21.10-11. And
he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me
that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having
the glory of God.
“The
bride of the Lamb, or the Holy Church, was presented before the spiritual
vision of the seer of mysteries in the form of a beautiful great city, Jerusalem descending from heaven. The whole
of the remaining part of the chapter is devoted to a detailed description of
this wonderful city. Shining with precious stones, this city had twelve gates
with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel and twelve foundations with the
names of the twelve apostles. A characteristic trait of the city is that:
21.11-14. Her
light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as
crystal. And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates
twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve
tribes of the children of Israel: on the east three gates; on the north three
gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates. And the wall of
the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles
of the Lord.
“These gates, grouped in threes, face all the ends of the
earth so that we would know that God opened paradise for the entire universe. The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken, and called the earth (Psalm
49.1), for He wants all to be saved.”[10]
“‘The
light of the Church,’ says St. Andrew, ‘is Christ, Who is called a jasper as always growing, blossoming,
life-giving and pure.’
“A
high wall surrounds the city as a sign that no one who is unworthy can enter
there; the same thought is expressed by the fact that it is guarded at the
twelve gates by a guard of angels of God. The gates bear the names of the
twelve tribes of Israel, for just as on earth these tribes composed the
community of the elect people of God, so their names comprehend also the
heavenly elect - the new Israel. On the twelve foundations of the wall are
written the names of the twelve apostles of the Lord, as a sign, of course,
that the apostles are the foundation on which the Church is established, as the
founders of the Christian Faith among all the nations of the earth. Here it is
impossible not to see a rejection of the false dogma of the Latins that the
Church of Christ is founded on the Apostle Peter alone.” (Archbishop Averky)
Being built upon the foundation of the
apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in Whom the
whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord
(Ephesians 2.20-21).
21.15-17. And he
that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates
thereof, and the wall thereof. And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is
as the breadth; and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand
furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal. And he
measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to
the measure of a man, that is, of an angel.
“The
city is measured by an angel in the eyes of the holy seer with the help of a golden
reed. ‘The golden reed,’ says St.
Andrew, ‘indicates the uprightness of the measuring angel, who was seen in the
form of a man, as well as the worthiness of the measured city, by whose wall we understand Christ.’ The city
has the shape of an exact square, and the equal dimensions of its height,
length and breadth show it to be in the form of a cube, which signifies its
firmness and strength. The height of the wall of the city is one hundred and
forty-four cubits. All these numerical expressions are used, we must suppose,
to signify the perfection, firmness and wonderful symmetry of the integral
building of the Church of God.
21.18-20. And
the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like
unto clear glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished
with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the
second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald; the fifth,
sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the
ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the
twelfth, an amethyst.
“The
wall of the city is built of jasper, which symbolizes the Divine glory and the
forever blossoming and unfading life of the saints. The city itself was of pure
gold, like clear glass, as a sign of the uprightness and radiance of its
inhabitants. The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with all
kinds of precious stones; each of the foundations in particular represented one
solid precious stone. As St. Andrew notes, of the twelve precious stones eight
were borne on the pallium of the ancient high-priest, together with four others
- to show the agreement of the New Testament with the Old and the pre-eminence
of those who shone out in it. And with justice, for the apostles signified by
the precious stones were adorned with every kind of virtue. According to the
interpretation of St. Andrew the meaning of these twelve stones is as follows:
the first foundation - jasper - is a
stone of greenish hue which signifies the leading Apostle Peter, who bore in
his body the death of Christ and who showed a blossoming and unfading love for
Him; the second - sapphire - which
is sky-blue, signifies the blessed Paul, who was taken up to the third heaven;
the third - chalcedony - apparently
the same as anthrax, which was in
the high priest’s pallium, signifies the blessed Apostle Andrew, who was like a
coal burning with the Spirit; the fourth - emerald
- of a green colour, feeding on oil and from it receiving its brilliance and
beauty, signifies the holy Evangelist John, who with Divine oil softens the
vexation and despondency caused in us by our sins and who with the precious
gift of Theology provides us with never-weakening faith; the fifth - sardonyx - a stone of the colour of a
shining human nail, signifies James, the first to suffer bodily death for
Christ; the sixth - sardius -
brilliant orange in colour, and medicinal for tumours and wounds caused by
iron, signifies the beauty of the good works of the Blessed Philip, shining
with the fire of the Divine Spirit and healing the spiritual wounds of the
deceived; the seventh - chrysolite -
shining with gold, signifies, perhaps, Bartholomew, shining with much-prized
good works and Divine preaching; the eighth - beryl - having the colour of the sea and air, signifies Thomas, who
completed a long journey for the salvation of the Indians; the ninth - topaz - a black stone, shedding, so
they say, a silky juice that
heals those suffering from eye diseases, signifies the Blessed Matthew, who
healed with his Gospel those blind in heart and feeds with milk those newly
born in the Faith; the tenth - chrysoprasus
- exceeding gold itself in brightness, signifies the Blessed Thaddeus, who
preached to Abgar, king of Edessa, the Kingdom of Christ, signified by gold (chryso-) and mortification (prasus); the eleventh - jacinth - azure or sky-blue in colour,
rightly signifies Simon, as a zealot of Christ’s gifts and possessor of
heavenly wisdom; the twelfth - amethyst
- a crimson-coloured stone, signifies Matthias, who was counted worthy to
receive the Divine fire at the dividing of tongues and for his fiery desire to
please the One Who chose him took the place of the apostate.
21.21. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every
several gate was of one pearl; and the street of the city was pure gold, as it
were transparent glass.
“The
twelve gates were constructed out of twelve whole pearls. ‘The twelve gates,’
says St. Andrew, ‘are evidently the twelve disciples of Christ through whom we
have come to know the Door and the Way of Life.’ They are twelve pearls insofar
as they receive light and brilliance from the single much-prized pearl -
Christ. The street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. All
these details express one and the same thought, that in the heavenly Church of
God all is holy, pure, beautiful and firm, all majestic, spiritual and
precious.
21.22-27. And
I saw no temple therein; for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple
of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in
it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And
the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the
kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. And the gates of it
shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. And they
shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it. And there shall in no
wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh
abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of
life.
“Further
on the inner existence of the inhabitants of this wonderful heavenly city is
described. First, there is no visible church of any kind, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the
temple of it. There the Lord God will be given unceasing worship, and for
that reason there will be need neither of a material temple nor of rites and
priestly actions. Secondly, this heavenly city will not need any light, for the glory of God did lighten it, and
the Lamb is the light thereof - ‘where there is the noetic Sun of
righteousness, there is no need of a sensory one’ (St. Andrew). Thirdly, the
population of this heavenly city will be very varied and mixed, for ‘all those
who have been crowned with victory over the passions will bring into it the
glory and honour of good works’ (St. Andrew). Fourthly, the gates of the
heavenly city will not be shut by day, and there will be no night there (cf. Isaiah
60.11). This means that the heavenly Church will be threatened by no danger or
invasion of enemies. A general inner sign distinguishing this heavenly Church
from the earthly is the fact that while in the earthly Church good co-exists
with evil, and tares grow together with the wheat, in the heavenly Church there
will be gathered from all the nations only that which is good, pure and holy.
Everything that is evil, defiled and unclean and has accumulated throughout the
whole period of the world’s history will be removed and washed away as it were
into a stinking reservoir, whose impurity will not touch this wonderful
habitation that accomodates only the blessed.” (Archbishop Averky)
And they gates shall be opened continually;
they shall not be shut day nor night; to bring in to thee the power of the
Gentiles, and their kings as captives (Isaiah 60.11).
22.1-5. And he
shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of
the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on
either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner
of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were
for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse: but the
throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and His servants shall serve Him:
and they shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads. And
there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the
sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign to the ages of
ages.
Paradise was removed from the earth because of the sin of man; but in the new heaven and new earth it will be restored to earth with, and in, the New Jerusalem.
“The
uninterruptedness of the blessedness of the members of the heavenly Church is
depicted in a series of symbols. The first symbol is the clear as crystal, pure river of water of life. This river,
uninterruptedly streaming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, symbolically
represents the grace of the life-creating Spirit that fills the stones of the holy city, i.e. the whole multitude of its
inhabitants, who are multiplied,
according to the Psalmist, more than the
sand (Psalm 138.18). This is the grace and mercy of God, which will
inexhaustibly stream onto the inhabitants of the heavenly city, filling their
hearts with ineffable blessedness (cf. Isaiah 35.9-10). The second
symbol is the tree of life, similar
to that which was once in the earthly paradise, before the fall into sin of the
forefathers. The tree of life in the
heavenly Jerusalem will possess certain very exceptional qualities: twelves
times in the year it will produce fruits, and its leaves will serve for the
healing of the nations. St. Andrew considers that ‘the tree of life means
Christ… Through Him and the twelve fruits of the apostolic band we are given
the unfailing fruit of Divine knowledge. The leaves of the tree of life, that
is, Christ, signify the subtlest, most exalted and most radiant understanding
of the Divine judgements, while its fruits are the most perfect knowledge,
which is revealed in the age to come. These leaves will be for the healing,
that is, the cleansing of the ignorance of the nations which are lower than the
others in the perfections of the virtues. Since there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and
another glory of the stars (I Corinthians 15.41), and the Father has many mansions (John
14.2), according to their nature the works of one will be worthy of lesser, of
another - of greater radiance.’ And
there shall be no more curse - every curse will be forever taken away from
the inhabitants of the heavenly city, and
the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and His servants shall serve
Him: and they shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads.
Those counted worthy of becoming inhabitants of this city will see God face to
face, ‘not in enigmas, but, as the great Dionysius witnesses, in the same form
in which He was seen by the holy apostles on the holy mountain. Instead of the
gold plate which the ancient high-priest wore (Exodus 28.32), they will
have the name of God engraved, not on their foreheads, but on their hearts,
that is, firm, immutable, and daring love for Him. For the engraving on the
forehead signifies the adornment of daring.’ (St. Andrew) And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither
light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign to
the ages of ages. All these traits indicate the uninterrupted and fullest
communion of the members of the heavenly Church with their Master, which is
even combined with the contemplation of His face. This will be for them a fount
of ineffable blessedness (cf. Ezekiel 47.12).” (Archbishop Averky)
For these their waters come forth from the
sanctuary; and their fruit shall be for meat, and their foliage for health
(Ezekiel 47.12).
There shall be no more a Canaanite in the
House of the Lord in that day (Zechariah 14.21).
For this shall be the law of the House:
upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about shall be most
holy. Behold, this is the law of the House (Ezekiel 43.12).
When He shall be revealed we shall be like
unto Him, for we shall see Him as He is (I John 3.2).
22.6-9. And he
said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the
spirits of the prophets sent His angel to shew unto His servants the things
which must shortly be done. Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth
the sayings of the prophecy of this book. And I John saw these things, and
heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the
angel which shewed me these things. Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not:
for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them
which keep the sayings of this book: worship God.
In
a Homily for the Feast of the Synaxis of the Holy Angels we read: “The Holy
Church, which rejects the impious worship of angels devised by idolaters and
heretics of old, has received from the divinely inspired Fathers the tradition
of celebrating with reverence the Synaxis of the Holy Angels. In the days of
the Old Testament, the people of God, having fallen away from their Creator,
began to worship that which the Lord created. They made idols after the
likeness of things visible, of that which is in heaven above and and earth
beneath, the work of their own hands. At that time, when the people offered
oblations unto the sun, the moon, and the stars as gods, imagining that these
possessed living souls, they also began to worship angels. The Book of Kings
makes mention of this, saying that they burned
incense to Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the twelve signs of the
Zodiac, and to all the host of heaven (IV Kings 23.5, according to
Jerome’s translation), that is, to the angels; for the host of heaven is
comprised of the angels, as is said in the Gospel: And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host (Luke
2.13).
“This
impious worship of the angels spread through many lands in the days of the holy
apostles. The holy Apostle Paul sought to root it out when he wrote to the Colossians, saying, Let no man beguile you in voluntary
humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath
not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding the Head (Colossians
2.18-19), which is Christ; for there were at that time certain heretics who
made a show of humility but proudly imagined that they were like the angels
because of their abstinence and the purity of their lives. These men taught
that angels were to be worshipped in the same manner as God. After this, there
arose other heretics who taught that the angels were the makers of the visible creation
and that they are more honorable and exalted than Christ, the Son of God, since
they are bodiless. These heretics called the Archangel Michael the God of the
Hebrews. Finally, still others appeared, who devoted themselves to sorcery and
deceived the people, calling upon the demons whom they served under the name of
angels. This heresy grew especially strong in Colossae, a city under the
jurisdiction of the metropolitan see of Laodicea, where many secretly
worshipped the angels in an impious manner akin to idolatry. The local ciuncil
of the holy fathers that met at Laodicea [in 319] denounced this heresy, but
while it anathematized and rejected the heretical worship of the holy angels,
it decreed lawful the pious and proper veneration of the holy angels as God’s
servants and the guardians of the race of man, establishing the celebration of
the festival held in their honor on this day [November 8].”[11]
In
our days of Laodicean indifference to the faith, this Laodicean heresy has
reappeared in the form of the worship both of the Archangel Michael and of
Satan, and of false “Christs”, “bishops”, “elders” and “gurus” of all kinds.
22.10-11. And
he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the
time is at hand. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is
filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous
still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.
And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for
the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be
purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none
of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand (Daniel 12.9-10).
Metropolitan
Anastasius of New York writes: “The Lord sometimes waits for evil to reveal
itself utterly, so that, having exposed its real nature, it might by itself be
rejected by the hearts of men; and He subjects the righteous man to a sevenfold
trial, so as to reveal his spiritual beauty before the whole world and increase
his reward. Thus, for a time, He allows things to remain as they are: He that is filthy, let him be filthy still;
and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still (Revelation
22.11).
“If,
with a righteous man, the least sinful obstacles characteristic of fallen human
nautre are burned up in the fire of trials, so also does God allow the ungodly
one to enjoy prosperity for a time, so that he might receive his “reward” for
those crumbs of good which he might at any time do during his life. The just
Judge does not wish to remain in debt either to the righteous or to the sinful.
The latter, of course, do not realize that He is dealing with them in this
instance as a physician does with the hopelessly ill, deciding at the last
moment to let them have anything they want, only because they have no hope for
a future. With great eloquence and persuasiveness the blessed Augustine reveals
this latter idea in his famous work On the City of God, which is, as is
well known, the first attempt at a philosophy of history, when he speaks of the
fall of Rome. The very prosperity of those condemned to destruction is no more
than a phantom, like smoke, and therefore it should elicit no sense of envy in
anyone, but only a sad pity for their lot, for the divine Word is immutable: Vengeance is Mine; I will repay (Romans
9.13; Deuteronomy 32.35). When I
am given the appointed time, I will judge uprightly (Psalm 74.3); I will begin, and I will make an end (I
Kings 3.12).
“Fret not thyself because of evil-doers
King David the prophet urges us, nor
envy them that work iniquity. For like grass quickly shall they be withered,
and like green herbs quickly shall they fall away (Psalm 36.1-2).
“‘Weep
for the sinner who succeeds at everything’, one of the Fathers of the Church
teaches us, “for the sword of divine justice is hanging over him.’ When the
Lord deems it necessary, He reveals His judgement over ungodliness even here on
earth, answering, as it were, the entreaty of mankind: Let me see Thy vengeance taken upon them, for to Thee I have declared
my cause (Jeremiah 11.2).”[12]
22.12-21. And,
behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with Me, to give to every man
according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the
End, the First and the Last. Blessed are they that do His commandments, that
they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates
into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and
murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. I Jesus have
sent Mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the Root
and the Offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. And the Spirit and
the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is
athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. For I
testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If
any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that
are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the
book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life,
and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. He
which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so,
come, Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all the saints.
Amen.
“In
the concluding verses of the Apocalypse the holy Apostle John confirms the
truth and faithfulness of all that has been said and speaks about the proximity
of the fulfilment of all that has been shown to him, and also about the
proximity of the Second Coming of Christ and with it the recompense that every
man will receive in accordance with his works. I come quickly - these words, according to the explanation of St.
Andrew, point either to the shortness of the present life by comparison with
the future one, or to the suddenness and speed with which each man’s end will
come, since his passing hence constitutes for each man the end. But insofar as
it is not known in what hour the thief
cometh, we are commanded to watch
and have our loins girded and our lamps burning (Luke 12.35). We
must understand that for our God there is no time, that one day is with Him as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one
day (II Peter 3.8). He will come quickly, because He absolutely will come - nothing will prevent His
Coming, as nothing will prevent or destroy His unlying decisions and promises.
A man reckons days, months and years, but the Lord does not count times, but
the righteousness and unrighteousness of men, and according to the measure of
His elect He measures the proximity of that great and radiant day, when there shall be no more time, and the
unwaning Day of His Kingdom will
begin. The Spirit and the bride, that is, the Church of Christ, call on
everyone to come and draw the water of life freely, so that they may be counted
worthy to become citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem.” (Archbishop Averky)
The
threat that if any man shall take away
from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out
of the book of life should be especially heeded by those contemporary
heretics who deny the God-inspired nature of the Apocalypse. For it has, as
Archbishop Averky says, “a great significance for the Church of all ages. It
represents the natural completion of the canon of the sacred books. And in
portraying the future and last judgements of the Church and the world it as it
were places us directly in front of the face of the coming Judge…”
O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God!
Deliver me from the seductions of the fast approaching Antichrist, who is
evilly cunning and abominable to God. And deliver us from all his snares, and
shelter our spiritual father (name), all of us, his spiritual children,
and all the Christians who are close to us from his insidious nets in the
secret desert of Thy salvation, and do not allow us, O Lord, to have the fear
of the devil more than the fear of God, and do not let us fall away from Thee
and Thy Holy Church, but grant us rather, O Lord, to suffer and die for Thy
Holy Name and the Orthodox Faith, and not to deny Thee, and not to receive the
seal of the accursed Antichrist, and not to worship him. Give us, O Lord, day
and night, tears and weeping over our sins, and spare us, O Lord, in the day of
Thy Terrible Judgement. Amen
The
feast of the Tabernacles was, with Pascha and Pentecost, one of the three
greatest feasts of the Old Testament Church, and the only one that has not yet
received its fulfilment in the New Testament Church.
“Primarily,”
writes David Baron, “Tabernacles was, above all the other feasts, the harvest
festival of joy and thanksgiving, in celebration not only of the full
ingathering of the labours of the field,
but also of the fruit and of the vintage, and is therefore pre-eminently styled
the Feast of Ingatherings” (Exodus
23.15; 34.22; Deuteronomy 16.13)”.[13]
It recalls the time when the Israelites, after finishing their forty-year
passage through the wilderness, rested for a while in tents, or tabernacles,
preparing for the final battle which would take place at the crossing of the
Jordan (which means “judgement”), and anticipating the joys of the Promised
Land. It was the only feast in the Jewish calendar that lasted for more than
seven days. The eighth, last and great
day of the feast (John 7.37), was the “conclusion” or “crowning
feast of all the feasts of the year,” in the words of Philo the Alexandrian.[14]
In
the same way, according to the present interpretation, the New Testament
Church, after passing through the horrors of the Soviet yoke and in general of
the whole period of persecution at the hands of the western heretics since
1054, will be delivered from its enemies for a short time (about fifty years,
according to the anonymous Athonite prophet of 1053). This will be the time of
“ingathering”, when the fullness both of the Gentiles and of the penitent Jews,
will enter the Church. The people of God will be granted this period of rest
and joy, expressed in the Christian fulfilment of the Feast of Tabernacles, in
preparation for the final battle against the Antichrist and in anticipation of
the more complete victory that will take place at the Second Coming of Christ
and the General Resurrection.
In
the Jewish calendar, the Feast of Tabernacles is immediately preceded by the
Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, which is devoted to profound repentance
for sin. Thus the opening of the eyes of faith must be preceded by profound
repentance. According to the Prophet Zachariah this same sequence will take
place in the history of Israel. First the Lord says: I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem
a spirit of grace and compassion; and they shall look upon Me Whom they have
pierced [this is the Hebrew quoted in John 19.37; the Greek is: because they have mocked Me], and they shall make lamentation for Him,
as for a beloved Friend, and they shall grieve intensely, as for a First-Born
Son (12.10). Then the Lord will appear to them, and His feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives (14.4). And then everyone that survives of all the nations
that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the
King, the Lord of Hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. And if any of
the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the
Lord of Hosts, there will be no rain upon them. And if the family of Egypt do
not go up and present themselves, then upon them shall come the plague with
which the Lord afflicts the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of
Tabernacles (14.16-18).
The
Lord may have been referring to this joyful event when He said to the
impenitent Jews: Behold, your house is
forsaken and desolate. For I tell you, you will not see Me again until you say,
Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord (Matthew
23.38-29). For Blessed is He that cometh
in the name of the Lord is the verse sung at the climax of the Feast of
Tabernacles. It is as if the Lord were saying: “You will not see Me with the
eyes of faith until you are converted and participate with the whole of the New
Testament Church in the Christian fulfilment of the Feast of Tabernacles.”
The
link between the Feast of Tabernacles and the millenium is explained by St.
Methodius of Olympus: “Only those who have celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles
will enter into the holy land. Leaving their tabernacles, they hasten to arrive
in the Temple and the City of God, that is to say, to a joy more great and more
heavenly, as it took place among the Jews in the figures of these things. In
the same way, indeed, as, having come out of the borders of Egypt, they, by
journeying, came to tabernacles and, from there, having advanced still further,
they reached the Promised land, so is it with us. I also, having started on the
journey, I come out of the Egypt of this life, I come first to the Resurrection,
to the true Scenopegia [feast of Tabernacles]. There, having built my
beautiful tent on the first day of the feast, that of the judgement, I
celebrate the feast with Christ during the millenium of rest, called the seven
days, the true Sabbaths. Then, following Jesus Who has crossed the heavens, I
start on my journey again, as they, after the rest of the Feast of Tabernacles,
journeyed toward the land of promise, the heavens, not waiting any longer in
tabernacles, that is to say, my tabernacle not remaining any longer the same,
but, after the millenium, having passed from a corruptible human form to an
angelic grandeur and beauty. Then, going out from the place of tabernacles,
having celebrated the feast of the Resurrection, we shall go towards better things,
ascending to the house that is above the heavens.”[15]
Thus
the Feast of Tabernacles celebrates a kind of “resurrection before the
Resurrection”, a period of rest and triumph for the Church before her last
battle with the Antichrist, her passing through the waters of the Last
Judgement, and her ascent to the Heavenly Jerusalem, where she puts on the new
tabernacles of the Resurrection Body.
Danielou points out that the liturgy of the feast of Tabernacles is similar to the liturgy of Palm Sunday [notably in the use of the verse, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord], which is a similar “resurrection before the Resurrection” and - to the liturgical rites described in the Apocalypse. “The whole liturgy of the Feast of Tabernacles serves St. John in the Apocalypse to describe the procession of the elect around the heavenly altar. It is, in fact, the liturgy of this Feast which we are to recognize in the passage of the Apocalypse (7.9-17) describing the great crowd which stands before the throne of the Lamb. Many details are connected with the Feast: the palm-branches (‘phoiniches’) in their hands, the white robes, which recall the garments of Christ at the Transfiguration (7.9), the tabernacle in which the Lord dwells in the midst of the elect (‘scenosei’) (7.15), the springs of living water where they quench their thirst (7.17). We have here, on the second level of eschatology, the projection of the first fulfillment which was, on the level of the Gospel, the episode of Palm Sunday…”[16]
The
liturgical links between the Feast of Tabernacles and Palm Sunday reflect a
profound prophetic parallelism; for on both Palm Sunday and the future Feast of
the Tabernacles the Jews acclaim Christ as the Messiah - temporarily. But just
as Palm Sunday was followed by Great Friday and the Crucifixion of Christ, when
the Jews who had hailed Christ five days before called for His death, so the
same race of the Jews which turns to Christ after the World War in fulfilment
of the prophecies (Romans 11), and participates with the Christian
Gentiles in the Christian Feast of Tabernacles, will turn against Him again to
worship the Antichrist, in fulfilment of many other prophecies. For it is of
this, the Jewish worship of the Antichrist at the end of time, that the Lord says:
I have come in My Father’s name, and you
do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive (John
5.43).
If the first half of the
twentieth century was distinguished by an amazing increase in our knowledge of
the physical world, the second half was distinguished by an even more amazing
increase in our knowledge of the biological world, and especially the world of
human genetics and human reproduction. The vital break-through here was the
discovery of DNA in 1953. Then came the introduction of the contraceptive pill,
in vitro fertilisation and surrogate motherhood. As one journalist put
it: “First, contraception severed the connection between sex and reproduction.
It became possible to have sex without having babies. Then modern technology
severed the connection between reproduction and sex. It became possible to have
babies without having sex.”[17]
The
most alarming developments have been genetic manipulation and cloning. According
to the most recent reports, human cloning is already said to have taken place
in Russia, near St. Petersburg.[18]
As
early as 1976, the director of the Institute of Genetics of the Academy of
Sciences of the USSR, Academician N.P. Dubinin, was predicting the scale of
this revolution: “The achievements of human genetics, and of general and
molecular genetics, will push forward the problem of interference in human
heredity. The coming revolution in genetics will demand a decisive overturning
of the previously dominant view concerning the primacy of nature in its natural
form. Genetics will turn out to be capable of overcoming the natural story of
life and creating organic forms inconceivable in the light of the laws of
natural evolution… For the molecular genetics and the molecular biology of the
21st century there lies in store the prospect of creating cells as
the only self-regulating open living system, which will be bound up with the
understanding of the essence of life. An exchange of living forms will take
place between the earth and other worlds… The aim of genetic engineering is the
creation of organisms according to a given model, whose hereditary program is
formed by means of introducing the recipient of new genetic information. This
information can be artificially synthesised or separated in the form of natural
genetic structures from various organisms. In this way a new single genetic
system which cannot arise by means of natural evolution will be created
experimentally… Various manipulations with DNA molecules can lead to the
unforeseen creation of biologically dangerous hybrid forms… “[19]
After
quoting this passage, Fr. Vladislav Sveshnikov expressed the truly apocalyptic
fear: “We have to admit that contemporary science is preparing the ground
for the coming of the Antichrist.”[20]
How? By the manipulation of genes in order to produce the “superman” or
“man-god” of Nietzsche’s imagination, who will be at the same time the
“devil-man” or “Antichrist” of Christian patristic teaching.
The
purpose of this article is to show the light shed by the Holy Fathers on this
possible link between genetic science and the birth of the Antichrist, and also
on what may be meant by Dubinin’s words: “An exchange of living forms will
take place between the earth and other worlds…”
The
birth of the Antichrist is described by the Fathers as being from an unclean
woman of the tribe of Dan. This is the teaching of St. Irenaeus of Lyons (Against
Heresies, V, 30), St. Hippolytus of Rome (Discourse on Christ and
Antichrist), St. Hilary of Poitiers, St. Ambrose of Milan and Blessed
Jerome. In the Synaxarion for Meatfare Sunday, we read: “The Antichrist will
come and be born, as St. Hippolytus of Rome says, of a polluted woman, a
supposed virgin, a Jewess of the tribe of Dan”.[21]
The
most detailed description is to be found in St. Nilus the Myrrh-gusher: “The
Antichrist will be born of an unclean, wanton maid. All debaucheries will be
united within this maid, and she will be the treasure house of fornication.
Every evil of the world, every uncleanness, every sin will be embodied in her.
Through her conceiving from secret wantonness, all sins will be combined in a
womb of uncleanness and will be brought to life together with the spiritual impoverishment
of the world. When the world will be deprived of the grace of the Most Holy
Spirit, then the Antichrist will come to life in the womb of the unclean, from
the most filthy and impure woman to have lived, though she will appear as a
virgin. Conceived from such secret and unnatural wantonness, the offspring will
be the container of every evil, as opposed to the way in which Christ was the
ideal of every good quality, and His Most Pure Mother was the ideal of
womanhood.”[22]
The question is: who will be the father? Since the Antichrist will attempt to imitate Christ in all things, it has been suggested by some of the Fathers that he will try to imitate Him also in His birth. Thus just as Christ was born of the Virgin, so the Antichrist will be born of a supposed virgin; and just as Christ had no human father, but was conceived of the Holy Spirit, so the Antichrist will have no human father, but will be conceived of - the devil? Such an idea appears to have been suggested by the further words of St. Nilus: “Yea, he will be born of seed, but without man’s sowing. He will be born with seed, but not with the seed of a man.” And some expressions from the early Fathers, especially in the West, might seem to encourage this hypothesis. Thus St. Hippolytus, Pope of Rome in the mid-third century, writes that “just as the Saviour appeared in the form of a man, so he too [the Antichrist] will come in the form of a man”.[23] Again, both St. Constantine’s tutor, Lactantius[24]and St. Martin of Tours[25] say that the Antichrist will be “conceived by an evil spirit”. And Blessed Theodoretus of Cyr writes: “Before Christ’s Coming there shall appear in the world the enemy of man, the opponent of God, vested in human nature.”[26]
However,
other Western Fathers were of a different opinion. Thus St. Irenaeus writes
that he will “receive all the virtue of the devil, “and summ up within himself
the apostasy of the devil”, but that he will be of human, rather than angelic
substance.[27] And from
the second half of the fourth century the Fathers are almost unanimous in
declaring that the Antichrist will be devilish, but not the devil; he will be
the tool of the devil, but not his incarnation.
Thus
St. Narses of Armenia (+373) said on his deathbed: “Think ye not that he is
Satan, or a devil from among his hosts. No, but a man lost in mind and soul of
the tribe of Dan.”[28]
Again,
St. John Chrysostom writes: “Who is he? Is he Satan? By no means, but some man,
who allows him to work fully in him. For he is a man… He will not introduce
idolatry, but will be a kind of opponent to God; he will abolish all the gods,
and will order men to worship him instead of God, and he will be seated in the
temple of God, not only the one in Jerusalem, but also in every church…”[29]
Again,
Blessed Jerome writes: “Nor let us think that he [the Antichrist] is the devil
or a demon, but a man in whom satan is to dwell wholly and bodily”.[30]
Again,
St. John of Damascus writes: “The devil himself does not become man in the way
that the Lord was made man. God forbid! But he becomes man as the offspring of
fornication and receiveth all the energy of Satan. For God, knowing the
strangeness of the choice that he would make, allows the devil to take up his
abode in him. Born of a fornicator, he shall be raised in secret, shall be announced
to all unexpectedly, and will ascend the throne.”[31]
Nevertheless,
while the consensus of the Fathers rules out a real incarnation of the devil in
a man, they do not deny that this is what the devil will try to do. Thus
Blessed Theodoretus of Cyrus writes: “The persecutor of men imitates the
incarnation of our God and Saviour. And as He by assuming our human nature
accomplished our salvation, so he [the devil], by choosing a man capable of
receiving the fulness of his power, shall tempt man.”[32]
And in the middle of the tenth century, the French Abbot Adso of Montier-en-Der
developed this idea as follows: “He is born by intercourse from a father and a
mother, like other men - not, as some fantasize, from a virgin alone… But in
the very beginning of his conception the devil will at the same time enter into
the womb of his mother and will totally fill her, and totally circumscribe her,
and totally hold her, and totally possess her from without and within, so that
she will conceive through a man with the devil’s cooperation, and that which
will be born will be totally iniquitous, totally evil and totally lost…”[33]
In
the modern period some further light has been shed on this mystery by St.
Seraphim of Sarov, who prophesied: “Jesus Christ, the true God-Man, the Son of
God the Father, was born in Israel by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and
the true Antichrist, the devil-man, will be born amidst the Russians. He will
be the son of a fornicating woman of the tribe of Dan and the son of the devil
through the artificial transfer to her of the seed of the man, with which the
spirit of darkness will settle in her womb. But one of the Russians who will
live to the time of the birth of the Antichrist (like Simeon the God-receiver,
who announced the birth of the Child Jesus to the world) will curse the newborn
babe and will announce to the world that it is the true Antichrist.”[34]
So
here we find a new twist, as it were, to what we might have been tempted to
dismiss as the myth of the devil-man. The Antichrist will be truly man - on
both his father’s and his mother’s side. But the fallen angelic nature will
also be innate in him, being mixed with his father’s seed even before his
conception. At the same time, we may suppose, genetic engineering will take
place on the seed, so as to make the child born of it the most brilliant and
talented, but at the same time most corrupted person ever born! How costly for
mankind is the transgressing of God’s laws concerning marriage and the
begetting of children - nothing less than the birth of the Antichrist!
Perhaps
we can now better understand an apparent ambiguity in St. Andrew of Caesarea’s Commentary
on the Apocalypse, in which he at one moment asserts that the “angelic
substance” is assumed in the Antichrist (50.13), and at another that “the devil
operates in the Antichrist” (51.45). There is a sense in which the
“angelic substance” is assumed in the Antichrist, since it is joined to him
from his very conception, and therefore influences him from within and from the
beginning, rather than possessing him from without and ex post facto. On
the other hand, it is not a real incarnation of the devil, nor a real imitation
of the Virgin Birth, since neither is his mother a virgin, nor is he without a
human father. It is not, as Ambrosiaster puts it, that “as the Son of God in
His human birth manifested His Divine nature, so also shall Satan appear in
human form”.[35] It is
rather, as St. Cyril of Jerusalem puts it, “Satan uses him as an organ, working
in his own person through him”.[36]
But
is it in principle possible for the human and angelic natures to unite, not
merely through possession, that is, the union of two persons, one human and the
other angelic (demonic) under one skin, but hypostatically, through the
union of two natures, one human and the other angelic, in one person?
This
question was actively discussed by the Fathers in relation to one of the most
puzzling passages in Holy Scripture: And it came to pass when men began to
be numerous upon the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the angels of
God [or: sons of God], having seen the daughters of men that they were
beautiful, took for themselves wives from all whom they chose. And the Lord God
said, My Spirit shall certainly not remain among these men for ever, for they
are flesh, but their days shall be one hundred and twenty years. Now the giants
were upon the earth in those days, and after that the angels of God [sons of
God] were wont to enter in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to
them. Those were the giants of old, the men of renown. (Genesis
6.1-5).
The understanding of this
passage hinges on the meaning of the word translated “angels of God” or “sons
of God” in verses 2 and 4. In the Hebrew Massoretic text the word is bene-ha-elohim,
literally “sons of God”. In the Greek translation of the Septuagint, which is
the oldest and most authoritative text that we have, the Cambridge text edited
by Brooke-Mclean has “angels of God” (aggeloi tou qeou) in verse 2, and “sons of
God” (uioi tou qeou) in verse 4.
P.
S. Alexander writes: “The translator has not been inconsistent, for closer
inspection shows that, though there are no significant variants at verse 4, a
number of important witnesses at verse 2 read, not oi
aggeloi tou qeou
but oi uioi tou qeou. Moreover, the main support in verse 2 for oi aggeloi tou qeou (viz. Cod. A) has the
reading over an erasure. It seems most likely, then, that LXX [the Septuagint]
originally read oi uioi tou qeou in both places. It was later altered, but
inconsistently. The literal rendering [i.e. “sons of God”] is found in other
Greek texts, as well as in the Vulgate, the Peshitta and the Biblical text of
the Ps-Philonic Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (=LAB).”[37]
Be
that as it may, and even if there is not absolute unanimity concerning which
reading is correct, there is complete unanimity, from the earliest Jewish
commentators until the early third century, about its meaning. All commentators
and writers agree that the reference here is to angels. Such an
interpretation is supported by the fact that in three passages of the Book of
Job (1.6, 2.1, 38.7) the phrase “sons of God” certainly refers to angels. Also,
the fact that the women gave birth to giants[38]
suggests something abnormal, something more than just a normal human
coupling…
We
find this interpretation both in pre-Christian Jewish literature - for example,
The Book of Enoch, Jubilees, The Testament of the 12 Patriarchs, Philo
and Josephus - and in the early Christian Fathers and writers such as Justin
the Philosopher, Irenaeus, Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian,
Methodius of Olympus and Ambrose.
Thus
Josephus writes: “Now this posterity of Seth continued to esteem God as the
Lord of the universe, and to have an entire regard to virtue, for seven
generations; but in process of time they were perverted, and forsook the
practices of their forefathers, and did neither pay those honours to God which
were appointed them, not had they any concern to do justice towards men; but
for what degree of zeal they had formerly shown for virtue, they now showed by
their actions a double degree of wickedness, whereby they made God to be their
enemy. For many angels of God accompanied with women, and begat sons
that proved unjust, and despisers of all that was good, on account of the
confidence they had in their own strength; for the tradition is, that these men
did what resembled the acts of those whom the Grecians call giants. But Noah
was very uneasy at what they did; and being displeased at their conduct,
persuaded them to change their disposition, and their actions for the better:
but seeing they did not yield to him, but were slaves to wicked pleasures, he
was afraid they would kill him, together with his wife and children, and those
they had married; so he departed out of the land.”[39]
Again,
St. Justin writes: “In ancient times wicked demons appeared and defiled women.”[40]
Again,
St. Methodius writes: “The others remained in the positions for which God made
and appointed them; but the devil was insolent, and having conceived envy of
us, behaved wickedly in the charge committed to him; as also did those who
subsequently were enamoured of fleshly charms, and had illicit intercourse with
the daughters of men. For to them also, as was the case with men, God granted
the possession of their own choice.”[41]
Again,
St. Irenaeus writes: “And for a very long while wickedness extended and spread,
and reached and laid hold upon the whole race of mankind, until a very small
seed of righteousness remained among them: and illicit unions took place upon
the earth, since angels were united with the daughters of the race of mankind;
and they bore to them sons who for their exceeding greatness were called
giants. And the angels brought as presents to their wives teachings of
wickedness, in that they brought them the virtues of roots and herbs, and
dyeing in colours and cosmetics, the discovery of rare substances,
love-potions, aversions, amours, concupiscence, constraints of love, spells of
bewitchment, and all sorcery and idolatry hateful to God; by the entry of which
things into the world evil extended and spread, while righteousness was
diminished and enfeebled…”[42]
Another
very important, albeit not quite so clear witness in favour of this
interpretation is the passage from II Peter: If God did not spare the
angels when they sinned, but cast them into tartarus, and committed them to
pits of nether gloom to be kept until the judgement; if he did not spare the
ancient world, but preserved Noah… (2.4-5; cf. Jude 6), which from
its context seems to be referring to the angels’ cohabitation with the
daughters of men.
However,
in spite of all these early witnesses, the later Fathers from about the second
half of the fourth century - including John Chrysostom, Ephraim the Syrian,
Blessed Theodoretus, Cyril of Jerusalem, Blessed Jerome and Blessed Augustine -
turned sharply against this interpretation, choosing rather to understand the
term “sons of God” as denoting the men of the line of Seth, and the “daughters
of men” - the women of the line of Cain; so that the event described in Genesis
6 involved an unlawful mixing between the pious and the impious human generations.
Thus
St. John Chrysostom writes that it would be “folly to accept such insane
blasphemy, saying that an incorporeal and spiritual nature could have united
itself to human bodies”.[43]
Again,
St. Augustine, after noting that “the Septuagint calls them the angels and sons
of God”, goes on to say: “According to the Hebrew canonical Scriptures [i.e as
opposed to apocrypha such as The Book of Enoch], there is no doubt that
there were giants upon the earth before the deluge, and that they were the sons
of the men of earth, and citizens of the carnal city, unto which the sons of
God, being Seth’s in the flesh, forsaking righteousness, adjoined themselves.”[44]
Again,
St. Ephraim the Syrian writes: “The daughters of Cain adorned themselves and
became a snare to the eyes of the sons of Seth… The entire tribe of Seth… was
stirred to a frenzy over them… Because the sons of Seth were going in to the
daughters of Cain, they turned away from their first wives whom they had
previously taken. Then these wives, too, disdained their own continence and
now, because of their husbands, quickly began to abandon their modesty, which
up until that time they had preserved for their husbands’ sake. It is because
of this wantonness that assailed both the men and the women, that Scripture
says, All flesh had corrupted its way (6.13).”[45]
To
this same line of interpretation belong the words of Metropolitan Philaret of
Moscow: “According to the text of the Alexandrian Bible, [the words are]
‘Angels of God’. Lactantius is of this opinion, as are many ancient authors.
Justin affirms that from the marriages of Angels with the daughters of men
there came demons. Athenagoras ascribes the fall of the Angels to these same
marriages, and it was from them that the giants came. Tertullian ascribes to
these Angels the acquisition of Astrology, precious stones, metals and some
female adornments. But all these traditions contradict the witness of Jesus
Christ, that the Angels do not marry (Matthew 22.30)…
“According
to the opinion of the most recent interpreters, [they are] the descendants of
the race of Shem, who not only were sons of God by grace (cf. Deuteronomy
14.1; I John 3.1), but they also probably formed a society under this
name (cf. Genesis 4.26)[46]
which was opposed to the society of the sons of men, that is, the
descendants of Cain, who were led only by their fallen human nature.
Moses ascribes the beginning of the mixing of such contrary societies to the
fascination with the beauty of the daughters of men; and as a
consequence even those who belonged to the society of those who walk in the
Spirit became flesh, and light itself began to be turned into darkness.”[47]
However,
even if we exclude the possibility of a real, hypostatic union between
angels (demons) and men, it is another question whether demons may not desire
such a union and strive for it.
But why should they
wish to unite with women?
First, because demons,
in spite of their bodiless nature, are possessed by bodily lust, according to
St. Ignaty Brianchaninov.[48]
In this connection the words of the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 11.10
are relevant: For this cause ought the woman to have authority on her head
on account of the angels. Commenting on this passage, St. Paulinus of Nola
writes: “Let them realize why Paul ordered their heads to be clothed with a
more abundant covering: it is because of the angels, that is, the angels who
are ready to seduce them and whom the saints will condemn.”[49]
A
second reasons is that Satan almost certainly wishes to imitate the union of
the two natures in one Person which Christ achieved at His incarnation, only
substituting the demonic nature for the Divine, a whore for the Virgin Mother
of God, and the Antichrist for Christ. Such a motive is suggested by the fact,
emphasised by many of the Fathers, that the Antichrist will seek to imitate
Christ in all things. And if in all things, why not in his very birth?
Let
us recall the prophecies of Saints Nilus and Seraphim that the conception of
the Antichrist will be through a technique of artificial insemination, whereby
the devil will seize and possess the sperm before it has reached the mother’s
egg. Since the technique will be artificial insemination, rather than the
normal process of sexual intercourse, the mother will be able to claim –
falsely, of course - that she is a “virgin”. And since artificial insemination
takes place in a test-tube, outside both human bodies, the possibilities for
possession and genetic manipulation of the sperm by the devil will be
maximised. Moreover, having taking possession of the sperm before it fertilises
the egg, the devil will be able to claim that he is the father of the Antichrist
“from eternity” – or, at any rate, before the human father could beget him.
Then the Antichrist will be, according to the demonic anti-theology, one person
in two natures – from a bodiless father before he became man, and from a virgin
mother at the moment of conception…
Could
the demons already be experimenting on the union of the human and demonic
natures? After all, the technique of artificial insemination already exists.
Moreover, “genetic engineering”, and the union of human and animal species, is
already well advanced in human laboratories - undoubtedly under the direct
influence of demons.
But
the participation of demons may be more direct that that; for it is not just
deluded human beings who are attempting to change and manipulate and hybridise the
nature of man…
According
to reputable Orthodox writers, such as Hieromonk Seraphim Rose, the inhabitants
of the so-called “Unidentified Flying Objects” (UFOs), which have so struck the
popular imagination in recent decades, are in fact demons.[50]
Other writers have seen a parallel between the phenomenon of the UFOs coming to
earth and the story of the visitation of the daughters of men by the son of God
in Genesis 6, which produced the hybrid offspring of the “giants”,
“watchers” or “fallen ones”.[51]
Moreover, according to the Harvard Professor of Psychiatry, John Mack, there is
now well established evidence that men and women have been abducted onto UFOs,
where their alien “hosts”, i.e. demons, have performed sexual experiments upon
them. There have been reported cases of matings between demons and human beings
on board these craft. But still more sinister, sperm has been taken from men,
and ova from women. “Fertilized eggs, which may have been genetically altered,
are implanted, and later there is the eventual removal of the pregnancy. In
subsequent abductions, experiencers are shown hybrid offspring and may even be
asked to hold or nurture them.”[52]
These
ideas indicate how Genesis 6.1-5, modern experiments on human sexuality
and reproduction (by both humans and demons) and the doctrine of the
Antichrist, may come together in a fantastic, nightmarish scenario that
nevertheless has the stamp of reality. Moved by envy, lust and jealousy, the
devil, the enemy of mankind, has from primordial times tried to interfere with,
corrupt, abuse and radically subvert human nature. And just as Christ recreated
human nature in the image and likeness of God by becoming incarnate of the
Virgin Mother of God, so the devil wishes to recreate it in his image
and likeness by becoming incarnate of a pseudo-virgin, the mother of the
Antichrist.
However,
real demonic incarnation, the creation of a true demon-man, is
impossible because of the bounds between species and kinds of rational beings
created by God. So Satan resorts to as close an imitation as possible: through
the demonic possession of human seed even before conception, and its genetic
manipulation to accentuate the worst qualities in fallen human nature, he plans
to create, if not a true demon-man, at any rate the demonic man par
excellence. But since, unlike God, he cannot create out of nothing or at
once, he requires time and experimentation, in order gradually, by trial and
error, to “work out” his perverted masterpiece.
Let
us go back to the early chapters of Genesis. It will be recalled that
almost immediately after the attempt of the “sons of God” to seduce the
daughters of men, and the birth from these unions of giants, there came the
universal flood which swept away all mankind except Noah and his family. Whether
or not there is a direct causal connection between the two events is not
indicated: but their close proximity is very suggestive.
Now
in the New Testament the Lord said: As it was in the days of Noah, so shall
it be also in the days of the Son of Man. They did eat, they drank, they
married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day Noah entered into the
ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all (Luke 17.26-27). The
period we are living through now appears very similar to the period the Lord
was speaking about, and so also to the period just before the Flood. Now, as
then, men have begun to multiply on the earth, and now, as then, the condition
of mankind is one of spiritual and moral degeneration.
But
could the correspondence between the Old and the New Testaments be even closer
here? Could it be that just as the universal flood and the destruction of the
old world was brought about by an unnatural union of demons and men and the
consequent birth of giants, so the Second Coming of Christ and the burning up
of the material universe at His Coming will be brought about by an unnatural
union of Satan and a woman and the consequent birth of the Antichrist? Could it
be that the final corruption of human nature which both sequences indicate signals
the end of the world in both sequences, with only a tiny remnant of righteous
men being saved in the Ark (of the Church)?
We
cannot prevent the birth of the Antichrist, for the Scriptures must be
fulfilled (Mark 14.49). But we can delay his appearing by living a
godly life and by being keenly aware, through a knowledge of the Scriptures, of
the snares of the devil. And we must be aware above all that the human spirit,
being free and under the protection of God for as long as it seeks it, is not
subject to the flesh, however corrupted, manipulated and even demon-possessed
it may be. The Lord said of the last times: except those days should be
shortened, there should no flesh be saved (Matthew 24.22). But He
also said of His sheep: They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck
them out of My hand (John 10.28)…
August 9/22, 2001.
The judgement of God is
being carried out on the Church and the people of Russia…
A selection is being made of
those true warriors of Christ who alone will be able…
to resist the Beast himself.
Hieromartyr Damascene, Bishop of Glukhov.
He causes all… to receive a
mark on their right hand or on their foreheads,
And that no one may buy or
sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast or the number of his
name…
Revelation 13.16-17.
The
year 1917 marked the beginning of the time of the end, the time of the
Antichrist, in accordance with the prophecies of such luminaries of the Church
as St. Seraphim of Sarov, St. Ambrose of Optina, Bishop Theophanes the Recluse,
St. John of Kronstadt and the holy new martyrs and confessors of Russia. On
November 9, 1917, Divine Providence drew the attention of all those with eyes
to see the signs of the times to an extraordinary “coincidence”: in one column
of newsprint in the London Times, there appeared, one above the other,
two articles, the one announcing the outbreak of revolution in Petrograd, and
the other – the promise of a homeland for the Jews in Palestine (the Balfour
declaration). Thus at precisely the same time the two horns of the beast of the
last times, the power of apostate Jewry, appeared above the vast sea of the
formerly Christian world: the anti-theist, materialist horn of Soviet power,
and the theist, Judaistic horn of Zionist Israel.
The fall of Russia, the last Orthodox Christian empire, was followed by further blows to the monarchical, God-established principle of political government. In 1918 the Catholic empire of Austro-Hungary and the Protestant empire of Germany collapsed. In 1924 the Orthodox kingdom of Greece fell; and in 1941 and 1944 the last Orthodox monarchies of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria also fell. By the end of the Second World War there were no real monarchies left in Europe or America, and the world was dominated by two powers based on the anti-monarchical, democratic principle: the United States of America, representing the more individualist, tolerant variety of democratism, and the Soviet Union, representing the more collectivist, intolerant variety.
50 years later, the situation had changed again. The Soviet Union was no more, and its rival for leadership of the communist world, China, was well on the way to transforming itself into a capitalist democracy. With the fall of the anti-theist, materialist horn of the beast, the attention of many Orthodox was turned to the other, theist horn – Israel, founded in 1948 under the sponsorship of Britain and the Soviet Union, and to Israel’s allies (or “colonies”, as some asserted) in the West, especially America, the only remaining superpower. In particular, alarm was aroused by the spread throughout the West, and thence into the East, of new forms of identification and money exchange – credit cards, bar-codes, 18-figure identity cards, etc. – which appeared to contain the number of the beast, 666. The question raised in many minds, and addressed in the present article, is: could this be the seal of the Antichrist?
Let us begin by examining, not the seal of the Antichrist as such, but the reign of the Antichrist since 1917. In what does it consist? What are its essential characteristics?
According to the holy apostles
and fathers of the Church, the reign of the Antichrist will be characterised by
an extreme form of anarchy – that is, the absence of law and order. Now
the origin of all law and order is God, so all law and order, all true
authority, is established by God. That is the meaning of the apostle’s famous
saying: “There is no power that is not of God; the powers that be are
established by God” (Romans 13.1). Christians honour the king and pray
for the powers that be precisely in order to avoid the great evil of anarchy,
“that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence” (I
Timothy 2.2). Since anarchy is opposed to God-established authority, it is
opposed to God, and must therefore itself be opposed by all those who fear God
and obey His holy will.
A
ruler may be unjust and cruel at times, or even very often, but as long as he
prevents anarchy Christians must obey him. Thus St. Irenaeus of Lyons writes:
“Some rulers are given by God with a view to the improvement and benefit of their
subjects and the preservation of justice; others are given with a view to
producing fear, punishment and reproof; yet others are given with a view to
displaying mockery, insult and pride – in each case in accordance with the
deserts of the subjects. Thus… God’s judgement falls equally on all men.”[53]
Again, St. Isidore of Pelusium writes that the evil ruler “has been allowed to
spew out this evil, like Pharaoh, and, in such an instance, to carry out
extreme punishment or to chastise those for whom great cruelty is required, as
when the king of Babylon chastised the Jews.”[54]
But
there is line beyond which an evil ruler ceases to be a ruler and becomes an
anti-ruler, an unlawful tyrant, who is not to be obeyed. Thus the Jews were
commanded by God through the Prophet Jeremiah to submit to the king of Babylon,
evil though he was; whereas they were commanded through another prophet, Moses,
to resist and flee from the Egyptian Pharaoh, and rebelled again, with God’s
blessing, under Antiochus Epiphanes. For in the one case the authority, though
evil, was still an authority, which it was beneficial to obey; whereas in the
other cases the authority was in fact an anti-authority, obedience to which
would have taken the people further away from God.
Anarchy, the absence of true authority, can be of two kinds: organised and disorganised. When a true authority collapses, there usually follows a period of disorganised anarchy, which is characterised by individual crimes of all kinds – murder, robbery, rape, sacrilege, - that go unchecked and unpunished because of the absence of a true power. Such was the period of Russian history that followed the collapse of the Orthodox empire in February, 1917. The Provisional government, having itself contributed to the collapse of the empire, and having received its authority neither (through holy anointing) from God nor (by means of a popular vote) from men, was unable to check the rising tide of anarchy and collapsed ignominiously. The disorganised anarchy of the Provisional government was followed by the organised anarchy of the Bolshevik “government”…
Now
Christians are obliged to recognise every power that is in fact a power in the
apostolic meaning of the word – that is, which at least tries to prevent
anarchy by rewarding the good and punishing the bad (Romans 13.3; I
Peter 2.14). Such a power does not have to be Christian: although only the
Orthodox anointed kings, working together with the Orthodox hierarchs, are able
to establish God’s order in anything approaching fullness, even pagan,
heretical and Muslim states punish those crimes that are recognised as such by
the vast majority of mankind, and are therefore recognised as legitimate by the
Church. However, such recognition can only be relative – relative, that is, to
the degree to which the government does in fact establish order, - and in
extreme cases can be refused altogether.
Thus
in the fourth century, the Persian King
Sapor proposed to Hieromartyr Simeon, Bishop of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, that he
worship the sun, in exchange for which he would receive every possible honour
and gift. But if he refused, this would bring about the complete destruction of
Christianity in Persia. Now already before he had made this proposal to Simeon,
King Sapor had started to kill the clergy, confiscate church property and raze
the churches to the ground. So when he was brought before the king for his
reply, St. Simeon not only refused to worship the sun but also, upon entering,
refused to recognise the king by bowing. This omission of his previous respect
for the king’s authority was noticed and questioned by the King. St. Simeon
replied: “Before I bowed down to you, giving you honour as a king, but now I
come being brought to deny my God and Faith. It is not good for me to bow before
an enemy of my God!”[55]
Again, when Julian the Apostate
(361-363) came to the throne, the Church refused to recognize him. Thus St.
Basil the Great prayed for the defeat of Julian in his wars against the
Persians; and it was through his prayers that the apostate was in fact killed,
as was revealed by God to the holy hermit Julian of Mesopotamia.[56]
At this, St. Basil’s friend, St. Gregory the Theologian wrote: “I call to
spiritual rejoicing all those who constantly remained in fasting, in mourning
and prayer, and by day and by night besought deliverance from the sorrows that
surrounded us and found a reliable healing from the evils in unshakeable hope…
What hoards of weapons, what myriads of men could have produced what our
prayers and the will of God produced?” Gregory
called Julian not only an “apostate”, but also “universal enemy” and “general
murderer”, a traitor to Romanity (rwmeiosunh)– that is, the religio-political ethos of the
Christian Roman empire - as well as to Christianity.[57]
Again, when the Norman Duke William invaded England in 1066 with the blessing of the Pope, and was crowned as the first Catholic king of England in the following year, the brother-bishops and hieromartyrs Ethelric and Ethelwine solemnly anathematized both him and the Pope, and called on the people to rise up against the false authority (they did, and 20% of the English population was killed by the papists). Again, in 1611 St. Hermogen, patriarch of Moscow, called on the Russian people to rise up against the crypto-Catholic false Demetrius, although the latter had been anointed by a supposedly Orthodox patriarch.
The
state that is refused recognition by the Church is the state of organized
anarchy – that is, the state in which crime is not only not punished, as in
disorganized anarchy, but is confirmed and recognized as lawful. Thus the
essence of antichristian power is not simply the doing of evil – all states,
even the most Orthodox, at times do evil – but the systematic recognition of
evil as good, of lawlessness as the law, of the abnormal as the norm and even
the aim of society. Such a state is “the mystery of lawlessness” (II
Thessalonians 2.7).
Such a state was the Bolshevik regime, which, taking advantage of the disorganized anarchy prevailing under the Provisional government, not only did not restore order into the chaos, but consolidated, intensified and organized it, made it the norm, made it “lawful”. Church tradition calls unlawful councils, councils that preach heresy instead of truth, “robber councils”. In the same way, unlawful states such as the Bolshevik regime can be called “robber states”, insofar as murder, robbery and sacrilege become the norm under them – indeed, are committed primarily by the state itself. Robber states cannot command the obedience of God-fearing Christians, for they are not authorities in the apostolic sense of the word, but “anti-authorities”. Rather, such states must be rebuked and rejected by them.
That
is why, on November 11, 1917, the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church
addressed a letter to the faithful calling the revolution “descended from the
Antichrist” and declaring: “Open combat is fought against the Christian Faith,
in opposition to all that is sacred, arrogantly abasing all that bears the name
of God (II Thessalonians 2.4)… But no earthly kingdom founded on
ungodliness can ever survive: it will perish from internal strife and party
dissension. Thus, because of its frenzy of atheism, the State of Russia will
fall… For those who use the sole foundation of their power in the coercion of
the whole people by one class, no motherland or holy place exists. They have
become traitors to the motherland and instigated an appalling betrayal of
Russia and her true allies. But, to our grief, as yet no government has arisen
which is sufficiently one with the people to deserve the blessing of the
Orthodox Church. And such will not appear on Russian soil until we turn with
agonizing prayer and tears of repentance to Him, without Whom we labour in vain
to lay foundations…”
In
January, 1918, Patriarch Tikhon and the Local Council meeting in Moscow
anathematized the Bolsheviks. The significance of this anathema lies not so
much in its casting out of the Bolsheviks themselves (all those who deny God
are subject to anathema, that is, separation from God, for that very denial),
as in the command to the faithful: “I adjure all of you who are faithful
children of the Orthodox Church of Christ not to commune with such outcasts of
the human race in any matter whatsoever; ‘cast out the wicked from among you’ (I
Corinthians 5.13).” In other words, the Bolsheviks were to be regarded, not
only as apostates from Christ (that was obvious), but also as having no moral
authority, no claim to obedience
whatsoever.[58]
It
has been argued that the Patriarch’s decree did not anathematise Soviet power
as such, but only those who were committing acts of violence and sacrilege
against the Church in various parts of the country. However, this argument
fails to take into account several facts. First, the patriarch himself, in his
declarations of June 16 and July 1, 1923, repented precisely of his
“anathematisation of Soviet power”.[59]
Secondly, even if the decree did not formally anathematise Soviet power as
such, since Soviet power sanctioned and initiated the acts of violence, the
faithful were in effect being exhorted to having nothing to do with it. And
thirdly, in his Epistle to the Council of People’s Commissars on the first
anniversary of the revolution, November 7, 1918, the Patriarch obliquely but
clearly confirmed his non-recognition of Soviet power, saying: “It is not our
business to make judgments about earthly authorities. Every power allowed by
God would attract to itself Our blessing if
it were truly ‘the servant of God’, for the good of those subject to it, and
were ‘terrible not for good works, but for evil’ (Romans 13.3,4). But
now to you, who have used authority for the persecution of the innocent, We
extend this Our word of exhortation… “[60]
Most
important of all, when the Patriarch’s decree came to be read out to the
Council on January 22 / February 4, it was enthusiastically endorsed by it in
terms which make it clear that the Council understood the Patriarch to have
anathematised precisely Soviet power: “The Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia
in his epistle to the beloved in the Lord archpastors, pastors and all faithful
children of the Orthodox Church of Christ has drawn the spiritual sword against
the outcasts of the human race – the Bolsheviks, and anathematised them. The
head of the Russian Orthodox Church adjures all her faithful children not to
enter into any communion with these outcasts. For their satanic deeds they are
cursed in this life and in the life to come. Orthodox! His Holiness the
Patriarch has been given the right to bind and to loose according to the word
of the Saviour… Do not destroy your souls, cease communion with the servants of
Satan – the Bolsheviks. Parents, if your children are Bolsheviks, demand
authoritatively that they renounce their errors, that they bring forth
repentance for their eternal sin, and if they do not obey you, renounce them.
Wives, if your husbands are Bolsheviks and stubbornly continue to serve Satan,
leave your husbands, save yourselves and your children from the soul-destroying
infection. An Orthodox Christian cannot have communion with the servants of the
devil… Repent, and with burning prayer call for help from the Lord of Hosts and
thrust away from yourselves ‘the hand of strangers’ – the age-old enemies of
the Christian faith, who have declared themselves in self-appointed fashion
‘the people’s power’… If you do not obey the Church, you will not be her sons,
but participants in the cruel and satanic deeds wrought by the open and secret
enemies of Christian truth… Dare! Do not delay! Do not destroy your soul and
hand it over to the devil and his stooges.”[61]
This
first instinct of the Russian Church in the face of Soviet power has never been
extinguished among Russian Christians. It continued to manifest itself both at home
and abroad - for example, in the First All-Emigration Council of the Russian
Church Abroad in 1921, and both in the early and the later decades of Soviet
power - for example, among the “passportless” Christians of the Catacomb Church
in the 1960s and 70s. However, it was very soon tempered by the realisation
that such outright rejection of Soviet power on a large scale could be
sustained only by war - and after the defeat of the White Armies in the
Civil War there were no armies left to carry on the fight against the
Bolsheviks. Therefore from the early 1920s a new attitude towards Soviet power
began to evolve among the Tikhonite Christians: loyalty towards it as a
political institution (“for all power is from God”), and acceptance of such of
its laws as could be interpreted in favour of the Church (for example, the law
on the separation of Church and State), combined with rejection of its
atheistic world-view (large parts of which the renovationists, by contrast,
accepted). In essence, this new attitude involved accepting that the Soviet
State was not the Antichrist, as the Local Council of 1917-18 and the Russian
Church Abroad had in effect declared, but Caesar, no worse in principle than
the Caesars of Ancient Rome, to whom the things belonging to Caesar were due.
This attitude presupposed that it
was possible, in the Soviet Union as in Ancient Rome, to draw a clear line
between politics and religion. But in practice, even more than in theory, this
line proved very hard to draw. For the early Bolsheviks, at any rate, there was
no such dividing line; for them, everything was ideological, everything
had to be in accordance with their ideology, there could be no room for
disagreement, no private spheres into which the state and its ideology did not
pry. Unlike most of the Roman emperors, who allowed the Christians to order
their own lives in their own way so long as they showed loyalty to the state
(which, as we have seen, the Christians were very eager to do), the Bolsheviks
insisted in imposing their own ways upon the Christians in every sphere: in
family life (civil marriage only, divorce on demand, children spying on
parents), in education (compulsory Marxism), in economics (dekulakization,
collectivization), in military service (the oath of allegiance to Lenin), in
science (Darwinism, Lysenkoism), in art (socialist realism), and in religion
(the requisitioning of valuables, registration, commemoration of the
authorities at the Liturgy, reporting of confessions by the priests).
Resistance to any one of these demands was counted as “anti-Soviet behaviour”,
i.e. political disloyalty. Therefore it was no use protesting one’s
political loyalty to the regime if one refused to accept just one of these
demands. According to the Soviet interpretation of the word: “Whoever keeps the
whole law but fails in one has become guilty of all of it” (James 2.10),
such a person was an enemy of the people.
In view of this, it is not
surprising that many Christians came to the conclusion that it was less morally
debilitating to reject the whole regime that made such impossible demands,
since the penalty would be the same whether one asserted one’s loyalty to it or
not. And if this meant living as an outlaw, so be it. Such a rejection of, or
flight from the state had precedents in Russian history; and we find some
priests, such as Hieromartyr Timothy Strelkov of Mikhailovka (+1930) and even
some bishops, such as Hieroconfessor Amphilochius of Yeniseisk (+1946),
adopting this course.[62]
Nevertheless, the path of total
rejection of the Soviet state required enormous courage, strength and
self-sacrifice, not only for oneself but also (which was more difficult) for
one’s family or flock. It is therefore not surprising that, already during the
Civil War, the Church began to soften her anti-Soviet rhetoric and try once
more to draw the line between politics and religion. This is what Patriarch
Tikhon tried to do in the later years of his patriarchate – with the best of
motives (to save Christian lives), but, it must be said, only mixed results.
Thus his decision to allow some, but not all of the Church’s valuables to be
requisitioned by the Bolsheviks in 1922 not only did not bring help to the
starving of the Volga, as was the intention, but led to many clashes between
believers and the authorities and many deaths of believers. For, as the holy
Elder Nectarius of Optina said: “You see now, the patriarch gave the order to
give up all valuables from the churches, but they belonged to the Church!”[63]
The decision to negotiate
and compromise with the Bolsheviks - in transgression of the decrees of the
1917-18 Council - only brought confusion and division to the Church. Thus on
the right wing of the Church there were those who thought that the patriarch
had already gone too far; while on the left wing there were those who wanted to
go further. However, neither Patriarch
Tikhon nor his successor, Metropolitan Peter, crossed the line which would have
involved surrendering the spiritual freedom of the Church into the hands of the
authorities.
That line was crossed only with the
coming to power, in 1927, of Metropolitan Peter’s deputy, Metropolitan Sergius.
He sought and obtained legalization for his church organization, the
present-day Moscow Patriarchate. And then introduced the commemoration of the
God-hating anti-authorities at the Divine Liturgy.
This was a fateful step, because to
seek legalisation from a state inescapably implies recognition of that state to
a greater or lesser degree; at a minimum, it implies recognition of that state as
God-established and the majority of its laws as binding on Christians. But how
can a state that openly and systematically wars against God be God-established?
And how can a state that legalizes all manner of crimes be considered to be
legal in itself and the fount of legality?! Rather, such a state is not an
authority at all, but the beast of the Apocalypse, of whom it is written that
it receives its authority, not from God, but from the devil (Revelation
13.2).
Moreover, by declaring, in his
famous “Declaration”, that the Soviet regime’s joys were the Church’s joys, and
its sorrows the Church’s sorrows, Sergius in effect declared an identity of
aims between the Church and the State. And this was not just a lie, but a
lie against the faith, a concession to the communist ideology. For
it implied that communism as such was good, and its victory to be welcomed.
Thus
Sergius Nilus quoted Izvestia, which said that Metropolitan Sergius’
“Declaration” was an attempt “to construct a cross in such a way that it would
look like a hammer to a worker, and like a sickle to a peasant”. “In other
words,” said Nilus, “to exchange the cross for the Soviet seal, the seal of the beast (Rev.
13.16).”[64]
In order to protect the flock of
Christ from Sergius’ apostasy, the leaders of the True Church had to draw once
more the line between politics and religion. One approach was to distinguish
between physical opposition to the regime and spiritual
opposition to it. Thus Hieromartyr Archbishop Barlaam of Perm wrote that
physical opposition was not permitted, but spiritual opposition was obligatory.[65]
Again, Hieromartyr Bishop Mark (Novoselov) wrote: “I am an enemy of Soviet
power – and what is more, by dint of my religious convictions, insofar as
Soviet power is an atheist power and even anti-theist. I believe that as a true
Christian I cannot strengthen this power by any means… [There is] a petition
which the Church has commanded to be used everyday in certain well-known
conditions… The purpose of this formula is to request the overthrow of the
infidel power by God… But this formula does not amount to a summons to
believers to take active measures, but only calls them to pray for the
overthrow of the power that has fallen away from God.”[66]
This criterion allowed Christians quite sincerely to reject the charge of
“counter-revolution” - if “counter-revolution” were understood to mean physical
rebellion. The problem was, as we have seen, that the Bolsheviks understood
“counter-revolution” in a much wider sense…
Another, still more basic problem
was that it still left the question whether Soviet power was from God or not
unresolved. If Soviet power was from God, it should be counted as Caesar and
should be given what was Caesar’s. But bitter experience had shown that this
“Caesar” wanted to seat himself in the temple as if he were God (II
Thessalonians 2.4). So was he not in fact Antichrist, whose power is not
from God, but from Satan (Revelation 13.2), being allowed by God
for the punishment of sinners, but by no means established by Him? If
so, then there was no alternative but to flee into the catacombs, rejecting
totally the government of Satan on earth.
In the early years after Metropolitan Sergius’ declaration, many Catacomb Christians, while in practice not surrendering what was God’s to the Soviets, in theory could not make up their minds whether the Soviet regime was Caesar or Antichrist. Thus Hieromartyr Joseph (Gavrilov), superior of Raithu Desert (+1930), confessed at his interrogation: “I have never, and do not now, belong to any political parties. I consider Soviet power to be given from God, but a power that is from God must fulfill the will of God, and Soviet power does not fulfill the will of God. Therefore it is not from God, but from Satan. It closes churches, mocks the holy icons, teaches children atheism, etc. That is, it fulfills the will of Satan… It is better to die with faith than without faith. I am a real believer, faith has saved me in battles, and I hope that in the future faith will save me from death. I firmly believe in the Resurrection of Christ and His Second Coming. I have not gone against the taxes, since it says in Scripture: ‘To Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.’”[67] From this confession, impressive though it is, it is not clear whether Hieromartyr Joseph recognised the Soviet regime as Caesar, and therefore from God, or as Antichrist, and therefore from Satan. In the end the Bolsheviks resolved his dilemma for him. They shot him, and therefore showed that they were - Antichrist.
In
the Russian Church in Exile, meanwhile, a consensus had emerged that the Soviet
regime was not Caesar, but Antichrist. This was the position of, for example,
Archbishop Theophanes of Poltava, Metropolitan Innocent of Peking and
Archbishop Averky of Jordanville.[68] As Bishop Gregory (Grabbe),
the foremost canonist of the Russian Church Abroad, wrote: “With regard to the
question of the commemoration of authorities, we must bear in mind that now we
are having dealings not simply with a pagan government like Nero’s, but with
the apostasy of the last times. Not with a so far unenlightened authority, but
with apostasy. The Holy Fathers did not relate to Julian the Apostate in the
same way as they did to the other pagan Emperors. And we cannot relate to the
antichristian authorities in the same way as to any other, for its nature is
purely satanic…”[69]
If the Soviet state was the
collective Antichrist, the beast of the Apocalypse, what was its seal? In the case
of the Church, this question has already been answered: the seal was
“legalisation” by “the mystery of lawlessness”, on the one hand, and the
commemoration of the Antichrist by name at the liturgy, on the other.
This was the “abomination of desolation” set up in the Holy of holies.
In
the case of individual Christians, the answer is analogous: the seal of the
Antichrist was any activity that presupposed participation in, and recognition
of, the Soviet state. For the main lesson of the 1920s and 30s was that it is
vain to see a modus vivendi with the Antichrist: he takes everything and
gives nothing in return, as Metropolitan Peter once bitterly complained to the
Soviet “over-procurator” Tuchkov. So the Christians began to avoid everything
that tied them in any way to the state: Soviet passports (which, at least in
some periods, involved definite obligations to the state); service in the Red
Army (how can a Christian fight for “the conquests of October”?); Soviet
educational institutions (which involved compulsory study of, and examinations
in, Marxism-Leninism); and any and every kind of electoral or political
activity (which was monopolised by the communist party).
There
was no consensus among Catacomb Christians about what activities were to be
considered as “Soviet”; some groups and branches of the Church were stricter,
others less strict. Thus some “non-commemorators” took jobs in Soviet
institutions and restricted their abstinence from Soviet life to non-membership
of the communist party and the Soviet church. Others, however, not only refused
to work for the Antichrist in any way, but even refused to have electricity in
their homes, since this, too, came to them from the Antichrist. As Soviet power
weakened, some Catacomb Christians felt able to practise “economy” and temper
the strictness of their rule, Thus the Catacomb hieromonk Gury (Pavlov) was a
“passportless”, but took a Soviet passport in 1990 in order to receive
consecration to the episcopate in the U.S.A.
The
question of Soviet passports needs to be examined in a little more detail.
Passportisation had been introduced into the Soviet Union only in 1932, and
only for the most urbanized areas. Already then it was used as a means of
winkling out Catacomb Christians. Thus M.V. Shkvarovsky writes: “Completing
their liquidation of the Josephites, there was a meeting of regional inspectors
for cultic matters on March 16, 1933, at a time when passportisation was being
introduced. The meeting decided, on the orders of the OGPU, ‘not to give
passports to servants of the cult of the Josephite confession of faith’, which
meant automatic expulsion from Leningrad. Similar things happened in other
major cities of the USSR.”[70]
Catacomb hierarchs did not bless their spiritual children to take passports because in filling in the forms the social origins and record of Christians was revealed, making them liable to persecution. Also Catacomb Christians did not want to receive what they considered to be the seal of the Antichrist, or to declare themselves citizens of the antichristian kingdom.
In the 1930s the peasants had not been given passports but were chained to the land which they worked. They were herded into the collective farms and forced to do various things against their conscience, such as vote for the communist officials who had destroyed their way of life and their churches. Those who refused to do this – refusals were particularly common in the Lipetsk, Tambov and Voronezh areas – were rigorously persecuted, and often left to die of hunger.
On
May 4, 1961, however, the Soviet government issued its decree on “parasitism”
and introduced its campaign for general passportisation. In local papers
throughout the country it was announced that, in order to receive a Soviet
passport, a citizen of the USSR would have to recognize all the laws of Soviet
power, past and present, beginning from Lenin’s decrees. Since this involved,
in effect, a recognition of all the crimes of Soviet power, a movement arose to
reject Soviet passports, a movement which was centred mainly in the country
areas among those peasants and their families who had rejected collectivization
in the 1930s.
E.A.
Petrova writes: “Protests against general passportisation arose among
Christians throughout the vast country. A huge number of secret Christians who
had passports began to reject them, destroy them, burn them and loudly, for all
to hear, renounce Soviet citizenship. Many Christians from the patriarchal
church also gave in their passports. There were cases in which as many as 200
people at one time went up to the local soviet and gave in their passports. In
one day the whole of a Christian community near Tashkent gave in 100 passports
at once. Communities in Kemerovo and Novosibirsk provinces gave in their
passports, and Christians in the Altai area burned their passports… Protests
against general passportisation broke out in Belorussia, in the Ukraine, and in
the Voronezh, Tambov and Ryazan provinces… Christians who renounced their
Soviet passports began to be seized and, imprisoned and exiled. But in spite of
these repressions the movement of the passportless Christians grew and became
stronger. It was precisely in these years that the Catacomb Church received a
major influx from Christians of the patriarchal church who renounced Soviet
passports and returned into the bosom of the True Orthodox Church.”[71]
In
the 1970s the detailed questionnaires required in order to receive passports
were abandoned, but in 1974 it was made obligatory for all Soviet citizens to
have a passport, and a new, red passport differing quite significantly from the
old, green one. However, it contained a cover with the words: “Passport of a
citizen of the Soviet Socialist Republics” together with a hammer and sickle,
which was still unacceptable to the Passportless, who therefore continued to be
subject to prison, exile and hunger. Those who joined the Catacomb Church at
this time often erased the word “citizen”, replacing it with the word
“Christian”, so that they had a “Passport of a Christian of the Soviet
Socialist Republics”.
In
recent years the great podvig of the Passportless Catacomb Christians
has been criticised by some, and not only, as we would expect, by members of
the Soviet and other heterodox churches. Thus Metropolitan Vitaly, first-hierarch
of the ROCA, in a dialogue with representatives of the Passportless, compared
the Soviet Union to the Roman empire. St Paul had been proud of his Roman
citizenship, he wrote, so what was wrong with having a Soviet passport and
being called a Soviet citizen?[72]
Passportless Christians were appalled by the comparison – as if Rome, the state
in which Christ Himself was born and was registered in a census, and which
later grew into the great Orthodox Christian empires of Byzantium, the New
Rome, and Russia, the Third Rome, could be compared to the anti-state, the
collective Antichrist, that destroyed the Russian empire! [73]
Rome, even in its pagan phase, had protected the Christians from the fury of
the Jews: the Soviet Union was, in its early phase, the instrument of the Jews against
the Christians. Rome, even in its pagan phase, guaranteed a framework of law
and order within which the apostles could rapidly spread the faith from one end
of the world to the other: the Soviet Union forced a population that was already
Orthodox in its great majority to renounce their faith or hide it “in deserts
and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth” (Hebrews 11.38).
Still
more recently, an anonymous publication has accused the Catacomb Christians of
“premature flight” from the world, analogous to the flight of the Old Believers
from Russian society. On this path of premature flight from the world, writes
the anonymous author, “set out the schismatic Old Believers under Peter. In our
century, the Catacomb Christians decisively refused to accept any state
documents, seeing in them the seal of the Antichrist. Of course, in Peter’s
reign, and still more in Stalin’s regime, elements of an antichristian kingdom
were evident. But such terrible rebellions against the God-established order
were not yet the end, ‘this is only the beginning of sorrows’, as the Gospel
says (Luke 21.9).”[74]
So what is the anonymous author asserting? That the Catacomb Christians are schismatics on a par with the Old Believers?! This not only constitutes a serious slander against the Catacomb Church, but also betrays a blindness with regard to the eschatological significance of the Russian-Jewish revolution, which, if only the “beginning” of sorrows, was nevertheless also the beginning of the reign of the Antichrist, when the relationship between the Church and the State changed from one of cooperation and mutual recognition to one of mutual non-recognition and the most fundamental incompatibility.
There
can be no doubt that Peter the Great inflicted great damage on the Church (and
thereby indirectly also on the State, for which it paid in 1917) through his
westernizing reforms. However, the conscience of the Church, while rejecting
his errors, has always recognized that he died as a Christian and God-anointed
tsar (see the Life of St. Metrophanes of Voronezh, who appeared to one
of his venerators after his death and told him: “If you want to be pleasing to
me, pray for the repose of the soul of Emperor Peter the Great”[75]).
No saint of the Church ever counselled rebellion against Peter or his
successors, as opposed to resistance to certain of their decrees.[76]
As
for the Old Believers, their rebellion was not in the first place against Peter
and his reforms, but against Patriarch Nicon and his reforms, which was
quickly followed by rebellion against Peter’s father, Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich
also. Later, they seized on Peter’s reforms as an excuse for widening and
deepening their rebellion against the God-established order, making them the
forerunners, not of the True Orthodox Christians of the Soviet catacombs, who
always recognized that which the Old Believers rejected, but of the
revolutionaries of 1905 and 1917.
As
Archbishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky) wrote in 1912,in his encyclical to the Old Believers:
“The spirit of this world… winks at real revolutionaries and sent the money of
your rich men to create the Moscow rebellion of 1905.”[77]
Another,
more moderate objection is sometimes raised: that the exploit (podvig)
of the Catacomb Christians, while admirable and justified in view of the
ferocity of the Soviet regime, was nevertheless not necessary, for one could be
saved without resorting to such extreme measures.
The present writer is not aware of any decision by any competent Church authority that would clarify the question whether the rejection of Soviet passports was necessary for the salvation of Christians in the Soviet period. It may be that such a question cannot be answered in a clear and categorical manner in view of the great complexity and diversity of the relations between individual believers and the Soviet state. Only God knows whether any particular degree of involvement in Soviet life constituted apostasy or an acceptable level of accommodation to circumstances.
However,
the question whether the podvig of the Catacomb Christians was
“necessary” is much easier to answer. It is as easy to answer as the question:
Is it necessary to keep as far away from sin as possible, or: Is it necessary
to take every possible precaution against sin? The answer, of course, is: yes,
it is absolutely necessary!
The English have a parable: when you have supper with the devil, take a very long spoon. The Catacomb Christians took not even very long spoons to the marriage feast of the devil and the citizens of the Soviet state. In their completely laudable zeal to keep their bridal garments spotless for the marriage feast of Christ and His Church, they chose not even to step over the threshold of the Soviet madhouse. They chose rather to go hungry than eat of the devil’s food, the communion of heretics and apostates.
And not only did they save their own souls thereby: they also provided an absolutely necessary warning to those Christians who, thinking that they could take coals into their breast and not be burned, were being tempted into closer relations with the Antichrist. For as the beast’s ferocity gradually lessened from the 1956 amnesty onwards, and the Soviet state began to acquire some (but never all) of the external characteristics of the “normal” state, it was indeed tempting to think that the leopard was changing its spots, that the lion was becoming a vegetarian, that Pharaoh was becoming Caesar – so that it was now time to give to Caesar what was Caesar’s…
Against
this terribly dangerous temptation, the movement of the Passportless, which
exploded at precisely this time, came as a powerful warning. “No,” they said,
“the beast has not changed its nature. If its persecution is less widespread
now than before, this is because the opposition to him has been largely
destroyed. The persecution now is no less fierce than before, only it is more
subtle, for it now mixes rewards – the comforts of the Soviet “paradise” – with
punishments. But ‘here we have no continuing city’; and if this was true even
under the God-loving tsars, how can it not be even more so now, under the
God-hating Antichrist? If Christ suffered outside the walls of the city
in order to sanctify us by His Blood, then we, too, must go out to Him outside
the walls of the antichristian state (Hebrews 13.12-14).”
Now,
having said all this, it must be admitted that the seal of the Antichrist in
Soviet Russia could not have been the same seal that is mentioned in Revelation
13, if only because it was not a mark placed on the right hand and forehead.[78]
However, we are fully justified in calling it a seal (of the collective
Antichrist), if not the seal (of the personal Antichrist); for its
acceptance, at least in certain contexts (for example, the context of the 1961
law), entailed acceptance of the whole lawless legislation and ideology of the
Soviet state. To that extent it was not just a neutral act of registration; it
was an act of registration in Satan’s kingdom, the kingdom of the Antichrist,
and as such was not only the forerunner of the seal, but in a sense the
beginning of that seal, in that it had the same apocalyptic significance for
the life of Christians.
If we do not understand the period of Church history immediately preceding our own, then we shall not be able to understand or perceive the signs of our own times. Thus a correct understanding of the seal of the Antichrist in the Soviet period is a necessary prerequisite to understanding the seal in the post-Soviet period.
The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 posed a difficult problem of interpretation. Was the Antichrist really dead? If so, then had the end times, paradoxically, come to an end? Or was this only a temporary “breathing space” in which the Antichrist was preparing a new, more subtle, more universal and more deadly onslaught?
The signs were mixed. On the one hand, there can be no doubt that perestroika and the fall of communism came not a moment too soon for the beleaguered Catacomb Church, which was scattered and divided, and desperately short of bishops and priests of unquestioned Orthodoxy and apostolic succession. The fall of the iron curtain enabled the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad to enter Russia and regenerate the hierarchy of the True Church, while the introduction of freedom of speech and the press enabled millions of Soviet citizens to learn the truth about their state and church for the first time. On the basis of this knowledge, they could now seek entrance into the True Church without the fear of being sent to prison or the camps. In the wave of disillusion with post-Soviet democracy that followed in the mid-1990s, it was pointed out – rightly – that freedom is a two-edged weapon, which can destroy as well as give life, and that “freedom” had brought Russia poverty and crime as well as interesting newspapers. However, for the soul thirsting for truth there is no more precious gift than the freedom to seek and find; and that opportunity was now, at last, presented to the masses.
On the
other hand, only a minority of Russians used this freedom to seek the truth
that makes one truly, spiritually free. And so if the fall of communism in
1989-91 was a liberation, it was a liberation strangely lacking in joy.
Orthodoxy was restored neither to the state nor to the official church, and the
masses of the people remained unconverted. Ten years later, a priest of the
Moscow Patriarchate could claim that “the regeneration of ecclesiastical life
has become a clear manifestation of the miraculous transfiguration of Russia”.[79]
But behind the newly gilded cupolas reigned heresy and corruption on a
frightening scale. It was as Bishop Theophan the Recluse had prophesied over a
century before: “Although the Christian name will be heard everywhere, and everywhere
will be visible churches and ecclesiastical ceremonies, all this will be just
appearances, and within there will be true apostasy. On this soil the
Antichrist will be born…”
None
of the communist persecutors of the previous seventy years, throughout the
whole vast territory of eastern Europe and Russia, was brought to trial for his
crimes. The consequences have been all too evident. Thus one group of
“repentant” communists, sensing the signs of the political times, seized power
in 1991 in a “democratic” coup and immediately formed such close and dependent
ties on its western allies that the formerly advanced (if inefficient) economy
of Russia was transformed into a scrap-heap of obsolescent factories, on the
one hand, and a source of cheap raw materials for the West, on the other.[80]
Another group, playing on the sense of betrayal felt by many, formed a
nationalist opposition – but an opposition characterized by hatred, envy and
negativism rather than a constructive understanding of the nation’s real
spiritual needs and identity. Still others, using the contacts and dollars
acquired in their communist days, went into “business” – that is, a mixture of
crime, extortion and the worst practices of capitalism.
It is little wonder that in many churches the prayer to be delivered “from the bitter torment of atheist rule” continues to be chanted…
In the midst of this disorganized anarchy, many have begun to long nostalgically for the organized anarchy of the Soviet period, considering that the cheapness of Soviet sausages somehow outweighed the destruction of tens of millions of souls through Soviet violence and propaganda. Like the children of Israel who became disillusioned with the rigorous freedom of the desert, they have begun to long once more for the fleshpots of Egypt. But unlike the Israelites, the wanderers in the desert of post-Soviet Russia have had no Moses to urge them ever onwards to the Promised Land. True, they feel the need for such a leader; and if many still long for the return of a Stalin, there are many who prefer the image of Tsar Nicholas II, whose ever-increasing veneration must be considered one of the most encouraging phenomena of the 1990s. But veneration for the pre-revolutionary tsars will not bring forward the appearance of a post-revolutionary tsar unless that veneration is combined with repentance. Few understand that the people must become worthy of such a tsar by a return to the True Church and a life based on the commandments of God. Otherwise, if they continue to worship the golden calf, the new Moses, if such a one appears, will break the tablets of the new law before their eyes. And if they continue to follow the new Dathans and Abirams of the heretical Moscow Patriarchate, then under their feet, too, the earth will open – or they will be condemned to wander another forty years in the desert, dying before they reach the promised land of a cleansed and Holy Russia.
It
is in the context of this general mood of confusion, disillusion and
apocalyptic expectation that the new forms of identification and money
exchange, containing, if the experts are to be believed, the number 666, have
aroused such alarm in the Orthodox countries of Eastern Europe and Russia – and
indeed, throughout the world. That these forms of identification came from the
West rather than the East only increased the sense of apocalyptic foreboding;
for in the view of many the capitalist West was no less antichristian than the
post-communist East, having many of the same characteristics of lawlessness.
Thus the American hieromonk Fr. Seraphim Rose wrote: “If we look around at our
20th-century civilization, lawlessness or anarchy is perhaps the
chief characteristic which identifies it… In the realm of moral teaching, it is
quite noticeable, especially in the last twenty years or so, how lawlessness
has become the norm, how even people in high positions and the clergy in
liberal denominations are quite willing to justify all kinds of things which before
were considered immoral… All this is a sign of what St. Paul calls ‘the mystery
of lawlessness’.”[81]
Some
have mocked the idea that these new forms of identification could be the seal
of the Antichrist.[82]
Thus the anonymous author cited above writes, quoting Luke 2.1-4: “The
Most Pure Virgin Mary, and even the Saviour Himself borne in her cradle, took
part in a census. And this took place during the reign of the pagan Emperor
Augustus. This act – census-taking – is the essence of all contemporary registration
cards, individual numbers, etc. In antiquity officials registered the names of
people and gave them a number. The registration was undertaken with the aid of
the technical means of that time: with a quill on parchment. Even the Mother of
God, who was beyond all corruption and filled with the Holy Spirit, received
some kind of number in these lists. Now officials make similar registers
with the aid of other means. The essence remains the same: the state receives
information on its citizens which is necessary for the execution of
government.”[83]
But is the essence really the same then and now? We have already seen that the pagan Roman empire can by no means be considered to be the same kind of state as the kingdom of the Antichrist. There is no evidence that the census information obtained by the Roman emperors was used for any evil purpose. But already in the Soviet period, as we have seen, registration (passportisation) was most definitely used for evil, antichristian purposes, and was therefore avoided by the Catacomb Christians. The question to be asked about the modern forms of identification is: are they now being used, or could they be used in the future, for antichristian purposes?
The
anonymous author considers that the modern forms of identification could not be
the seal of the Antichrist, in the first place because “they do not symbolize
love for any particular person”[84]
– and the seal, according to St. Nilus the Myrrhgusher, contains an inscription
expressing voluntary acceptance of, and love for, the Antichrist. According to
this author, external imprinting, “pieces of paper and plastic and
electronic gadgets”, divert the attention of believers from the real, internal
imprinting with the seal – apostasy from Christ through participation in the
heresy of ecumenism. Moreover, this internal imprinting with heresy has an
external aspect in the form of external rituals and sacraments. “‘Orthodox’
bishops together with representatives of every possible religion raised a pagan
idol in Vancouver, passed through ‘purifying smoke’ in Canberra, etc. There are
many examples… The essence of these abominations is renunciation of Christ the
God-man. All these actions receive the approbation of the [Moscow Patriarchal]
Synod. And not one of the bishops has declared his protest. This means that
the whole fullness of the episcopate is ‘sealed’ - by direct participation or
silent non-resistance – with the seal of apostasy from Christ. And this is the
essence of the number of the beast…”[85]
And yet where is the number here? As far as the present writer knows, the number 666 is not imprinted on any of the participants in ecumenical worship. Of course, we can completely agree with the anonymous author that participation in the ecumenical movement is indeed a sin unto death, and that receiving the “sacraments” of the ecumenists is analogous to imprinting with the seal of the Antichrist. But this is an analogy, a type – no more. It is obvious that the seal of the Antichrist, as described in the Apocalypse, is something different. It is a mark placed on the forehead and right hand without which people will not be able to buy or sell; and this it is difficult in this connection not to be struck by the fact that a very similar, electronic or bio-electronic implant under the skin of the forehead and right hand has been proposed as the basis for a worldwide food distribution system!
Thus
P. Budzilovich writes: “In the U.S.A., which is the leader of the builders of
the ‘New World Order’, all technical preparations have now been made for the
attainment of global control. The National Security Agency already has a
super-powerful computer created specially for this aim (Texe Marr ‘Project
LUCID - the Beast Universal Human Control System’, Austin, TX, 1996). Work on
the creation of this computer and the required mathematical software has been
conducted as part of a project with the code-name ‘Project LUCID’ (the
abbreviation LUCID means bright, radiant; whence ‘Lucifer’, Satan -
light-bearing). They have also worked out means of ‘placing the seal’ of the
beast - biological microcircuits, which are planned to be incorporated into the
right hand or the head (at the moment, as reported in ‘Phoenix Letter’ for
March, 1997, the governments of Denmark, the Philippines and Trinidad are taking
steps to introduce such microcircuits to check the identities of their
citizens, referring to the success of this programme in the U.S.A. Although
this work is being carried out in secret in the U.S.A.). The microcircuits will contain all-encompassing
information about their bearers, including photographs, fingerprints, feet,
snaps of the irises, information about their financial situation, health, etc.
It goes without saying that every individual in the whole world will be given a
unique registration number. At the moment it is suggested that such a number
should consist of 18 digits, in three groups, which means… six digits in each
group, forming the image of the number 666.”[86]
Now
a number or equivalent mark imprinted in some such way into the body (and
scanned, perhaps, by satellites in space) could indeed be interpreted as a mark
given by the beast.
Again,
Tim Willard, editor of the “Futurist” magazine, writes of the biochip: ‘The
technology behind such a biochip implant is fairly uncomplicated and with a
little refinement could be used in a variety of human applications. Conceivably
a number could be assigned at birth and follow that person throughout life.
Most likely it would be implanted on the back of the right or the left hand so
that it would be easy to scan at stores. Then you would simply scan your hand
to automatically debit your bank account’”[87]
In
this context, the following observation by George Spruksts is important:
“Usually, when you want to contact someone on the internet, you type the three
letters ‘www’ [for ‘worldwide web’]… It is fascinating that in the
international alphabet, ‘w’.. is used to translate the Hebrew letter vav into
the standard Roman alphabet. Vav, the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet,
represents the number 6. So, in a sense, when you type the three letters ‘www’,
you are entering the Hebrew equivalent of ‘666’. We have all known for a long
time that the Antichrist will need a global communications system to carry out
his evil schemes. Now, we have one with his initials on it.”[88]
It should be remembered that in technologically advanced countries the internet is already widely used for buying and selling various things…
Also important in this context is the observation by the confessor Sergius Nilus that the Star of David, the symbol of Jewish state power, has a structure which can be described in terms of six sixes.
“The
symbol or seal of the mystery of
iniquity - of the God-fighting devil, as well as its significance and power
(albeit illusory), must be known to every Jew - to the whole of the Jewish
people and through it to Masonry, as the ally of Jewry. Their seal will also be
the seal of their king and antichrist-god, who is not yet, but who will be
in the nearest future.
“But
does such a symbol, such a seal, really exist among the Jews and Masons?…
“The six-pointed star, composed of two
interlocking, equal-sided similar triangles… Each of the triangles has three
sides, three corners and three apexes. Consequently, in the two triangles there
will be 6 sides, 6 corners and 6 apexes…
“In
the seal of the Antichrist, therefore, the number 6 is repeated three times,
that is: 666, which for fear of the Jews
(John 19.38), for the reader who
understands (Matthew 24.15) the symbolism of the mystery, could also
be represented by the seer of mysteries in writing, as six hundred and sixty-six…
“…
This star is truly just as sacred a symbol for the Jew (and therefore for the
Mason) as the sign of the life-giving Cross is for the Christian..
“This
seal which is sacred for Jewry bears the name in the ritual of the Jewish
services of ‘Mochin-Dovid’, which means ‘Shield of David’. They put it into the
grave of every right-believing Jews, as an earnest of his communion with his
‘god’ beyond the grave…
“The
Masons and the offshoots of the Masonic tree - the theosophists, the
occultists, the spiritualists, the gnostic, etc. - attach just as sacred a
significance to this seal, but it has another name. It is called: “The Seal of
Solomon” or the Cabbalistic “Tetragramma”.
“And
so the symbol or seal of Judaeo-Masonry, the “synagogue of Satan” of the
apostates from Christ and Jewish kahal is the “tetragramma” of the Cabbala.
“If
the seal of those who.. are preparing a kingdom for the antichrist is the
“tetragramma of Solomon” or “Mochin Dovid”, then is it not clear that it will
also be the seal of the Antichrist himself?
“Will
any of those who believe in Christ renounce the Cross of the Lord? Will he
agree to replace it with another symbol?
“No
way.
“Nor
will the Jews and the Masons renounce their seal, until Israel is converted and
they shall look on Him Whom they have
pierced…”[89]
So
the combination of “666” on biochips inserted into our foreheads and right
hands, with “666” (“www”) on the internet, with “666” as the symbol of Jewish
political power (the Star of David), constitutes undoubtedly the closest
apparent analogy – if it is only an analogy - to the seal of the Antichrist
that has yet appeared in human history. Whether it is in fact the seal
itself remains to be proved. But only a great insensitivity to “the signs of
the times” would fail to be impressed – and alarmed – by this sign.
Now the anonymous author expresses the fear that a premature flight from the world containing these “playthings of civilization” will create schism in the Church, with those who reject them condemning those who do not reject them as schismatics and apostates. While this remains a possibility, we may note that in Greece, where alarm at the new identity cards has provoked mass demonstrations and protests in front of government offices, and some Synods have made an official decisions to reject the cards while others have not, no ecclesiastical schism on this soil has yet arisen. The experience of the Catacomb Church is relevant here again. Although some catacombniks accepted Soviet passports and others did not, no formal schism arose on this soil. The Passportless were (and are) to be found in several catacomb jurisdictions, and some Christians without passports did not refuse to be under the omophorion of bishops with passports. In any case, even if schisms do arise on this soil, that is no reason to sweep the question under the carpet. In this, as in all ecclesiastical controversies, the only rational option is to study the question carefully on the basis of Holy Tradition and come to a corresponding conclusion, whether that leaves one in the majority or in the minority, with the so-called “extremists” or with the “moderates”, with the “zealots” or with the “compromisers”.
Of
course, it cannot be denied that it is possible to “jump the gun” and abandon
the world too soon. St. Paul wrote to warn the Thessalonian Christians who had
already abandoned their jobs in anticipation of the Second Coming of Christ
that this would not happen before the removal of “him who restrains” (lawful
monarchical power, according to the holy Fathers) and the great apostasy (II
Thessalonians 2.1-7). Again, the 19th century Romanian saint,
Callinicus of Cernica, stopped building a church because he thought that the
end of the world was near – until an angel appeared to him and told him that
there was still time to build churches. Again, in 1962 St. John Maximovich is
reported as having declared that the Antichrist had just been born…
These
were mistakes, but they were mistakes engendered by highly sensitive
consciences acutely aware of the increase of corruption in the world. Such a
mistake is less dangerous than the opposite one of underestimating the growth
of apocalyptic evil. Indeed, there are far more scriptural passages warning
against false optimism in this respect than against excessive pessimism (cf. I
Thessalonians 5.3-4). And it goes without saying that as time passes and we
come closer to the end, the signs of the times come to match the signs given in
the Scriptures more and more closely, making the possibility that such-and-such
a phenomenon is in fact the seal of the Antichrist that much greater. As Fr.
Seraphim Rose used to say: it is later than we think…
The
Jordanville Monk Vsevolod, in an article quoted at length by our anonymous
author, considers that while the new identity cards are probably not the seal
of the Antichrist, they may well be a preparation for it. This
conclusion is less comforting than it sounds; in fact, it implies that we have
every reason to approach these identity cards and similar objects with great
caution. For who knows at what time the preparation for the seal will turn into
the seal itself, especially since the “trial” seal will be very close to the
final, “real” seal in form?
The
question is: how will we know when a certain technology has ceased to be a mere
preparation for the seal, and is the seal itself? At this point it must be
emphasized, as St. Gregory Palamas reminds us, that no number of itself is evil, for the whole
creation, and therefore all numbers, were created good by God.[90]
An external mark or number only becomes evil – in this we can fully agree with
our anonymous author - when its reception is bound up with inner apostasy from
Christ. In other words, it is not the number 666 as such which destroys the soul, but the apostasy from Christ which
is the condition of receiving the seal of that number and the material benefits
that go with it. Thus, as Monk Sergius writes, “as long as we do not deny
Christ with knowledge, we should not be afraid of various technologies, not
even if they should inject ‘666’ into our blood system!”[91]
At
some point, therefore, the use of this technology will be bound up with certain
conditions, conditions which it will be impossible for an Orthodox
Christian to accept. As far as the present writer knows, no such conditions are
attached – yet – to the use of any of the technologies in question; and it is
idle to speculate precisely what these conditions will be. Of one thing,
however, we can be certain in advance: that the revelation that the conditions
attached to the use of this technology are unacceptable will be more likely to
be given to those who have always treated it with the greatest suspicion and
have kept away from it even when it was not strictly necessary (because no
conditions were attached to its use) than to those who have looked down on
their more cautious brothers with scarcely concealed disdain, and who may
therefore have ceased to notice that, little by little and in the most clever
and insidious way, an originally neutral, even beneficial technology has become
the instrument of their damnation.
In
1917 the world entered the era of the Antichrist. “He who restrains”, Orthodox
monarchical power, was removed, the great apostasy began and Jewish
antichristian power emerged from the underground into the foreground of world
history. Since then, the possibility has been ever present that, together with
the Antichrist, his seal, too, would appear – not tomorrow, not in generations
to come, but today. This fact does not exclude the further possibility that the
onslaught of the Antichrist may be temporarily weakened, even turned back, for
a period before the end, and that, as some prophecies indicate, there will be a
resurrection of the Orthodox empire “for a short time”. But in general
the spiritual condition of mankind in the era of the Antichrist will sharply
deteriorate, according to the holy fathers, which must make us especially
vigilant with regard to the fulfillment of the prophecies contained in the
Apocalypse.
The
Soviet era was the first era in history in which the majority of Orthodox
Christians have had to live for an extended period in a state not established
by God and not recognized, but rather anathematized, by the Church – that is,
in a state of anarchy which the Apocalypse calls the beast. As
such, it is called the era of the collective Antichrist, in contrast to the era
of the personal Antichrist, which is yet to come and which will spread over the
whole earth. Being the Antichrist, Soviet power had its seal – those forms of
legalization and commemoration which entailed the individual Christian’s or
church organization’s recognition of the state as God-established and lawful.
The decade since the fall of Soviet power has been an enigmatic period full of conflicting signs whose overall interpretation is not yet clear. On the one hand, an opportunity has been presented to the broad masses of the Russian people to learn the truth and join the True Church. On the other hand, this opportunity has been seized so far by only a small minority, there has been no return to Orthodox forms of official ecclesiastical and political life, and the indications are that the advent of the personal Antichrist, the false king of the Jews, is being prepared. These indications include: the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948; the spread of American-Western-Jewish civilization throughout the world; and the rise in influence of Talmudic Judaism and the bowing before it of most of the world’s religions. Now again, as in the generation before the First Coming of Christ, the land of Israel is at the centre of world history, and the world as a whole is filled with the tense expectation of a coming saviour – only that saviour will be the Antichrist rather than Christ.
In
view of this, it is only natural that the appearance of the apocalyptic number
666 in a series of technologies spread and controlled by the dominant
American-Western-Jewish civilization should have led many God-fearing
Christians to conclude that “the end is near, even at the doors” (Matthew
24.23), and that “those who are in Judaea” – that is, within the sphere of
influence of the New World Order and its “seals” – should “flee to the
mountains” (Matthew 24.16) – that is, have nothing to do with these
technologies or with the mysterious international powers that issue them.
Nevertheless,
in the very tentative and humble opinion of the present writer, these
technologies are not the seal of the Antichrist itself, but a preparation for
it.
This
conclusion is based on the following considerations (which it is beyond the
scope of this article to argue for in detail): (1) so far no conditions
unacceptable to the Christian conscience have been attached to the use of these
technologies; (2) the American-Western-Jewish civilization that issues them is
in fact much weaker than may appear and is on the point of collapse (cf. the
prophecy of Elder Aristocles of Moscow and Mount Athos: “America will feed the
world, but will finally collapse”); (3) in consequence, the possibility of a
recovery of a truly Orthodox empire and civilization, as indicated by many
prophecies, is in fact much stronger than may appear; which (4) accords with
the possibility, indicated by certain other prophecies, that the Antichrist,
though a Jew, will in fact come, not from a pagan, heretical or Jewish
background, but from an Orthodox Christian environment and will imitate
Orthodoxy in both his religion and his statehood.
However,
in view of the uncertainty of the above conclusion, and of the terrible price
to be paid if it is shown to be wrong, and of the abundant exhortations to
caution and watchfulness contained in the writings of the holy apostles and
fathers of the Church, it is safer to draw the following, somewhat different
conclusion: that whether or not we believe that the modern forms of
identification are the seal of the Antichrist, the opinion of those zealots of Orthodoxy
who believe that they are should be respected and in no way rejected or
ignored. After all, it was these same zealots who refused to take
Soviet passports as being the seal of the collective Antichrist, who kept the
flame of the true understanding of the Soviet beast alive in the last years of
Soviet power, who were that “salt” which kept the last remnants of True
Orthodoxy in Russia from being corrupted. And if their watchfulness was so
vital in the past, it may well be so again in the future. For “blessed is the
man that hath not walked in the counsel [Russian: soviet] of the
ungodly” (Psalm 1.1). And thrice blessed is he “who reads and those who
hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it;
for the time is near…” (Revelation 1.3).
Suzdal.
September 14/27, 2000.
A shortened version of this article was published in Russian
in Suzdal’skie
Eparkhial’nie Vedomosti,
N 10, April-November, 2000, pp. 22-30
[1] St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, V, 33.
[2] This refers to the traditional division of the heavenly places into Paradise, the City (or the Kingdom) and the Heavens. See below, Fragments of Papias, V.
[3] St. Narses, in Bousset, op. cit., p. 259.
[4] The Shepherd of Hermas, IV, 2.1-2.
[5] On the falsehood of the Protestant idea that the Christians will be taken up “in rapture” to meet the Lord in the air before the great tribulation and the reign of the Antichrist, see Dennis Engleman, “The Rapture: Emancipation or Entrapment?”, The True Vine, vol. 3., no. 4, 1992, pp. 25-30.
[6] St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, V, 35.
[7] Fragments of Papias, V; in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, volume I, p. 154.
[8] St. Germanus, P.G. 98, 383; translated in Eric Jay, The Church, London: SPCK, 1977, vol. 1, p. 149.
[9] II Clement, 14, 1. This idea of the pre-existence of the Church is found also in The Shepherd of Hermas. Cf. Danielou, Jewish Christianity, op. cit., p. 297.
[10] Bishop Elias Miniatos, “On Predestination”, Orthodox Life, vol. 40, no. 6, November-December, 1990, p. 30.
[11] St. Demetrius of Rostov, The Great Collection of the Lives of the Saints, volume III, House Springs, Mo.: Chrysostom Press, 1997, pp. 121-123.
[12] Metropolitan Anastasius, op. cit.,
p. 21
[13] Baron, Zechariah, op. cit., pp. 521-522.
[14] Ibid., p. 527.
[15] St. Methodius, The Banquet, IX, 5:120, in Danielou, Jewish Christianity, op. cit., p. 337.
[16] Ibid., p. 342.
[17] Anthony Daniels, “How far has humanity sunk when we treat the creation of life just like ordering a new car?”, Daily Mail (London), August 13, 2001, p. 12.
[18] David Fisher, “Russians ‘have human clones’”, Metro (London), August 13, 2001, p. 4.
[19] Dubinin, Obschaya
Genetika, Moscow: Nauka, 1976; quoted by Protopriest Vladislav Sveshnikov,
“Rabota adova delaetsa uzhe”, Kontinent, 71, 1992, pp. 270-271. Italics mine (V.M.)
[20] Sveshnikov, op. cit., p. 271.
[21] Lenten Triodion, Moscow: Synodal Press, 1897, pp. 30b-31a.
[22] St. Nilus, in Archimandrite Pantaleimon, A Ray of Light, Jordanville: Holy Trinity Monastery, 1976, p. 76.
[23] St. Hippolytus, Treatise on Christ and Antichrist, 6.
[24] Lactantius, The Divine Statutes, VII, 17.
[25] St. Martin, in Sulpicius Severus, Dialogue, II, 14.
[26] Blessed Theodoretus, A Short Exposition of the Divine Dogmas, 23.
[27] St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, V, 25.1.
[28] St. Narses, in Bousset, op. cit., p. 254.
[29] St. Chrysostom, Homily 3 on II Thessalonians.
[30] St. Jerome, On Daniel 7.8.
[31] St. Damascene, Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, IV, 26.
[32] Blessed Theodoretus, On II Thessalonians 2.3.
[33] Adso, Libellus de Antichristo, 1292B.
[34] St. Seraphim, text supplied by Fr. Victor Potapov; a variant was published in Liternaturnaya Ucheba, January-February, 1991, pp. 131-134.
[35] Ambrosiaster, On II Thessalonians 2.3.
[36] St. Cyril, Catechetical Discourses XV,14.
[37] Alexander, “The Targumim and Early Exegesis of ‘Sons of God’ in Genesis 6”, Journal of Jewish Studies, 1972, 23, pp. 60-71.
[38] These “giants” are also referred to in Baruch 3.26-28; Sirach 16.7; Wisdom 14.6; Judith 16.7.
[39] Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, I, 3.
[40] St. Justin, First Apology V, 2.
[41] St. Methodius, Discourse on the Resurrection, 7.
[42] St. Irenaeus, The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, 18.
[43] St. Chrysostom, On Genesis 5:136-7.
[44] St. Augustine, The City of God, XV, 23.
[45] St. Ephraim, Commentary on Genesis, 6.3. Quoted in Fr. Seraphim Rose, Genesis, Creation and Early Man, Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Press, 2000, p. 244.
[46] According to Aquila’s translation, this verse reads: “Then they began to be called by the name of the Lord” – that is, “sons of God”. Cf. Metropolitan Philaret, Notes leading to a fundamental understanding of the Book of Genesis, Moscow, 1867, p. 100 (in Russian).
[47]Metropolitan Philaret, Notes, op.
cit., p. 108.
[48] Bishop Ignaty, “On Orthodoxy”.
[49] St. Paulinus, Letter 23: To Severus.
[50] Rose, Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, Platina: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1990, chapter 6. See also David Ritchie, “UFOs: The Demonic Connection”, Orthodox Life, vol. 43, no. 2, March-April, 1993, pp. 18-37; Archbishop Chrysostomos, “Alien Abductions and the Orthodox Christian”, Orthodox Tradition, vol..XIV, 1997, pp. 57-62.
[51] See Andrew Collins, From the Ashes of the Angels, London: Penguin Books, 1997, p. 371.
[52] Mack, Abduction, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994, p. 394.
[53] St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, v, 24, 3; translated in Maurice Wiles & Mark Santer, Documents in Early Christian Thought, Cambridge University Press, 1977, p. 226.
[54] St. Isidore, Letter 6, quoted in Selected Letters of Archbishop Theophan of Poltava, Liberty, TN: St. John of Kronstadt Press, 1989, p. 36.
[55] St. Demetrius of Rostov, Lives of the Saints, April 17; S.V. Bulgakov, Reference Book of Church Servers, Kharkov, 1900, p. 140 (in Russian).
[56] Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History, III, 19; V.A. Konovalov, The Relationship of Christianity to Soviet Power, Montreal, 1936, p. 35 (in Russian).
[57] St. Gregory, First Word against Julian, 35; Second Word against Julian, 26. In the Life of St. Artemius the Great Martyr (St. Demetrius of Rostov, Lives of the Saints, October 20), we read that Julian refused to recognise the legitimacy even of the reign of St. Constantine the Great. In this sense he, like the Bolsheviks after him, renounced Christian Romanity and thereby became anti-Roman as well as anti-Christian.
[58] M.E. Gubonin, The Acts of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, Moscow: St. Tikhon’s Theological Institute, 1994, pp. 82-85.
[59] Gubonin, op. cit., pp. 280, 296.
[60] Gubonin, op. cit., p. 151.
[61] “Iz sobraniya Tsentral’nogo gosudarstvennogo arkhiva Oktyabr’skoj revolyutsii: listovka byez vykhodnykh dannykh, pod N 1011”, Nauka i Religia, 1989, no. 4 (in Russian).
[62] See Schema-Monk Epiphanius (Chernov), The Catacomb Church on the Russian Land, 1980 (Woking, England, 1980, typescript, in Russian).
[63] Matushka Evgenia Grigorievna Rymarenko, “Remembrances of Optina Staretz Hieroschemamonk Nektary”, Orthodox Life, vol. 36, no. 3, May-June, 1986, p. 39.
[64] Nilus, “Letter on Sergianism”, Russkij Pastyr’, 28-29, II/III, 1997, p. 180 (in Russian).
[65] Cited in William Fletcher, The Russian Orthodox Church Underground, 1917-1970, Oxford University Press, 1971, p. 64.
[66] Novoselov, quoted in I.I. Osipova, “The History of the True Orthodox Church from Investigative Case Material”, Pravoslavnaia Rus’, N 14 (1587), July 15/28, 1997, p. 3 (in Russian).
[67] Novie Prepodobnomuchenki Raifskie, publication of the Kazan diocese, Moscow, 1997, p. 17 (in Russian).
[68] Cf. Pis’ma Arkhiepiskopa Feofana Poltavskago i Pereyaslavskago, Jordanville, 1976; Archbishop Averky, “The invisible world – the bodiless angels”, Slova i rechi, Jordanville, 1975, vol. 2, pp. 593-95; Metropolitan Innocent, “On Soviet Power”, in Archbishop Nikon (Rklitsky), Zhizneopisanie Blazhenneishago Antonia, Mitropolita Kievskago i Galitskago, Montreal, 1960, volume 6, pp. 168-172 (in Russian).
[69] Grabbe, Pis’ma, Moscow, 1998, p. 85 (in Russian).
[70] Shkvarovsky, Iosiflianstvo, St. Petersburg, 1999, p. 171(in Russian).
[71] Petrova, “The Reconstruction of the Tower of Babylon – a Last Chacne for the All-Cunning Antichrist”, Moscow, 1991, pp. 5-6 (samizdat MS) (in Russian). Cf. Mervyn Matthews, The Passport Society, Oxford: Westview Press, 1993, chapter 3.
[72] Metropolitan Vitaly, “Reply to a passportless”, Pravoslavnij Vestnik, February-March, 1990 (in Russian).
[73] Petrova, op. cit.
[74] Kreditniye kartochki ili pechat’ antikhrista?, St. Petersburg: Tsentr Pravoslavnogo prosveshcheniya, 2000, pp. 8-9 (in Russian).
[75] Zhitia Sviatykh, Moscow, 1908; first supplementary book. Quoted in Svecha Pokaiania, N 1, March, 1998, p. 7 (in Russian).
[76] As Hieromonk Dionysius points out, “the service of ‘him that restraineth’, although undermined, was preserved by Russian monarchical power even after Peter – and it is necessary to emphasize this. It was preserved because neither the people nor the Church renounced the very ideal of the Orthodox kingdom, and, as even V. Klyuchevsky noted, continued to consider as law that which corresponded to this ideal, and not Peter’s decrees.” (Priest Timothy and Hieromonk Dionysius Alferov, O Tserkvi, pravoslavnom Tsarstve i poslednem vremeni, Moscow: “Russkaia Idea”, 1998, p. 66 (in Russian)).
[77] Quoted in “Relations with Old Believerism”, Vozdvizhenie, winter, 2000, p. 76 (in Russian).
[78] Only in this sense could the Soviet seal be said to be on the forehead and right hand: in that it prevented people, “from fear of the Jews”, from making the sign of the cross with their right hand on their forehead.
[79] Fr. Andrej Rumyantsev, “To Caesar what is Caesar’s”, Vecherniaia Moskva, 21 September, 2000, p. 1 (in Russian).
[80] See Mikhail Nazarov, Tajna Rossii, Moscow: “Russkaia Idea”, 1999 (in Russian).
[81] Rose, in Monk Damascene, Not of this World, Forestville, Ca.: Fr. Seraphim Rose Foundation, 1995, pp. 996-997.
[82] The Old Believer Priest Gennady Chunin has written intelligently against identifying the bar-code in Russian tax declaration forms with the apocalyptic number: “The tax number and the seal of the Antichrist”, Dukhovnie Otvety, N 14, 2000, pp. 67-80 (in Russian).
[83] Kreditnie kartochki…, op. cit., p. 35.
[84] Kreditnie kartochki…, op. cit., p. 11.
[85] Kreditnye kartochki…, op. cit., p. 14.
[86]
“The New World Order in the year 2000?” Pravoslavnaia Rus’, N 9 (1582),
May 1/14, 1997, p. 5 (in Russian).
[87] Light for the Last Days, January-March, 1997, pp. 4-5.
[88] Spruksts, “666 & the World Wide Web”, Orthodox@listserv. indiana.edu, 15 September, 1997.
[89] Nilus, It is Near, at the Very Door, Sergiev Posad, 1917, pp. 262-263, 248-250 (in Russian).
[90] St. Gregory Palamas, Migne, P.G. 151, 224; E.P.E. 9, 492. Quoted in Archimandrite Emmanuel Kalyva, The Seal of the Antichrist, Athens, 1989, p. 86 (in Greek).
[91] Monk Sergius of Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston, to Subdeacon Paul Inglesby, July 28 / August 10, 2000.