Upon the end of days

[Christopher]

Dear All,

I would be interested to hear from those of you who have good sources from modern saints and elders regarding the "end of days" - e.g. what the signs are (but please don't simply copy out the book of Revelation), what Christians should do and whether "now" is the beginning of those times. I would also be interested to hear of those saints or elders who have clearly said "now is NOT the time". In my humble opinion it would be better to avoid giving opinions, if at all possible as this will only lead to disagreements...

The reason for taking up the subject (again) is that just today I received the book "Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain". I had previously read "Epistles" by the same Elder, which "opened my eyes" to many things I had previously been blind to. After reading the book I do not recall much, if anything being said about the "end of the world", so I was surprised when my wife told me that he had been very outspoken about certain aspects of modern life which to him constituted the acceptance of the sign of Antichrist (666).

So, today I received the aforementioned book and actually without thinking about what had been discussed on monachos, I opened the book and immediately my eyes fell upon the chapter entitled "Upon The End Of Days".

Here Fr Paisios is asked: "Father, isn't it better for us to talk about Christ, instead of discussion all the time about the Antichrist?"

He responds:
"When you talk to a 90-year old lady about weddings, baptisms and celebrations, she starts remembering her good old days and feels happy, However, she might sudenly die unprepared (...) thinking about false happiness. Instead, when they tell her about the death of other old people, memorial services and people being terminally ill, then she begins to think that she should spiritually prepare herself for her own death, that is go to confession, etc. Thus, when death comes on its way, she will be ready for it. The same things applies to the priests or spiritual fathers regarding the matter of the Antichrist. We must keep the faithful up to date and alert them in a good sense, so that they will be properly prepared to face any coming difficulties. We must not panic them, as they will not be the ones to be found in a difficult situation; rather, it is the people who are on the devil's side. It is also written in the Book of Revelation that we will certainly face difficulties, but the people of the devil are the ones who will carry the scars on them..."

Some other relevant quotes from the chapter:
(...)
"Today the logic of those considered 'knowledgeable' influences people. People love comfort and conveniences and have been enslaved by them. Although they know that the three 6s on the Universal Product Code is a sign of the devil, they accept it..."
(...)
"What will Christ tell us? 'Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times' (Mt 16:3)"
(...)
"Unfortunately, some who think of themselves as knowledgeable will 'swaddle' their spiritual children, as if they were babies in order to console them by telling them: 'it doesn't matter, it's nothing as long as you have faith inside you.'"
(...)
"some 'knowledgeable' people shared the same logic duing the years of the holy martyrs and tried to change the minds of the prospective martyrs, St Basil the Great writes in his speech on Martyr Gordias: '...many people were being irrational by trying to convince the martyr to deny Christ with his words only, and keep his faith in his soul, in his inner disposition, claiming that God does not pay attention to our words but to our disposition. However, martyr Gordios was rigid in his belief and replied: ...the tongue, which is created by Christ, cannot bear to utter anything against Him... do not deceive yourselves, God cannot be mocked, he judges us according to our own mouth, he justifies us by our words, and by our words convicts us."
___________________

The reason I cannot simply dismiss for myself what Elder Paisius writes is that on the one hand I know from his other writings that he is not the kind of person to "risk his soul" by making sensationalist statements. Indeed this short chapter is the only place I found where the author mentions this issue as far as I can see, so he is by no means obsessed by it.

Fr Paisios also writes that he is NOT simply stating his personal opinion: "Many people said (...)'So what if Paisios said this? It is just his own opinion, not the opinion of the Church.' However, this is not right. I did not express my opinion. I humbly indicate to those who ask me for the Church's opinion, the words of Christ, the Gospel itself. (...) we should all submit our opinion to the opinion and will of God that was made known to us through the Gospel."

Now, I personally do not follow everything that the elder says and would not say I wholeheartedly agree. He also does not answer the question "is now the time?".

The point for me is, that if he thinks it is an important issue, we should not dismiss it but rather try to learn more, which is the reason for this thread.

With love in Christ,

Christopher

[Warren Bensinger]

Christopher:
May God find you bold in your surch for Him.

http://www.stvladimirs.ca/library/final-days.html (URL)

If you go to this site, St. Vladimir's (ROCE) you will find a Prophecy accredited to St. Neilos of the Holy M. Athos. It is sometimes accredited to St. Neilos of M. Sinia. The first being about 1300 and the last about 400. You will also find a leader to Commentary on the Apocalypse at this site.

A book on the "Orthodox Christian Perspective" of the End Times called "ULTIMATE THINGS" by Dennis E. Engleman is a good read also.

I would like to say something profound but I can't, so I won't try.

Be perfect!
Learning to Love.
warren

[Charalambos Andrew Geo]

there is a lecture by Father Seraphim Rose which speaks about the end times, you may be able to get hold of it but how, i don't know,
have a blessed pasha and pray for me,

with love in Christ
Charalambos

[Owen Jones]

The above link does not seem to work.

While forbidden from rendering an opinion, allow me to make the following generalizations. The Russian Church and Russian politics have been prone to millenarian and chiliastic heresies from its founding as the "Third Rome." These are not neatly tied to prophecies of the "end times" to be sure, but I do think one needs to take a sober attitude toward some of the more extreme strains of Russian prophetic Christianity.

Also, I may have missed it, but I do not recall anything in the Philokalia, which is kind of an ascetic's bible, that particularly promotes the idea of the end times as a motivation for repentence. Even in the more complex, highly mystical writings of St. Maximos on the Eighth Day, I fail to find a specifically historical dimension to apoclyptic prophecy. It is more cosmic in nature, than historical. It would seem that the ascetic fathers did not find the need to focus on an imminent final judgment as a motive for repentence. And, of course, all prophecies to date of an imminent final judgment and return of Christ in any literal sense have been wrong. So it strikes me that, while it is essential to our faith and our Creed that there will be a return of Christ, and an end of history, that specific prophecies of an immiment return are in error, both theologically, Biblically, and practically. The most serious practical consequence is that when apocalyptic consciousness of an imminent or immanent nature becomes very widespread, it tends to lead to serious social disruption, war and mayhem.

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear Owen,

From yesterday's post we can see that the Elder Paisios actually enjoined that Orthodox Christians should be aware of the spirit of the times; he also explained the fear and passionate attatchments that at times prevents us from seeing this. The Elder was (is) a great saint, with prophetic vision: we should trust him Owen. Also even though he was so categorical about the above he was Greek not Russian and dearly loved his coutry and country-men. As has been pointed out by many, the prophetic gift is intrinsic to all of God's people within His Holy Church since it is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Certainly when I went to the Holy Mt, the monks there (of all nationalities) were given to speaking about 'the times.'

For the Holy Fathers there is no real distinction between the historical and the cosmic dimension of Christ's economia. Christ is the Alpha and Omega of all things- where they come from and where they are going.

It is in this light that the holy ascetic fathers and we also should focus on the imminent final judgement of Christ- whether we are talking about the judgement ocurring now, the one at our death or the One & Final Judgement.

Of course in a worldly, non-Orthodox sense an 'apocalyptic consciousness' is wrong. But in an Orthodox sense we are called to exactly always have that consciousness and to weave it into our very being with Christ's help. As Fr Seraphim Rose said, "it is later than you think." The point being that we must strive to not be of this world.

Your co-struggler in Christ- Fr R

[Owen Jones]

Theologically, the apocalyptic consciousness of Christianity must be kept in balance, between this world and the next, between the historical interregnum and the Parousia, and not become an immanent expectation of a worldly parousia with political overtones. What has happened historically is that the balance is continually challenged, often by power grabbing politicians or people on a crusade, and in our own day apocalyptic has been transferred into the political realm as chiliastic totalitarian movements.

It is fine to say, "it is later than you think," with the expectation of judgment in mind, but not as a literal prophecy of an imminent return of Christ, since we are enjoined Biblically not to do that, and it has led historically to much error. Most people do not have the spiritual discipline or insight of a St. Paisius and therefore easily misinterpret. There is a reason why the Church historical has tended to downplay the more apocalyptic passages of Scripture, which is why they are not in the Orthodox lexicon. It is interesting that as the Episcopal Church has veered more and more toward apostacy, they have re-designed their lexicon to have an apocalyptic thread run through and through it. Episcopal dioceses now all have staff people in charge of "prophetic" ministries. Now, one might easily dismiss all of this, arguing, what have we to do with the Episcopalians? But one must contend with the fact that Christian apocalyptic has been more often than not misused, abused and misunderstood, and it spills over into the culture, and especially the political culture, and is used as an excuse or pretext to bring about revolutions, frequently violent. True apocalyptic, according to the Philokalia, is an unveiling of the true nature and purpose of things, as we undergo ascetic transformation and our physical and spiritual senses become more attuned to reality as it really is, and not just our superficial, passionate impressions of it. It is not a recipe for historical predictions.

Now, should we be aware of the spirit of the times? Of course. But let us not do so in a spirit of judgment or condemnation, because we too are products of our time. Nor should we leap toward sweeping conclusions that purport to explain everything at once. There is good and bad in every age of man, just as there is good and bad in every man, all of which is providential in some sense. There is no magic point at which "history" somehow went bad. And there is no particularly convincing sign that history is on its last legs. Of course, the end could come tomorrow, but the point is, we should be ready, but that does not mean we know. No one knows. (I think I read that in the Bible somewhere).

As for monks: I love monks. But the monks today on Mt. Athos who claim to be delving into prophetic signs should be given a wide berth. Athos is going to rue the day they got involved in such things, because the EU is going to give them their commuppance. And the monks are then going to complain, "whoever saw this coming?" I told a monk once that by accepting EU money for the repair of the monasteries, they were going to end up regretting it because the EU was going to start dictating their affairs. He basically scoffed at the notion, but now that that is happening, who is the prophet?

[M. Rallis]

Dear All:

Saint Basil the Great says:

"Grant us to pass the night of the whole present life with wakeful heart and sober thought, ever expecting the coming of the radiant day of the appearing of Thy only-begotten Son, our Lord and God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, when the Judge of all will come with glory to render to each according to their deeds. May we not be found fallen and idle, but awake and alert for action, ready to accompany Him into the joy and divine palace of His glory, where there is the ceaseless sound of those keeping festival and the unspeakable delight of those who behold the ineffable beauty of Thy Face."

[Christopher]

If I look at the comments so far, it would seem that Owen has had the most to say, so obviously the topic is very important even to some who emphatically do NOT believe now is the time :-). I don't mean that sarcastically, by the way.

In fact I used to be just like that; I was totally sure that so much of what (often) comes out of Russia in terms of apocaliptic articles (and here I mean articles written in religious magazines, but not necessarily articles written by elders) is highly misleading and irrational.

However, when I decided to look into the evidence (as far as this is possible) there seemed to me to be a lot more in terms of facts than I had expected to find. For sure, many facts are not 100% verifiable, a lot is conjecture and there are many things which I have heard which are extremely unlikely (at least as far as I can tell). But in the end it would be wrong to dismiss everything as being mere apocalyptic "fetishism" (sorry, couldn't think of a better characterisation), but separate the wheat from the chaff.

Now I personally would not recommend other Orthodox to do this, as the conclusions one might come to are quite "unsavory" and do not per se help one to be a better Christian (they may indeed lead astray as Owen suggests).

I do think though that it is likely to be salvific to listen to those elders and saints who have knowledge in this regard, not because of human rationality but through the action of the Holy Spirit.

PS
The link (www.stvladimirs.ca/library/final-days.html (http://www.stvladimirs.ca/library/final-days.html)) works, if you paste it into your browser. In my humble opinion, I struggle to think of any other time in history that the extract from St Neilos below could possibly refer to:

"The appearances of people will change, and one will not be able to tell the difference between men and women because of their, shameful way of dressing and their hairstyles. People will be deceived by Antichrist, and they will be worse than wild beasts. Parents will not be respected, nor will the elderly."
(...)
"Satan will give such perverted wisdom for the invention of things that people will be able to speak to each other from one end of the earth to the other. Also men will fly like birds in the air and travel under the sea like fish. With these things, men will abide in comfort without realizing that Antichrist is misleading them, making them think that because they have all scientific knowledge, they do not need to believe in God the Holy Trinity"

Do any of you know whether the visions of Elder Antoniy (from Russia, late 20th century) are available in English?

[Fr Averky]

Owen,

Please tell me the sources from which you state the Church of Russia is guilty of miillenarian and hilliastic heresies. Arcbishop Averky (Tauschev), who died in 1976, very often condemned such ideas, and I know of no one of recent times who held to such notions.

I think it is quite an accusation-to say that the Russians are heretical in their teachings considering the end of time. No one can even speculate on this qujestion, for even our Lord said that only His heavenly Father will know the time.

As is often Owen, you amaze me with your statements, and I would really appreciate it if you could give me some concrete examples of this, for I admit ignorance.

Sincerely,

hieromonk Averky

I admit that I have not followed this thread, so I can say little. Are laypersons more spiritually atuned to what is happening than monks? This seems to be the drift I get from some of the posts. This entire thread sounds very strange to me.

[Alex Haig]

And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

Matt 24:30,36; King James Version

With love in Christ
Alex

[Daniel Jeandet]

Anyone else heard the story about the monk who is working at his obedience in the monastery garden, planting flowers or something, when a lay visitor comes up and says, "what would you do if you knew for certain that the world would end in five minutes?"

He replies, "I would go on planting these flowers."

[Daniel Jeandet]

Owen, you mentioned Saint Maximus. I remembered reading something interesting he wrote about the antichrist so I am posting it here. This is not as a counter to what you said, it is barely relevant to the discussion. I just remembered it and I thought you all might like to read it. Its interesting, I find it difficult to comprehend -

From Saint Maximus in The Philokalia, second century on love number 31,

"The passions lying hidden in the soul provide the demons with the means of arousing impassioned thoughts in us. Then, fighting the intellect through these thoughts, they force it to give its assent to sin. When it has been overcome, they lead it to sin in the mind; and when this has been done they induce it, captive as it is, to commit the sin in action. Having thus desolated the soul by means of these thoughts, the demons then retreat, taking the thoughts with them, and only the spectre or idol of sin remains in the intellect. Reffering to this our Lord says, "When you see the abominable idol of desolation standing in the holy place (let him who reads understand)..."(Matt. 24 : 15). For man's intellect is a holy place and a temple of God in which the demons, having desolated the soul by means of impassioned thoughts, set up the idol of sin. That these things have already taken place in history no one, I think, who has read Josephus will doubt: though some say that they will also come to pass in the time of the Antichrist."

[Christopher]

I found this good exposition of the last times:

http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/end_w.htm

With Love in Christ,

Christopher.

[Melissa]

Dear Christopher,

I'd like to recommend a small book Father Averky gave me called "Reflections of a Humble Heart, A Fifteenth Century Text on the Spiritual Life" (Nikodemus Orthodox Publication Society).

In the first chapter the elder with whom Monk Basil is talking describes the end days. Not pretty.

He seems to set a context agreeable with the comments in other posts that we're (my interpretation) to notice the signs and take them seriously, but not decide they imply imminence - because we won't be able to know. All ages have seen the signs, because Satan is active, and we are sinners. So this book seems to imply that we're enjoined to live in fear of, obedience to, and love for Christ, without trying to figure out the end.

In Christ Who loves and will protect us,
Melissa

[Moses Anthony]

Dear Christopher,

I'm sorry I cannnot offer you any Orthodox book to read about the "end times". Rather I can only offer an observation.

It seems to me that in my days as a Protestant Christian most of those who spent a majority of their time focusing upon the "last days", eventually missed the boat in the present, losing any credible witness to the Truth.

Yes we know that men will go from bad to worse, and that the amount of sin and lawlessness will increase -as scripture says it will much like the days of Noah. The important point to note however, is not to fret and cower in some religious corner, but recognizing the day and hour and knowing the wrath of God, we as divinely equipped ambassadors of heaven urge men, "...be reconciled to God."

I've been to busy trying to repent andlive today as Christ wants me to, to be concerned about knowing when the last day will.

If you see this as a re-stating of the last line of Melissa's post, then forgive me.

the sinful and unworthy servant

[Dianne Sorrell]

Forgive me for jumping in so abruptly (first post) to what tends to be such a touchy topic. I'd like to second what James Anthony posted above.

To a former Protestant this seems uncomfortably similar to the 19th-century adventism that eventually became the popular Prot/evangelical theology of the 20th century. Liberalism isn't the only trend from the 19th century that gained solid footing among Protestant churches; adventist chiliasm has done the same while unsuspecting "conservatives" were busy trying to fend off liberalism. Protestant history over the last 200 years has been heavily laced with failed "prophetic utterances" and incredibly outlandish interpretations of Biblical apocalyptic texts.

It isn't difficult to understand why adventism arose in the 19th century, considering that scholars had decided to take the Bible off the pedestal and put it to the test of textual criticism. This flew in the face of "sola Scriptura" and threatened to undermine the Protestant world, and the controversy still rages. Neither is it difficult to understand why the events of the last two centuries would elicit an adventist-like response in the Russian and Greek churches.

Forgive me, but for the time being I will remain a bit skeptical about these prophecies. It is enough for me that Christ may return at any time and we need to be ready, doing the work He's given us. Everything else will take care of itself.

-Dianne

[C Robert Crawford]

Greetings Christopher and brethren,

To briefly answer your question, yes we are in the end of days. The testimony of the scriptures and the early church fathers unambiguously attest to this.

Secondly, you mentioned the mark of the beast. The mark has been manifest for our entire lifetime, yet in recent decades manifestations of the mark have become more frequent. It has even insidiously infected certain areas of Christianity. Everyone on this thread is familiar with the mark and sees it on a fairly regular basis.

With all due respect to "Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain", the mark has nothing to do with UPC labels.

Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

May the grace of the Father and of our Lord Jesus Christ be upon you all,

C Robert Crawford

[Owen Jones]

With all due respect, there is no historical evidence, based on Scripture, that we are somehow nearing the end of the world in a literal sense. The Christian theme of transfiguration of the world and history is a symbol of great significance, but when we use that symbol to literalize or objectivize history, it becomes a source of spiritual pride.

Fact is, people in general, and Christians in particular, tend to be extremely alienated these days, and various apocalyptic scenarios are a reflection of a deformed soul on a mass scale. This seems to be associated with the turn of the millenium clock, even though one day is just like the next.

[Matthew Panchisin]

Dear all,

In addition to what Robert has mention we know that in Orthodox thought as in ancient times the forehead is symbolic thought. The right hand is symbolic of action. As such paying attention to a physical display of numbers is an inclusive part of the deception of the evil one. Paying attention to our own thoughts or those that are not ours and our actions is not a distraction.

In Christ,

Matthew Panchisin

[C Robert Crawford]

Greetings Owen & Matthew,

Owen:

With all due respect, there is no historical evidence, based on Scripture, that we are somehow nearing the end of the world in a literal sense.

The testimony of the scriptures and the early fathers are in agreement. Several early fathers spoke of a consummation of all things at the end of 6,000 years. I could post a half-dozen references if you like.

Here is an example from St. Irenaeus:

[He gives this] as a summing up of the whole of that apostasy which has taken place during six thousand years. 3. For in as many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded. And for this reason the Scripture says: "Thus the heaven and the earth were finished, and all their adornment. And God brought to a conclusion upon the sixth day the works that He had made; and God rested upon the seventh day from all His works."(6) This is an account of the things formerly created, as also it is a prophecy of what is to come. For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years;(7) and in six days created things were completed: it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year. --St. Irenaeus Against Heresies, Book V

also:

Further,(16) also, it is written concerning the Sabbath in the Decalogue which [the Lord] spoke, face to face, to Moses on Mount Sinai, "And sanctify ye the Sabbath of the Lord with clean hands and a pure heart."(17) And He says in another place, "If my sons keep the Sabbath, then will I cause my mercy to rest upon them."(18) The Sabbath is mentioned at the beginning of the creation [thus]: "And God made in six days the works of His hands, and made an end on the seventh day, and rested on it, and sanctified it."(19) Attend, my children, to the meaning of this expression, "He finished in six days." This implieth that the Lord will finish all things in six thousand years, for a day is(20) with Him a thousand years. And He Himself testifieth,(21) saying, "Behold, to-day(22) will be as a thousand years."(23) Therefore, my children, in six days, that is, in six thousand years, all things will be finished. "And He rested on the seventh day." This meaneth: when His Son, coming [again], shall destroy the time of the wicked man,(24) and judge the ungodly, and change the-sun, and the moon,(25) and the stars, then shall He truly rest on the seventh day. --THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS

Once we come to recognize that God will bring a consummation of all things after 6,000 years, we must needs attend to where we are in the timeline.

I'll be happy to address this specifically after we first establish the rule that has been laid down.

Augustine, Commodianus, Hippolytus, and Lactantius in the Divine Institutes all spoke of an end of all things after 6,000 years as well. I can post excerpts of their writings if you are interested.

Or it you prefer, It would be my pleasure to expound on the principles straight from the scriptures.

May love be with you all in Christ Jesus, Amen.

C Robert Crawford

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Mr Crawford,

Do let's keep in mind, however, that millenarianism was condemned by the Church at Ephesus (AD 431). Many a Father beforehand had commented on the millenial kingdom in various manners (you rightly list some; there were also others) -- but the council at Ephesus put a stop to what had, by that era, become rife speculation on the notion of millenarianism, especially as imported to the wider Church from interpretations common in Asiatic circles (by which Irenaeus was certainly influenced; one of the strongest voices for this manner of interpretation was Papias, of whom we have some chiliastic fragments and whom Irenaeus had read and quotes).

We cannot read the speculations of early Fathers on matters to which the Church later spoke universally (i.e. ecumenically, by full council), without taking into account the Church's fuller statements on these matters. Else we might also claim Christ to be 55 years old at His crucifixion (which Irenaeus firmly beluieved); the Word to be an Angel (as proclaimed by Justin); the octopus to be unholy and scripturally proscribed (as taught by Barnabas, though Scripture nowhere mentions it); etc.

This brings up the whole matter of how we read passages from the fathers, especially the early fathers; and moreover, how we read excerpts from holy Scripture on specific topics. Neither are there to be interpreted, only understood and reflected upon through the mind and heart of the Church.

INXC, Matthew

[Owen Jones]

There is a literal and symbolic meaning to the Sabbath. The idea of the eighth day is a symbol for the life every Christian should lead in the presence of God's judgment, as if we were already dead. Yesterday was the 8th day. Today is the 8th day. Tomorrow is the 8th day. I suggest therefore that the 1,000 years quoted has symbolic significance as well. Hitler of course was very familiar with the idea of a 1,000 year reign of Christ. He literalized it in order to impose a totalitarian reich. So we should all probably be somewhat cautious about literalizing any apocalyptic signs. But even if literally true, which I doubt, we should live no differently.

[Owen Jones]

In any case, the Hebrew Calendar is at 5764, which allows us some breathing room.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear all,

I recall fondly an exchange I once had with an elderly monk. I asked, if I remember correctly, what were his thoughts on the end of days.

'Matthew', he said, 'In the Church, in the life in Christ, today is always the last day. It is why, from the first, the fathers refered to their present moment as "in these latter days".'

I asked, if today is the last day, when I arise tomorrow, how will I account for this?

'You will then say, Today is the last day'.

I asked, 'But what when I think of the days to come?'

'There is never a day to come. There is no tomorrow. The life in Christ is always today. Today you are baptised, today you are resurrected. Today is the beginning, and it is the end. Today is your re-birth and your judgement'.

When I now reflect on the Church's response to chiliastic speculations from the second to the fifth centuries, it is this thought that comes to mind. The Church proclaimed that the millenial kingdom of the end of days, is none other than the kingdom of Christ in his Church -- the kingdom of the faithful inaugurated at the Pentecost. The expectation which, before Christ and the Church of his body, was afar off and a future expectation, is in the time of the Church the reality of his life. The prophecies are prophecies of this moment. Thus can the era of the Church be truly the time of the 'eighth day', as so often in the fathers and in the liturgical texts: the day of rest which is also the day of re-birth; the first and the last united in a single 'day' in which Christ works salvation in the midst of the world.

INXC, Matthew

[Owen Jones]

Scripture and theology contain many parallelisms based on figures and types. Joseph is a type for Christ, and Christ's crucifixion, burial in a cave, His harrowing of Hell and resurrection to the right hand of God where he prepares a place for His people is a parallel to Joseph being thrown into a pit and left for dead by his brothers (it's useful to meditation on the theme that they sincerely thought they had killed him and were finally done with him), he lived, exited from the pit, descended into Egypt (hades) where he was falsely tormented even more, thrown into prison, and then released wherein he became the Prime Minister to Pharoah, where he prepared a place for his people to escape their famine (their spiritual famine). So too with various numbers in Scripture. One only has to read a little bit of St. Maximos to see the importance of numerical parallelisms in Scripture. Remember, because something is symbolic does not make it less real or less significant. Only more so. So, according to the way the Fathers looked at things, there has to be a numerical parallelism between the days of Creation and the length of time of Creation. But they are also referring to perfect numbers, or numbers that represent perfection, shall we say. Which is to say that God will end the world when it is the perfect time for Him to do so, all according to the order of things at the Beginning. And as Christ says we should not speculate on when exactly that is because that is a red herring.

[Owen Jones]

The ordering principle for Christians is that we exist in an intermediate realm, between the beginning and end of time, between the world and heaven, between mortality and immortality, between complacency in the face of an indefinite, infinite future and the certitude of a fixed time for judgement. Faith is the virtue that holds this tension in balance. Certitude regarding the last things is a failure of faith. The history of Christianity is the history of trying to preserve the balance of faith in this state of in-betweenness, in the face of various foolish heresies that atttempt to overcome it, either by dematerializing the world or materializing heaven.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Owen,

And further: that the intermediate is mystically the reality of both the beginning and the end and all the comes between. To be truly present in the mystical reality of Christian life is to be at once at the beginning and the end of all things.

INXC, Matthew

[Matthew Panchisin]

Dear all,

If anyone is interested, I think the writings St Maximus the Confessor in the cosmos there is additional commentary relative to the mode of thought that Matthew Steenberg and Owen have mentioned.

By the way, Matthew if one goes about reading the Fathers chronologically, could one get stuck?

I think a truthful philosopher could get stuck, only like or as a Christian.

In Christ,

Matthew Panchisin

[Matthew Panchisin]

Sorry, I made an error. There is a not so thick book which presents the basic movement of thought of St Maximus the Confessor, the title is Man and the Cosmos. I think it is still being published.

[W. Lindsay Wheeler]

There is one aspect of the book of Revelation that has become clear to me. The bible uses the same symbolology throughout. Trees are a symbol of men and so forth and so on.

The Book of Revelation uses the word "beast". Daniel uses the term "beast" to describe four different governments. The symbol of human government is "beast". It is very likely that the beast in the Book of Revelation is government.

As our government and many governments across the globe become more lawless and godless and hence more evil they are becoming more beast like. A slang term for Democracy is Ochlocracy. Mob rule. One can say that the mob is a beast.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Matthew Panchisin, in a recent post here you wrote:


By the way, [...] if one goes about reading the Fathers chronologically, could one get stuck?

Most assuredly. http://www.monachos.net/mb/clipart/happy.gif A chronological reading of the fathers as we print them up in collective editions (e.g. the ANF/PNF series; Migne in the originals) is not necessarily the best way to go about encountering them. Not only did very few of the fathers themselves read their predecessors in this manner (in most cases, fathers in a given region had access to only certain predecessors from that or notable other regions; but encyclopedic collections are a very late, modern gift); but it is also not the best way to understand the doctrine of the Church, which was explained retrospectively by the councils. In other words, the ecumenical councils clarified the doctrine of the Church, by which light the precedent fathers can be properly understood. Thus, for example, Justin and Irenaeus' teachings on the Trinity cannot be properly understood, from the Church's perspective as doctrinal realities, unless one has already read the deliberations and Symbol of Nicaea, and also Athanasius. And so on.

INXC, Matthew

[M.C. Steenberg]

In a previous post, Mr Wheeler wrote:


There is one aspect of the book of Revelation that has become clear to me. The bible uses the same symbolology throughout. [...] The Book of Revelation uses the word "beast". Daniel uses the term "beast" to describe four different governments. The symbol of human government is "beast".

This is not quite so. Symbology varies throughout Scripture.

To take the example you mentioned, beasts are indeed often symbolical of governments and tribes (so the four 'great beasts' of Dan. 7). Yet far more regularly does Scripture (and particularly Scriptural prophecy) consider beasts part of God's heritage (so Jeremias 27-31). They are also used of God's agents in defeating woeful leaders (cf. Isaias 56.9; Jeremias 7.33) or ingrate peoples (Ezech. 5.17). But also, and extremely importantly, of demons; so Ezechiel sees beasts, together with idols, befouling the holy places of Jerusalem (Ezech. 8.10).

It is certainly this heritage of the beast symbolising demons and demonic activity that the fathers of the Church would expand most readily (though beast as government or ruler remained as well). The stories of the Desert Fathers are filled with encounters with demons who are in the form of beasts; and more than a few patristic visions of things eschatological centred on visions of great beasts which were demonic forms or influences.

The art of the Scriptural symbolism is precisely that it does not follow strict rules of exact concordance at all times. A given symbol may mean one thing in one context, but something entirely different in another. Even within single contexts, symbolisms may shift.

INXC, Matthew

[Matthew Panchisin]

Dear Matthew,

It is reasonable and good to be here.

As you have mentioned before keeping things in context and trying to understand things from that attitude or perspective is of the utmost importance.

I understand that the Aramaic reads it is man, it is man, it is man. A rather inclusive translation. It seems to me that all we can do as Orthodox Christians is put forth our very our best efforts and struggle to the end to be men or woman of the Christian race.

Matthew 25:23
His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

C. Robert Crawford had mentioned "Everyone on this thread is familiar with the mark and sees it on a fairly regular basis." Actually, if I'm not misunderstanding your words and you are conveying a numerical attribute, as such some ancient text read 667, 616 or nowadays the popular 666. It seems to me that if we look at the entire Book of Revelation the highly symbolic context was written outside the context of space and time although the subject matter is relative and not relative to space and time.

I'm often overwhelmed during Pascha and think of the New Jerusalem which is the Orthodox Church as mentioned in Revelation.

Particularly, when I hear "Shine, shine, new Jerusalem! For the glory of the Lord has dawned over you. Dance now and be glad Sion; as for you, pure One, rejoice in the resurrection of your child."

Symbolisms may shift indeed.

In Christ,

Matthew Panchisin

[C Robert Crawford]

Greetings Mr Steenberg and all,

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

re: the condemnation of chiliasm or millenarianism at the council of Ephesus in 431 A.D.

I fully agree with the notion of subjugating and comforming my beliefs to the judgments of the ecumenical councils. Even if the findings of the Church council are not in agreement with the teachings of the early Church fathers.

The issue that concerns me is the actual documentation. I have heard before the claim that chiliasm was condemned either in the councils of 381 or 431, yet I never seem to be able to find the actual specific language attesting to this. In my (admittedly non-exhaustive) studies of the councils, I cannot seem to find the decree or canon condemning this teaching.

Now it is clear from the creed that Christ's kingdom will have no end, but this by no means nullifies the concept of a consummation in six thousand years.

Mr. Steenberg, I do not in any way wish to cast aspersions with regards to your remarks about millenarianism being condemned as heresy. It is quite possible that you are indeed correct. As I indicated, I have far from exhausted all the available sources on the councils.

I will be happy to conform my views to the teachings of the Church provided there is sufficient documentation given to support the assertion.

As far as I am aware, nearly ALL of the early Church fathers of the first three centuries accepted this teaching regarding the time of the consummation, many of them canonized saints and some direct disciples of the apostle John and Polycarp, etc.

If it was just one or two fathers or doctors of the Church that would be one thing. But this was the orthodox teaching for the first 3+ centuries. I believe the burden of proof rests on those condemning millenarianism to show specifically what, when, where, and how the Church condemned it.

I apologize for the long delay to preparing my response, but I was out of town for a while. I have to take care of some things, but God-willing I promise to return and address the topics and points from other contributors shortly.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

C Robert Crawford

[Owen Jones]

Mr. Crawford is conflating several different issues:

1) the time of consummation
2) millenarianism
3) chiliasm

1) anticipates the end of the world at a date certain
2) anticipates Christ returning and ruling the world for 1,000 years (which is what he appears to have rejected as a temptation from the devil after his Baptism.
3) anticipates any establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth, presumably by the Church, but, the modern version of that is totalitarianism.

The apocalyptic fervor of the early Church was obviously misplaced, when focused on either an immanentized eschaton, or focused on an immiment return of Christ, or an immiment end of the world, and therefore I think we need to be honest skeptics about such claims. that does not mean that the world will not come to an end; it does not mean that there will be an apocalyptic unveiling of things now hidden, it does not mean that there remains great tribulation. What forms my skepticism is the fact that all promises of these things on an immanent or imminent basis have turned out not to be true.

[C Robert Crawford]

Greetings Mr. Jones,


Mr. Crawford is conflating several different issues:
1) the time of consummation
2) millenarianism
3) chiliasm

I'm not sure the exact definition of the word conflating, but I gather what you are getting at. I think you make a good point, the time of the consummation and the nature of that consummation are two separate issues.

I will have you know however, that it was not I who sought to mix the two. I only claimed that a consummation was to occur at the completion of six thousand years. I never spoke of a literal 1,000 year reign of Christ on earth. I spoke of the time of the consummation, not the nature of that consummation.

I am under the impression that chiliasm is essentially the same as millenarianism. If I'm not mistaken chiliasm comes from the greek chiliad which means a thousand. So I don't think there is much of a distinction between your 2) and 3).

As for the distinction between 1) and 2), you bring up precisely the point I wanted to make, which is the Church may have condemned a literal 1,000 reign of Christ on earth, but I don't think the Church ever condemned any notion of a consummation after 6,000 years.

This is precisely why I want to see the exact decree or canon or specific language used so we can ascertain exactly what the Church did or did not condemn.

Only then can we proceeed judiciously.

C Robert Crawford

[C Robert Crawford]

Hello again Owen,

In any case, the Hebrew Calendar is at 5764, which allows us some breathing room.

This calculation which the Jews use is not correct and should not be used. We are at around year 6,007 or 6,008 from Adam if I'm not mistaken.

C Robert Crawford

[C Robert Crawford]

Dear Owen,

Scripture and theology contain many parallelisms based on figures and types.....So too with various numbers in Scripture. One only has to read a little bit of St. Maximos to see the importance of numerical parallelisms in Scripture. Remember, because something is symbolic does not make it less real or less significant. Only more so. So, according to the way the Fathers looked at things, there has to be a numerical parallelism between the days of Creation and the length of time of Creation.

Excellent point. There are many parallels and they can all be arranged in perfect harmonious order if we are guided by the Spirit and the teachings of the fathers to know how to assemble them. No number in the Bible is a coincidence, not one. Every name and number in the Bible has a specific purpose.

Which is to say that God will end the world when it is the perfect time for Him to do so, all according to the order of things at the Beginning.

Precisely. In fact the prophet Isaiah makes reference to this in chapter 46 verse 10 when God speaks through him and says:

"Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done,"

Many people don't grasp the deeper spiritual application of this expression. They simply assume that God is declaring his foreknowledge from the beginning of what will be performed in the end. True enough, but the Lord is also trying to tell us that hidden within the stories of Genesis, which starts off: "In the beginning...." is the key to understanding what will occur in the end.

If you want to know what will happen in the last time, read the beginning--Genesis, and other early books of the Bible. The fact that many people have only a surface understanding of the old testament and have not studied it carefully accounts for why most people are so confused by the apocalypse.

I will provide you an example. Most people don't notice that in the creation account, the scripture says,

And the evening and the morning were the first day. (Gen 1:5)
And the evening and the morning were the second day (Gen 1:8)
And the evening and the morning were the third day. (Gen 1:13)
and so forth...

...until you come to the seventh day. notice the omission of "And the evening and the morning were..." for the seventh day. This is no oversight. There is a purpose for this. It comes to light in Revelation 21:23,25

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 gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. (see also Isaiah 60:19-20)

The six days of creation and the sabbath on the seventh day were a type of the eternal rest we will enter into at the consummation, where there is no evening. That is why in the creation account there is no evening listed only on the seventh day.

C Robert Crawford

[C Robert Crawford]

Greetings Lindsay,

The Book of Revelation uses the word "beast". Daniel uses the term "beast" to describe four different governments. The symbol of human government is "beast". It is very likely that the beast in the Book of Revelation is government.

There are two beasts mentioned in Revelation. One is antichrist himself, the other his "kingdom".

As our government and many governments across the globe become more lawless and godless and hence more evil they are becoming more beast like. A slang term for Democracy is Ochlocracy. Mob rule. One can say that the mob is a beast.

With all due respect, the beast kingdom is quite specific. It is not a broad generality of mob rule or just a non-cohesive kingdom comprised of all unbelievers. The beast kingdom is specifically defined within the scriptures, and it is comprised of people who are united in their opposition to Christ by a common belief.

C Robert Crawford

[C Robert Crawford]

Greetings Matthew,

C. Robert Crawford had mentioned "Everyone on this thread is familiar with the mark and sees it on a fairly regular basis." Actually, if I'm not misunderstanding your words and you are conveying a numerical attribute, as such some ancient text read 667, 616 or nowadays the popular 666. It seems to me that if we look at the entire Book of Revelation the highly symbolic context was written outside the context of space and time although the subject matter is relative and not relative to space and time.

If you are correct and it is not relative to space and time, then it couldn't have anything to do with UPC codes which are a recent invention, correct? Thank you for pointing this out.

Perhaps it would behoove us to do a study (perhaps on another thread) and identify the beasts of Revelation before delving too much into the mark or number of the beast. For how can we have any hope of identifying the mark of the beast if we don't even know what the beast and his kingdom are?

Perhaps before we identify the beast and his kingdom we should identify the great whore who sits atop the beast. At least this is how the Holy Spirit led me. First He revealed to me who Mystery Babylon is, and then the beast kingdom. After you identify who the beast is, and then the kingdom of the beast, it will be easier to understand the nature of the mark. For the mark is representative of both the beast and his kingdom, not exclusively one or the other.

This is how it is possible to understand that it has nothing to do with UPC labels. If it did then we all have "taken" the mark, for who hasn't at one time or another carried something with a UPC label in his right hand?

How does a UPC code in any way describe the devil or any particular kingdom? UPC's are not specific to any kingdom, they are used in most all kingdoms.

The answer to the mark of the beast is hidden within scripture, and can be found nowhere else. Focusing our attention on bar codes under the skin and UPC's and such is carnal and wordly type thinking.

The scripture says that anyone who takes the mark will drink the wine of the wrath of God and will be tormented with fire and brimstone. Now why would God want us to turn away from his scriptures and toward the study of worldly technology to spare our souls?

Tell me, what scriptures do I need to know to identify UPC labels as the mark of the beast? Absolutely none, aside from verse 18 of Revelation 13. You hardly even need this verse, for practically everyone (even those who don't read the Bible) have heard that the number of the beast is 666.

Christ wants those who truly know him to be protected from taking the mark. I believe St. Jerome said, "ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of Christ". Those who truly seek the Lord by searching the scriptures which testify of Him will find the answer.

Rather than scouring the land seeing if we can find three sixes in sequence somewhere, it would benefit us to take a giant step back and look at the bigger spiritual picture.

Just meditate on the significance of the number seven in the apocalypse. Why is the number seven mentioned dozens and dozens of times? The number of the beast is obviously associated with the number six. It is a human number, but also the number of the beast. Man and beast were both created on the sixth day. Meditiate on the significance of the number of seven as a number constantly associated with God, rather than man or beast. Meditiate on the fact that six implies incompleteness and work or labor, while seven is complete perfection and rest.

My love be with you all in Christ Jesus,

C Robert Crawford

[Martin]

Hey everyone:

I haven't been able to access the boards for a while, but now that I can again, I wanted to say that this thread "Upon The End of Days" has started to sound like a bunch of protestant neomillenialist ramblings. This isn't how we orthodox do things!

Michael

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Martin wrote,


"I wanted to say that this thread "Upon The End of Days" has started to sound like a bunch of protestant neomillenialist ramblings. This isn't how we orthodox do things!"

But in Talks With Fr. Paisios (ie conversations with the grace-filled Elder Paisios of Greece 1924-94) we read, "Elder today there are so many people, billions who don't know Christ and so few of them who know Him, what will happen?"

"Things will happen which will shake the nations. It will not be the Second Coming but divine intervention. People will be searching for someone to speak to about Christ. They will pull you by the hand. Come here, sit down to tell me about Christ."

"Yes elder, they sit and occupy themselves with the Antichrist and his mark, and don't occupy them selves with Christ."

"We shouldn't fear and be anxious about that, but we should be informed. So that we don't end up marked without realizing it, after which nothing can be done."

Does this not perfectly express the balance that is needed? After all it was Christ Himself and St. Paul also who referred to the End Times. But of course sobriety and Orthodox teaching about this is crucial.

In Matthew's post above we read,


"There is never a day to come. There is no tomorrow. The life in Christ is always today. Today you are baptised, today you are resurrected. Today is the beginning, and it is the end. Today is your re-birth and your judgement."

Of course in an important sense today is "the Day", the Eighth Day. But in another important sense it is not yet. Otherwise why are we still prey to sin and death? In other words the Eighth Day of today is in anticipation of that of tomorrow and one is only a pale shadow of the latter.

It is in this crucial sense that our lives are lived in expectation, indeed an increasingly fervent expectation for who would not yearn that this body of death be overcome finally in Christ?

Another important matter connected to the above that many react to is the increasing level of sin & brokeness in our time. Apart from the necessary interpretation of the nature of this sin is the hope once again that sin & death may be ended one day in Christ. Here we are not speaking of fearful & anxious reading of the signs. Rather we are speaking like a doctor who needs to know the nature of the disease before it can be healed. It is in this sense that not only priests but all Orthodox Christians with any responsibility for others (and eventually we all see we have this responsibility) are called to have some understanding of the disease they are praying that others may be healed from. So 'reading the signs' for the Church has these two meanings: it is a way of diagnosing the disease of death and it is a sign of hopeful expectation for its healing.

I would thus say that an Orthodox understanding of the Last Times has two sides which balance each other. One is the question of the Life which Christ offers us even now (the Day); while the other is the mystery of sin & death which Christ's Life is meant to heal us of both beginning now and finally in the Age to come.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Fr Raphael and others,

I enjoyed reading your most recent post in this thread. It seems that we = would do best always to begin with the following: the reminder of Christ = that 'no one knows the day nor the hour -- not even the Son of Man'. The = Orthodox approach to the 'end times' (a misleading moniker from the = outset) is not to focus great attention on perceptions of 'historical = detail' to prophecies of the eschaton. This is not to dismiss either = visions of the eschaton, or these very prophecies, which obviously the = Churhc does not. However, it is to recognise that the Church approaches = such prophecies in a very specific manner -- one that sees in them = revelations of the present and current 'last day' that is the ongoing = life of the Church. When chiliasm was condemned in the early church, it = was not for reflections (or even speculations) on the times of the = eschaton that the councils regarded it as 'nonsense and fable' (though = some materialist excesses were cited and rejected), rather that it = divided the 'end' from the 'present', the 'eighth day' of the Church's = existence. The eschaton is always now, even as it is always to = come. Stringent modern-day millenarian obsessions seem regularly to = miss this idea altogether.

The prophetic symbolism of the Apocalypse and other eschatological = revelations embraced in the Church's witness, have meaning within both = specific historical contexts (thus it is clear that in John's vision, = many of the symbols pertain 'directly' or 'historically' to persons, = places and events in the local Roman persecution of the day), but also = within the larger, eternal symbolism of the Church's immediate life = 'beyond time' through union with Christ.

[Owen Jones]

False teachings on the end times would become less of a factor if more emphasis was placed on the Church's teaching of the metaxy reality, which is the primary Christian experience. It overcomes all gnostic tendencies to either treat the world as immaterial, or treat heaven as material, to immanentize the eschaton or to move the eschaton off into some historical future. Metaxy reality is the primary condition of all human experience, and in Christianity the tension is heightened to the extreme, which is kept in and ordered structure through the virtues of faith, hope and love. Virtually all heresies and the psychological pathologies that typically accompany them stem from the wilfull attempt to escape from existence in the metaxy. The typical case is to then objectify reality and truth which has been symbolized from the experience of existence in the metaxy. Existence in the metaxy is the truth. Truth is a realm, according the Fathers, which we inhabit at all levels of our being, and which is exemplified by and symbolized by our liturgical worship.

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear Matthew,

I agree for the most part with the way you present the Orthodox teaching about the Last Times except for your initial stress on no-one knowing the Day- not even the Son of Man. First of all there are references in the Holy Frs & various Scriptural commentaries that this applies only To Christ's human nature; as Pre-eternal God, One in essence He does know when The Day will come. The second point connects to the first: Christ & the Apostles do refer to reading the signs about the Day in the sense of End Times. But how can we do that if only God knows this? Through the Holy Spirit many things are known to the saints & holy elders since the Holy Spirit shares the Divine Counsel with man according to his capability.

We for the most part can only read the signs and ask the question. And as I said before I believe the question is closely connected to the mystery of sin & death- which mystery itself and how God's providence relates to this must surely and inextricably be related to the question of the End. Without this balance I am concerned that The Day becomes an abstract state rather than that Scriptural vision of Christ referred to in the Epistles & the Apocalypse (Revelations) wherein His Life triumphs gloriously over death.

In Christ- Fr Raphael
PS:Forgive me a grumpy old pseudo-prophet!http://www.monachos.net/mb/clipart/angry.gifhttp://www.monachos.net/mb/clipart/happy.gif

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Fr Raphael,

Thank you in particular for your latest post in this thread. In it, you wrote:


I agree for the most part [...] except for your initial stress on no-one knowing the Day - not even the Son of Man. First of all there are references in the Holy Frs & various Scriptural commentaries that this applies only To Christ's human nature; as Pre-eternal God, One in essence He does know when The Day will come.

Here I think we must be very careful. Does Christ 'know' things differently in one nature on the one hand, and in the other on the other (which makes for as odd a sentence as it does a theological query!)? The idea that the Son 'as God' knows one thing, while the Son 'as man' knows another, goes against the single subjectivity of the incarnate and glorified Christ that the councils worked so hard to maintain. Cyril would cringe, and immediately lament that we sound just like Nestorius. http://www.monachos.net/mb/clipart/happy.gif

There is a single subjectivity to the one person who is fully God and man, Christ. The perfect union of his two natures mustn't lead us to divide his personhood.

That aside, I would whole-heartedly agree with your emphasis on the balance between symbol and history, as I think you mean to imply them. Surely the Spirit does make known to the saints the vision of future things, many of which are precise, historical details. But there is a difference between this kind of direct revelation of precise historical information (e.g. foreknowledge of the occasion of an individual's death, or some other such event), and larger reflections on 'the end', the culmination of the economy, of history and the fulfilment of salvation. Here the teaching of Christ, in his earthly life, was over and again that one does not know the 'details' of this great culmination -- and not only that one cannot, but that one should not. To presume such knowledge thrusts one out of the realm of expectant fear, hope and trust, all of which I mean in their full, positive value. His exhortation is to be like the expectant virgin, or the dressed-and-prepared wedding guest, or the guard ever watching for the thief in the nighttime. The one who 'knows' the 'details' of what is to come, is unlike any of these. He presumes to know exactly when and how the bridgegroom will appear, and in this knowledge misses entirely the surprise event of his coming -- or more readily, that he is already here.

Again, I do not mean to suggest that this implies a devaluation of genuine apocalyptic vision and revelation. The Church quite obviously (liturgically and theologically) embraces these. But she reads them as signs of 'the end' which speak to her life now, in the 'in-between' period of the eighth day, which Owen likes very much to call the 'metaxy' of genuine existence. When the fathers in the fourth and fifth centuries suggested that the widespread chiliastic views of those in the second (e.g. Papias, Irenaeus and others) were in error, it was not so much for their visions of the kingdom or the millennium, but for their too-stringent relegation of the 'end times' to a period other than the Church's present. The view given eventual support was that the millennial kingdom is now, is one and the same with the Church's present existence. There is and must always be an appreciation for the forward motion of history, for the fact that Christ will indeed, in truth, 'come again to judge the living and the dead' -- i.e., that there will be a culmination. But the prophecies tied up in these apocalyptic visions are, the Church makes very clear, prophecies which speak to the Church's reality in the present kingdom of God that stands between the present and eternity, 'in this world, but not of it'. This is as much true of the beginnings as of the ends: the tree of knowledge of good and evil is a reality today as it was in Eden. The beast of John's Apocalypse is a reality today, even as it will be tomorrow and at the eschaton. If we relegate it simply to some historically future being, event or person, we miss the point entirely.

INXC, Matthew

[Matthew Panchisin]

PATRISTIC INSTITUTE CONFERENCE AT HOLY CROSS

Apocalyptic Themes in Early Christianity

October 14-16, 2004

Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology
Brookline, Massachusetts

http://www.pappaspatristic.hchc.edu/ConferenceProgram.htm

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear Matthew,

I thought that I had read in one of the Holy Fathers that the verse "But of the day & hour no one knows...nor the Son"(Mt. 24:36) refers to Christ's human nature. But in the commentaries of St. John Chrysostom & the Blessed Theophylact it is said that 'the Son not knowing' refers to Christ's restraining the Disciples idle curiosity; ie for didactic purposes He said this. Otherwise the commentaries refer to the fact that Christ does know the time of the Day since He is the Pre-eternal Son of God. About knowing in one nature (Divine)& not in the other (human) I was thinking of the frequent explanations in the Holy Frs of how Christ suffers in His human nature but not His Divine. Does knowledge also not follow this distinction of natures even though there is a single subjectivity in the One Person Christ both God & man? ie are there not instances where Christ exhibits this same limited type of human knowledge? If not I stand corrected.

Otherwise I think that your post captures the balance very well between the Millenium that has already begun and in the expectation that we express when we say "we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the Age to come."

It is true that about the End the saints may not know details. But there is a prophetic calling in the Church which the saints very often possess about these things. For example there is a passage in St Andrew of Caesarea's Interpretation on the Apocalypse which mentions that there are 'end times' in the image of The End Time. This is instructive for many saints of our own time have spoken prophetically of their own time as a "Last Time" without it necessarily meaning The End Time. This was especially so of the terrible events of the last century which were it seems quite properly called apocalyptic.

None of this I believe Matthew goes against the points in your post. But I would stress the prophetic side of this which gives a certain significance to what is being said. This quote from Archbishop Averky captures this prophetic spirit,"The Lord has clearly said that it is not 'progress' that awaits us, but ever greater tribulations and misfortunes as a result of the increase of lawlessness and the growing cold of love..The spirit of a constant expectation of the Second Coming of Christ is the original Christian spirit, which cries out in prayer to the Lord, 'Even so, come, Lord Jesus'. And the spirit opposed to this is undoubtedly the spirit of Antichrist, which strives by every means to draw Christians away from the thought of the Second Coming of Christ and the recompense which follows on it...Precisely this is the most frightful thing in the contemporary world, which is filled with every possible deception & temptation...The thought of this, however, should not oppress or crush us, but on the contrary, as the Lord Himself says, 'Then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh.'" Granted that Archbishop Averky's words flow in much of their spirit from the experience of the Russian Revolution and all that followed from this it seems that in our time the salt of these words are still of great worth. Without denying anything at all of your point I feel it is crucial in our time that this prophetic aspect of this message be present or at least not lost in our vision of what The End is and of what leads up to it.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Fr Raphael,

I enjoyed very much re-reading your post above (your # 266) in this thread. I do believe we're speaking the same verse in varying translation. http://www.monachos.net/mb/clipart/happy.gif

Christian 'focus' has a tendency to ground itself in one of three temporal realms: the past (e.g. those who wish to re-create the 'new testament church'); the present (an absolute ecclesiology of today's reality); or the future (e.g. religions centred on rapture, or supposed pre-/post-millenarian distinctions). The reality of the matter is, however, that none of these is proper or adequate. The Christian experience of time, of history, is always incarnational history: Christ in his person brought together primal man and eschatological man -- he showed the world, in his unitary life, the true Adam of the beginnings and the perfected Adam of the end, and showed it bursting through the bounds of time in a life lived always in the present moment. The Church's perspective towards time must be grounded in his example and life. The end (the eschaton) has vital relevance as end, but only if that end is one which injects itself into the present. The prophetic voice which speaks of tomorrow, does so because that vision illumines the present day and moment, and thus becomes transformative for the Christian life. When, for example, we focus most intently on the last judgement during the pre-Lenten period, we do so not primarily to spell out the details of 'what the judgement will be like' in an historical, detail-oriented reading; rather, we do so in order to transform the life we are living today, the one that, through this vision of 'The End' experiences more full and genuinely the reality of the present.

I agree fully with your comments on the importance of the prophetic voice, especially in the situation of our current day. It is at one's peril that this voice is ignored, for it is none other than Christ who warns always to be prepared for the 'thief who comes in the night'. The moment we stop watching and keeping alert vigil (ignoring the reality of the eschaton), our life has become stagnate and ignorant of Christ. 'And woe to them who shall not be found waiting when the Bridgegroom cometh'.

My cautions, expressed above, come from the context of the all-too-frequent experience of another extreme being taken: a pseudo-'historical' assessment of the end times, usually through an over-emphasis on the books of Daniel, Ezechiel and the Apocalypse read apart from the Church's historical/incarnational consciousness, which succeeds in divorcing the 'times' of history in but a different direction.

Owen, I await a suitably-concise rendition of all the above into a sentence or two involving metaxy, which would be very appropriate!

INXC, Matthew

[Owen Jones]

Thanks for your cue, Matthew. I have the privilege of being associated with and working with a lot of people recovering from the devastating effects of long-term, chronic, alcohol and drug abuse. One of the primary psychological/personality/spiritual disorders that the alcoholic/addict has to overcome is his fixation with past and future. The resolution is often sought in certain psycho-babblish sloganeering (infused into AA from the surrounding culture) about living in the present. But living in the present day, or the present moment, is just as impossible as living in the past or living in the future. The traditional literature on alcoholism instead tries to get the alcoholic/addict to accept the paradox of his predicament. Reality is paradoxic at its very structure. And part of this paradoxic structure has to do with consciousness of past, present and future. The alcoholic is mired in guilt and resentment over his past, feels like he has been victimized by events beyond his control, and tries to take control of his existence by looking toward some imminent fulfilment in the future, which is usually a well-crafted fantasy. As much as he might try to live in the present moment, which can indeed be accomplished in some degree through prayer and meditation, nevertheless cannot overcome the tension of living in between an unforgotten past and an unfulfilled future. Faith in a Good God and complete and total surrender to His Providence is the key to living openly, willingly, lovingly, in this in-between realm. It is the essence of psycho-pathology, whether religious or secular, to wish to overcome the tension of existence in between realms. In fact, Christ's eschatalogical presence heightens this tension for us, and makes it even more tempting for believers to lapse into any number of various forms of sloganeering, heretical fundamentalisms, emotionalisms, extremes of behavior between rejection of the material world to abject hedonism. (As an aside, one of the major Protestant movements during the Reformation was nudity and free love. Whole towns in Germany were followers of nudist/free love cult leaders. Needless to say, those were the good ole days when a Bishop could raise an armed force and go in and just chop off everyone heads!!!).

All human beings live in an intermediate or an between world. Christians are called to push this existence to its limit: to demonstrate to the world, and to Satan, that we can live in the world but not be of the world. The balance of consciousness required is exemplified by our most revered saints, but the rest of us can fulfill our Christian destiny in the in-between by doing our duty without complaint, one day after the next, not reading to much, or too little meaning into circumstances or events.

By using the extreme example of addiction, I think it brings the challenge into focus for all of us.

That was more wordy than your original, I think.

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear Matthew,

I was reading through your very kind post. It just happens that today I was also sending copies of a photo of St John Maximovich to various people. I think St. John perfectly expresses the force of the words you wrote, "The Christian experience of time, of history, is always incarnational history: Christ in his person brought together primal man and eschatological man -- he showed the world, in his unitary life, the true Adam of the beginnings and the perfected Adam of the end, and showed it bursting through the bounds of time in a life lived always in the present moment."


I fully agree with what you have written- and also the caution about the "pseudo-'historical' assessment of the end times".

Below is the photo of St John
In Christ- Fr Raphael

PS: I hope this photo uploaded properly! It is the first time I have tried this. If you get lots of church photos & a Blondie Cartoon about fasting---just delete them & keep the St. John photo.

[C Robert Crawford]

Greetings all,

When chiliasm was condemned in the early church, it = was not for reflections (or even speculations) on the times of the = eschaton that the councils regarded it as 'nonsense and fable' (though = some materialist excesses were cited and rejected),

I would be very grateful if you or anyone else could cite some specific historical sources documenting this condmenation of 'chiliasm'.

The prophetic symbolism of the Apocalypse and other eschatological = revelations embraced in the Church's witness, have meaning within both = specific historical contexts (thus it is clear that in John's vision, = many of the symbols pertain 'directly' or 'historically' to persons, = places and events in the local Roman persecution of the day),

After reading some of the patristic fathers it is understandable where this notion of applying symbols within the apocalypse to the Roman empire developed. After I took a cursory glance at the notes contained within the Orthodox Study Bible, evidently this bias toward applying the symbology toward Rome continues within orthodoxy to this day.

Brethren, I have been called here to show you otherwise. Applying the symbols of the apocalypse to Rome is Satan's deception. The adversary desires that your attention be fixed on Rome so you will divert your attention from the truth.

Rome is not the great whore of Babylon as the Orthodox Study Bible and some of the church fathers state. Nor is it the kingdom of the beast either.

Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus.

C Robert Crawford

[C Robert Crawford]

Greetings Matthew,

When the fathers in the fourth and fifth centuries suggested that the widespread chiliastic views of those in the second (e.g. Papias, Irenaeus and others) were in error

I presume that you still maintain that 'chiliasm' was condemned by an ecumenical council, correct? I think we both acknowledge that individual fathers of the Church not only disagreed, but were at times diametrically opposed to each other. If this is the case, why should we give more weight to fathers you cite from the fourth century than ones from the second?

We're back to square one. Your repeated references to the 'condemnation of chiliasm' carry no weight with me until you provide some historical documentation citing a decree or canon from one of the ecumenical councils.

To Christ be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

C. Robert Crawford

[C Robert Crawford]

Greetings Matthew P.,

C. Robert Crawford had mentioned "Everyone on this thread is familiar with the mark and sees it on a fairly regular basis." Actually, if I'm not misunderstanding your words and you are conveying a numerical attribute, as such some ancient text read 667, 616 or nowadays the popular 666. It seems to me that if we look at the entire Book of Revelation the highly symbolic context was written outside the context of space and time although the subject matter is relative and not relative to space and time.

I previously mentioned that in accordance with your understanding, that would rule out modern-day technological inventions such as UPC codes or microchips under the skin.

I did not mention however, that the scriptures reveal that the mark dates back to the time of ancient Egypt or perhaps even earlier.

One main reason many people see the mark on a regular basis these days is due to the advent of mass media and communications. Any image on earth can be brought to your home via television, newspaper, magazines, the internet, etc.

The other reason the mark is becoming more prevalent these days is because we are fast approaching the time of the end, and the beast kingdom is rapidly asserting its dominance and influence upon our lives.

The word of the Lord endureth for ever.

C. Robert Crawford

[Charalambos Andrew Geo]

sorry if this sounds authoritive of which this is not. its a long one as well if you don't feel like reading much.

I heard and read that every day should be thought of as our last, pray that every day we have a Good death, in the church services say many a time Today Christ is born, Glorify Him, like in every liturgy, Christ is here and watching our every movement, not that this has not been said or is not now but, although we should be careful not to be caught out and be aware of the times, we should constantly be watching on our hearts and our life, St Silouan or Fr Sophroni talks about having Christ in our hearts. St John of Kronstad talks about the light of Faith, Love for God, Christ in the Heart and anything contrary is darkness, everyday/moment should be about loving Christ, Watching over our hearts, following our spiritual Fr's if you have one, prayers, acts of love, living the Faith. Like the 10 Virgins we need to watch. I asked a priest about the end times and he said at the time, ie. when the 2 witnesses will come and the kingdom and the anti-christ it will be clear, we will either choose one or the other, fasting is a kind of way to be prepared.

Although when asked by a another priest what we were speaking about and we said the antiChrist and those things, he said we should have spoken about Christ which was correct. while I have slightly diverted, the point is to watch, a Good book is "When will the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ be" deals with various things, the one I was given was published 1984, don't know if it is still in print. The liturgy is very healing for the soul and body, it is the Greatest miracle our church has, Christ is there not that he is not at other times, His Angels and His Church Triumphant and His Church militant worship Him. Could that be a bit like a second coming, Does not elder Porphiros say someone correct me if i am wrong with any of what i have written, and pray for every thing i have said for every idle word will be judged; our death is like a second coming.

Personally I love hearing about what Elder Porphirios and Elder Paisios and other Elders have to Say like what Fr Raphael wrote, any more of their words or writings would be appreciated, Forgive and pray for me in what ever was not orthodox here and show me my wrongs and tell me if i should have written this and I trust the administrators descision, if possible With love in Christ

Charalambos

[Kosmas Damianides]

It is interesting how many have tried to figure out the code or mystery related to the “Mother of Harlots” mentioned in Revelations in the past. People are probably trying to figure it out even now.

However, I feel one should always realise that it is in fact a code or in other words a mystery and does not have to necessarily mean that it has to be related to any one person, or one organisation or any one ethnic group.

One should probably realise that Rome was probably often understood as a second Babylon during the Roman Empire. After that it could mean anyone and anything. If we remember, the greatest threat to the Jews and to Christianity was Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Another threat to Christianity and resurrected in these last days during the Romantic period was Paganism – also known as Neo-Paganism which leads humanity back to the sexual immorality and hedonism greed and godlessness which existed ever since the time of the faithful Noah.

This is my theory I made up while reading Revelations last night. I hope someone who is a Hebrew expert could offer some advice.

“Mystery Babylon the great the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.”

Translated to Hebrew:

Raz Babel Gadowl Em Zanah Chalal Aphar

And if we were to only take the first consonants of each word, we get three new Hebrew words:

Raba gadoem zachaaph

Translated roughly into English:

THE (QUADRUPED) BEAST OF ANNIHILATION RESURRECTED.

I wonder how this would change our idea of the mysterious “Babylon” figure in the book of Revelations.


“A second angel followed and said, "Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great, which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries." A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: "If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb.” Rev 14:8-10

“I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus. When I saw her, I was greatly astonished. Then the angel said to me: "Why are you astonished? I will explain to you the mystery of the woman and of the beast she rides, which has the seven heads and ten horns. The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and will come up out of the Abyss and go to his destruction. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast, because he once was, now is not, and yet will come.” Rev 17:6-8

It sort of makes sense now doesn’t it? ….Ok maybe not.

In Christ,
KD

[leandros]

Brother Kosma,

I quote two extracts from a book that was published on the anniversary of 1900 years from the writing of Apocalypse. Kosma, I believe you know Greek so you could find the book in Apostolic Diakonia Bookstore (http://www.apostoliki-diakonia.gr/bookshop/ItemShowDetails.aspx?productID=70).

According to St Andrew and St Arethas, bishops of Caesarea, whose interpretations are presented in the above book, the meaning of the passage is:

1) (Revelation 17:5) “upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”

“the written name upon her forehead”, shows the shamelessness («ôï áðçñõèñéáóìÝíïí» aphruqriasm/enon) with which she does injustice and sins, and the confusion of her heart. She is named as “mother of harlots”, because she is the instructor of “harlotry of souls” in the cities which she rules upon and because she generates “the detestable, for God, transgressions”. But who is this woman-city ? St Arethas says, the city is simultaneously “the old Rome, the new one, and the age of antichrist” because all of them had power over the other cities and each one “shed a lot of blood of saints Martyrs”.

2) (Revelation 17:8) “The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and will come up out of the Abyss and go to his casualty. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast, because he once was, now is not, and yet will come.”

The beast is Satan (the devil), who was put to death in Christ’s Crucifixion, and he is believed to "live" again, during the end of world, acting signs and illusions through antichrist, so that people would deny Cross. That is why he is presented here as the one who “once was”, stating the power he had prior to Crucifixion. But he “now is not”, after the salvific Passion. He is now de-strengthened and he is stripped from his power over nations that he had gained through paganism. He is to “come up out of the Abyss” in the future. “Antichrist bearing in himself the devil, he will become destruction for humans”. And he will “go to his casualty”. “Casualty” is reported not as his nonexistence, but as his condemnation in Gehenna(hellfire). His punishment is casualty, not ruination. They “will be astonished” of the presence of the beast and of his illusionary signs, all those that are not registered in the “book of eternal life” and all those that they will not believe in a firm way to Christ’s prophesies for this events, thinking inside them that “antichrist restored his ancient dynasty/power”. Who are the “astonished”? They are the “The inhabitants of the earth”, for whom Isaiah says, “we were pregnant, we writhed, and we gave birth. We have accomplished deliverance of spirit of your salvation on earth, we will not fail. But all the inhabitants of the world will fall” (Isaiah 26:18). Like them are those who have an unsubstantial foundation, that is not having foundation on the rock, which is Christ.

[Nina]

The Prophecy of St Nilus -14th century

[Paul Cowan]

Then the All-good God will see the down fall of the human race and will shorten the days for the sake of those few who are being saved, because the enemy wants to lead even the chosen into temptation, if that is possible Then the sword of chastisement will suddenly appear and kill the perverter and his servants."

This above reference has been edited by it's poster so I have nothing to refer this quote back to. sorry.


Revelation 22:20

He who testifies to these things, "Surely I am coming quickly." Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

Yes, Lord, come quickly. But first allow me time to repent. Heaven help me, I will never have enough time to repent. Woe is me The sinner.

I am beginning to understand the pressure and anguish of the 4th week of Great Lent. Please pray for me! You all are in my prayers daily.

In love,

Paul

[Robert Hegwood]

Dear Nina,

You might check with someone better informed than myself, but I think there is a problem with the supposed prophecy of St. Nilos. If I remember som things I read in the past couple of years correctly, apparently it was unknown and not in circulation prior to sometime in the 1950's. Nor can it be attested among his other known writings/sayings. And I believe that what is posted is not quite the original form when it first did start to circulate in the 1950s.

I don't know what to make of it any more...but I don't automatically trust it as I used to...and I've become more cautous about other supposed monastic prophecies.

For those reasons, until I have this prophecy on better authority I no longer look to it or reference it.

[Herman Blaydoe]

The so-called prpophecy of St Neilos has been proven a forgery. A fairly thorough discussion of it can be found at: "Spooky-doxy" (http://southern-orthodoxy.blogspot.com/2005/01/spooky-doxy.html).

Interesting, upon recent googling, "newer" versions of the "Prophecy" seem to have incorporated some of the criticisms against it to make it seem more legitimate, but it isn't the same prophecy anymore then is it?

[Nina]

Dear Robert and Herman,

Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention, and for teaching this to me!

I was not aware that the authenticity of the text was in dispute. Therefore I retract it and I apologize to everyone.

[Nina]

Here (http://www.impantokratoros.gr/3858CD33.en.aspx)is the real prophecy of Saint Nilus.

[Nina]

End time instructions by Saint Ambrosy of Optina (+ 1891)


Saint Ambrosy (also known as Starets Ambrosy) is one of the better known starets of Optina. The Russian Orthodox Church declared him a saint in 1988 and his memory is celebrated on October 10th.
My child, know that in the last days hard times will come; and as the Apostle says, behold, due to poverty in piety heresies and schisms will appear in the churches; and as the Holy Fathers foretold, then on the thrones of hierarchs and in monasteries there will be no men to be found that are tested and experienced in the spiritual life. Wherefore, heresies will spread everywhere and deceive many. The enemy of mankind will act skillfully, and whenever possible he will lead the chosen ones to heresy. He will not begin by discarding the dogmas on the Holy Trinity, the divinity of Jesus Christ, or the Theotokos, but will unnoticeably start to distort the Teachings of the Holy Fathers, in other words the teachings of the Church herself. The cunning of the enemy and his "tipics" (ways) will be noticed by very few -- only those that are most experienced in spiritual life. Heretics will take over the Church, everywhere, and they will appoint their servants, and spirituality will be neglected. But the Lord will not leave His servants without protection. Truly, their real duty is persecution of true pastors and their imprisonment; for without that, the spiritual flock may not become captured by the heretics. Therefore, my son, when you see in the Churches mocking of the Divine act, of the teachings of the Holy Fathers, and of God's established order, know that the heretics are already present. Be also aware that, for some time, they might hide their evil intentions, or they might covertly deform the divine faith, so that they better succeed by deceiving and tricking the inexperienced.

They will persecute pastors and the servants of God alike, for the devil who is directing the heresy cannot stand the Divine order. Like wolves in sheep skin, they will be recognized by their vainglorious nature, love for lust, and lust for power. All those will be betrayers, causing hatred and malice everywhere; and therefore the Lord said that one will easily recognize them by their fruits. The true servants of God are meek, brother-loving and obedient to the Church (order, traditions).

At that time, monks will endure great pressures from heretics, and the monastic life will be mocked. The monastic families will be impoverished, the number of monks will decrease. The ones remaining will endure violence. These haters of the monastic life, who merely have the appearance of piety, will strive to draw monks to their side, promising them protection and worldly goods (comforts), but threatening with exile those who do not submit. From these threats, the weak at heart will be very humiliated (tormented).

If you live to see that time, rejoice, for at that time the faithful who possess no other virtues will receive wreaths for merely remaining steadfast in their faith, according to the Word of the Lord, "Everyone who confesses Me before men, I will confess before My Heavenly Father". Fear the Lord, my son, and don't lose this wreath so as to not be rejected by Christ into the utter darkness and eternal suffering. Bravely stand in faith, and if necessary, joyfully endure persecutions and other troubles, for only then will the Lord stand by you...and the holy Martyrs and the Confessors will joyfully watch your struggle.

But, in these days, woe be to monks tied to possessions and riches, and who, for the sake of love of comfort, agree to subjugate themselves to the heretics. They will lull their conscience by saying: we will save the monastery, and the Lord will forgive us. Unfortunate and blinded, they are not even thinking that through heresies and heretics the devil will enter the monastery, and then it will no longer be a holy monastery, but bare walls from which Grace will depart forever.

But God is more powerful than the devil, and will never abandon His servants. There will always be true Christians, till the end of time, but they will choose lonely and deserted places. Do not fear troubles, but fear pernicious heresy, for it drives out Grace, and separates us from Christ, wherefore Christ commanded us to consider the heretic and let him be unto thee as a heathen man and publican.

And so, strengthen yourself, my son, in the Grace of Christ Jesus. With joy, hasten to confession and endure the suffering like Jesus Christ's good soldier who was told: "Be faithful l unto death, and I will give you the wreath of life".


From http://www.pigizois.gr/

[Jorgo Ristevski]

To be honest I didn't read all the posts in this thread so forgive me if this have been mentioned anywhere in this forum. But I thought I may ask for your opinions about the Fatima Apparitions if I may? Thank you all and forgive me the biggest sinner of all.

[Michael Stickles]

To be honest I didn't read all the posts in this thread so forgive me if this have been mentioned anywhere in this forum. But I thought I may ask for your opinions about the Fatima Apparitions if I may? Thank you all and forgive me the biggest sinner of all.

Jorgo,

I found an article about Fatima (and Lourdes and Medjugorje) on a Ukrainian Orthodoxy website (http://www.unicorne.org/Orthodoxy/articles/alex_roman/marionology.htm). It looks pretty balanced. I don't have a personal opinion since I know almost nothing about the Fatima Apparitions (sorry).

In Christ,
Mike

[Nina]

This is the opinion of an Orthodox Elder:

Paternal Counsels (http://www.pigizois.net/agglika/pdf/PHILOTHEOS_ZERVAKOS_PATERNAL_COUNSELS.pdf)By Elder Philotheos Zervakos



THE JUDGEMENTS OF GOD ARE AN ABYSS

...Concerning the miracles which occur at the Virgin
Mary at Lourdes and Francis of Assisi, know that miracles follow faith.

The heretics whether Westerners, Protestants, or Ottomans, when they ask with faith for physical healings, receive indiscriminately, for He who receives their request said: "Ask and it shall be given, seek and ye shall find..."

The all Good God, who wants all to be saved and to come to the realization, grants their request, so that through this He might draw them to the correct and true faith.

If however they do not approach and die in heresy (http://monachos.net/library/Orthodox_Dictionary#Heresy), in delusion, during the 2nd Coming He shall separate them from His kingdom. And then they shall tell Him: Lord did we not prophesy in your name, do powers, miracles! He shall tell them: Depart from me ye workers of iniquity.

With these things do not occupy yourself because they are mysteries and judgments of God which are
an abyss and incomprehensible. You should be occupied with learning in a practical manner humility and love, and when you obtain them, and do not have a spirit of laziness, authority loving and vain talking you will be saved, you will go to Paradise, to the kingdom of the heavens (http://monachos.net/library/Orthodox_Dictionary#Heaven), which may we all achieve. Amen.

[Andrew]

Elder Ephraim teaches that the 1000 year binding of Satan has ended, and he is "loose" again... the first 1000 years of the Church were triumphant with martyrs and saints. This past 1000 years have been full of Muslim and Communist oppression. We are now going through a rebirth of Orthodoxy... the Holy Mountain, the missionizing of the West and the rest of the World, the rebirth of the Russian Orthodox Church, the dissemination of Orthodox teachings, etc. The Church is preparing spiritually for the reign of the Anti-Christ. Many Elder say that the government of the Anti-Christ is very near.

This was all said by Metropolitan Isaiah at a patronal feastday of a monastery in the US.


The spread of consumerism throughout the world is the forerunner evangelism of the Anti-Christ regime.

[Jorgo Ristevski]

Thank you all Mike Stickles, Nina and Andrew for your replies.

[Nicolaj]

Did anyone here ever read the bible? As I mean it is written that the time is not for us to know and the only thing we can be sure of, is that He will return!
Neither day nor hour will be proclaimed!
Just prepare as the wise virgins waiting for the bridegroom or be a silly maiden thinking to know the hour...

Christos voskrese! Nicolaj

[Michael Stickles]

Did anyone here ever read the bible? As I mean it is written that the time is not for us to know and the only thing we can be sure of, is that He will return!
Neither day nor hour will be proclaimed!
Just prepare as the wise virgins waiting for the bridegroom or be a silly maiden thinking to know the hour...

Christos voskrese! Nicolaj

Nicolaj,

I'm not sure what you are referring to. That "no one knows the day or the hour" has already been acknowledged more than once in this thread. I do not recall seeing any attempts to calculate even the month (let alone the day or hour) of Christ's return. Delving into the matter of the last days is ideally for the purpose of helping us to better prepare. So what specifically did you see here that led you to believe that our reading of Scripture is deficient?

In Christ,
Mike

[Antonios]

Did anyone here ever read the bible? As I mean it is written that the time is not for us to know and the only thing we can be sure of, is that He will return!
Neither day nor hour will be proclaimed!
Just prepare as the wise virgins waiting for the bridegroom or be a silly maiden thinking to know the hour...

Christos voskrese! Nicolaj


Dear nicolaj,

But it is also written in the bible:



The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near. (Revelation 1:1-3)

True, we must live in the present, but in anticipation of the coming Day of Judgement.

What made the virgins wise was that they expectedly waited for the return of the Bridgroom and so prepared for Him. The Revelation of Jesus Christ given to St. John, the Beloved, grows clearer and clearer with the passage of time, in both a cosmic and personal sense. We must never lose sight of this great mystery. It must give us the impediment to fight the good fight.

In Christ,
Antonios

[Anthony]

I have a general question about Orthodox interpretation of the Apocalypse. It seems from some recent posts that the 1000-year rule of Christ and the binding of Satan is understood to have already been fulfilled (in the Church?). I believe there have been various interpretations of this passage within the Church (discounting chiliasm which I think was condemned). Is this one now accepted as authoritative?

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Anthony,

I'm sorry that this initial response will be brief, and apologise if it sounds like 'passing the buck' - but as I'm still accessing via a dial-up connection, it's rather the cause: I'd encourage you to do some searching through the forum (via its search engine, available in the blue navigation bar at the top of the page) on the themes of chiliasm, milennarianism, etc. I recall what seems (to my memory) to have been an interesting discussion on these questions some time ago, that might provide some useful fodder for further thoughts.

INXC, dcn Matthew

[Michael Stickles]

Anthony,

The Orthodox Christian Information Center has an article by Elder Cleopa of Romania entitled On the Thousand Year Reign (http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/ec_thousandyearreign.aspx), which speaks to this. The most relevant portion comes after quoting Revelation 20:



From this it should be abundantly clear that the thousand-year kingdom is nothing else but the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven, and this is clear seeing that:

1. In the period of this reign, the Devil was bound and loosed, receiving power over men. Christ entered into His dominion and bound the Devil, that is, by the redemption of humanity by His Blood He bound and restrained his power over mankind.

2. The entrance into this kingdom presupposes the first resurrection, that is, none other than holy baptism itself, often, in fact, called by the name of resurrection, or being born again from above or simply regeneration. This resurrection through baptism is the first, in comparison to the second, the general one, of the body, which is also called the last resurrection, as when Martha spoke to Christ concerning her brother: I know that he shall rise again at the resurrection on the Last Day. (Jn. 11:24)

3. At the end of this kingdom or reign, the Devil will again be let loose to deceive the people and with power and mania to assault and oppress holy Christians in the person of the antichrist, the beast or false prophet. (Rev. 13:1-11)

4. The duration of this period will be brief and yet it will constitute one of the signs signalling the immediacy of the Second Coming of Christ. (Mat. 24:22; Rev. 13:5, 20:3)

Therefore, it should be clearly known that the first resurrection is the baptismal resurrection and the second resurrection is that which we await on the last day, the last resurrection. Furthermore, it should also be clear that the first death is the natural one or the separation of the soul from the body, while the second death is the eternal torment [of hell] (Mt. 18:8), so called due to its opposition to the blessed life of eternity (Jn. 5:24). It should also be clear that this second death has no power over those made worthy of the first resurrection. Likewise, from this it follows that the first death, from which not even the saints are delivered, is the natural or bodily death.


I don't know if this is considered "authoritative" or not, but it seems to mostly agree with the position you were asking about.

In christ,
Mike

[Anthony]

Thank you for these replies.

The text from Elder Cleopa is particularly clear and helpful. I was really after, though, some kind of conciliar statement or "consensus Patrum". When dealing with prophecies of the end time I find it important to get the framework right first, with a correct Orthodox understanding of the NT apocalyptic teaching. Not that I expect that to be different from the texts cited, but sometimes I look for reassurance, especially in such a tricky area.

I will do some rooting around among past threads when I get back. I think I have a kind of blindness which prompts me to keep asking questions rather than looking for the search button. I should take a lesson here from Mike. :)

PS - it is off topic, but an initial search has thrown up this classic from Fr Raphael: http://www.monachos.net/forum/showpost.php?p=22008&postcount=580PS. I should use the search engine more often.

[Paul Cowan]

From what I have seen or rather not seen in my short 5 years, is the Church does not speak much if any on the book of Revelation. Perhaps for good reason? Too much symbolism or timing? I find it challenging enough to just understand what the Church Openly teaches.

Humbly
Paul

[Demetrios Galanidis]

Jorgo,

I found an article about Fatima (and Lourdes and Medjugorje) on a Ukrainian Orthodoxy website (http://www.unicorne.org/Orthodoxy/articles/alex_roman/marionology.htm). It looks pretty balanced. I don't have a personal opinion since I know almost nothing about the Fatima Apparitions (sorry).

In Christ,
Mike

Without direct comment as to the veracity of the general content on that website, please note I was under the impression that it is NOT an Orthodox website, name aside. Owned and operated by an Eastern Catholic I should think Fathima, Lourdes, and Medjugorge would get 'balanced' treatment there!

[Anthony]

Dear Paul,

I share your feelings. A real understanding of these matters is way beyond my capacities at the moment, intellectual or spiritual; and I don't think I have looked at Revelation since I became Orthodox. But given that there is a lot of this kind of thing being talked about, I feel the need for some guidelines. That is all.

Anthony

[Father David Moser]

the Church does not speak much if any on the book of Revelation.

Certainly it seems the book of the Apocalypse is not referenced as much as the rest of the NT however, that does not mean it is not addressed. In English there is a very good patristic commentary on the Apocalypse compiled by Archbishop Averky of blessed memory. The book is calledThe Apocalypse of St John; An Orthodox Commentary and was published by the Valaam Society of America and the St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood in Platina, CA. If you can get ahold of a copy, it should help you to better understand the context and meaning of the Apocalypse of St John.

Fr David Moser

[Nicolaj]

Dear Brethren!

It is true that the church doesn't speak much about the book of Revelation, but get inside an orthodox church and you will find yourself inside the Book of Revelation!
It is everywhere you look, the orthodox church is the Revelation.

Christos voskrese! Nicolaj

[James Blackstock]

With all due respect, there is no historical evidence, based on Scripture, that we are somehow nearing the end of the world in a literal sense. The Christian theme of transfiguration of the world and history is a symbol of great significance, but when we use that symbol to literalize or objectivize history, it becomes a source of spiritual pride.

Fact is, people in general, and Christians in particular, tend to be extremely alienated these days, and various apocalyptic scenarios are a reflection of a deformed soul on a mass scale. This seems to be associated with the turn of the millenium clock, even though one day is just like the next.


All of the posts in this thread are very interesting to me. I am a convert to Orthodoxy and as a Protestant was unfortunately involved in all of the conjecture about the end of days. (I figured I knew what was going to happen!) Since coming to Orthodoxy my views have changed dramatically, however, I have, at some level, even stronger views now! I was just at a meeting in our church (GOA) where we are building a new church building, very expensive....the question that was asked, was; "who are we building the church for"? The inference was clear. Many of the young people are leaving the church! many are nominal in their faith. This is true of many Orthodox Churches. This caused me to think....The Greek Church is losing members generally...so is the OCA. Despite some statistics from a few years ago, the Orthodox Church in general is not growing! I am reminded of the scripture that says: When Christ returns, will He find "any" of Faith?

Some things and dates to think about:

AD 33 Church is born
AD 312 Edict of Milan
AD 325-681 Church Councils
AD 451 Council of Chalcedon
Ad ??? 5 Sees established:
Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, Jersusalem
AD 610 Mohammed has his first :revelation"
AD 1054 Great Schism
AD 1204 Crusaders raid Constantinople
AD 1453 Constantinople falls
AD 15?? Protestation Reformation

Note: In just a few hundred years after the birth of the Church on pentecost, all but 1 See had fallen under the Turban of Ialam. Many church splits occurred; Arianism, Monophysite etc, the Schism and finally the Reformation.

Today, we are inundated with a Pluralistic, Secular, Western mindset that has already crept into the Orthodox Church. Even The Patriarch, in an effort to reconcile with Rome attended a Liturgy with Pope Benedict and prayed with the Heterodox. The Charasmatic Renewal is widespread and people are having visions and speaking in tongues and laying hands on everybody to receive the holy spirit and all of this without true "repentance" or authority.

I think that now, more that at any time in the past we need an Orthodox Worldview. We need to live our Orthodoxy in everything we do, family, work, church, relationships, everything. It must be who we are. I agree with the Priest who posted above. It is later that we think! We are in the last days, the Apocolapse is now. We must be aware of it and not pretend that everything is ok.

Please forgive me for mistakes I have made with dates, as I simply posted from memory without looking up or confirming them. Also, I am not judging anyone. I am simply observing and trying to be wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove.

InXC,
James

[Owen Jones]

The world is no better nor worse than it ever was.

[Paul Cowan]

The world is no better nor worse than it ever was.

I agree with you Owen. If you think about, it except for Man's technology, he has not changed in 7000 years.

We may "seem" smarter but that is only because of the speed of information. If you read the Fathers and early philospohers you see they are just as intellegent as our leaders are today if not more so.

I used to think of ancient man as dumb and slow. But then started trying to read their works and quickly realized, with all the 'higher education" of today, they had it going on.

What is different today about war and our war machines? only technology. They constructed some pretty elaborate devices of war way back then with what their technology had available. Just as we do today. Look at their cisterns versus our plumbing today.

Paul

[Effie Ganatsios]

I agree with you Owen. If you think about, it except for Man's technology, he has not changed in 7000 years.


I used to think of ancient man as dumb and slow. But then started trying to read their works and quickly realized, with all the 'higher education" of today, they had it going on.



Paul

How could you think this Paul? I am studying the ancient Greek philosophers (have been for years) and just when I think I am able to understand the meaning behind the words, I come across something that impresses me so much I wonder why I didn't understand it the first ten times I read it.

Or how about Shakespeare? Granted he didn't live 3.000 years ago, but reading his work is like sinking your hand into treasure and coming up with something priceless each time. I read him aloud in order to slowly, slowly enjoy every word. Or the New Testament. You would need a lifetime to read and really understand what Jesus is trying to teach us.


re : the end of days

Years ago I read one man's understanding of Revelation. He referred to the final war which would start with countless hordes of Chinese crossing the Ephrates I think it was, and then Russia joining the war a little later. What I couldn't understand was what Mesopotamia (the ancient name for present day Iraq) would do to cause this war. Mesopotamia is Greek and means "between two rivers" - the Tigris I think and the Ephrates (maybe the Chinese crossed the Tigris and not the Ephrates- my geography and memory aren't all they should be). This particular book was written around about 1950 I think and Iraq was just a small insignificant country then, and still was when I read this book in 1980 or thereabouts. But today with the situation as it is and the USA firmly established in ancient Mesopotamia amd with no intention of leaving the area, the whole outlook is entirely different. Could this man have been right?

Perhaps we should just wait for the temple of Jerusalem to be rebuilt. This is about the only "sign" that everyone who tries to interpret Revelations agrees on.

Effie

[Effie Ganatsios]

Elder Paisios has quite a lot to say about the end.

He says that christians, those that are true believers and fighters for their faith, are going to have a really difficult time. It will become difficult to even find food to feed our families because money will become obsolete and plastic (credit cards, etc) will be used for all economic dealings. And if you refuse to become a part of this new system, you are not going to be able to survive unless you take certain measures.

He recommends buying a block of land somewhere safe, and becoming as independent as possible, just as a precautionary measure of course, because as already stated, we know neither the day nor the hour.

"1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

"For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, 'Peace and safety!' then destruction will come upon them suddenly like birth pangs upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of the night nor of the darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober. For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night. But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with Him." (1 Thessalonians 5:1-11).




Effie

[Nina]

The so-called prpophecy of St Neilos has been proven a forgery. A fairly thorough discussion of it can be found at: "Spooky-doxy" (http://southern-orthodoxy.blogspot.com/2005/01/spooky-doxy.html).

Interesting, upon recent googling, "newer" versions of the "Prophecy" seem to have incorporated some of the criticisms against it to make it seem more legitimate, but it isn't the same prophecy anymore then is it?


Dear Nina,

You might check with someone better informed than myself, but I think there is a problem with the supposed prophecy of St. Nilos. If I remember som things I read in the past couple of years correctly, apparently it was unknown and not in circulation prior to sometime in the 1950's. Nor can it be attested among his other known writings/sayings. And I believe that what is posted is not quite the original form when it first did start to circulate in the 1950s.

I don't know what to make of it any more...but I don't automatically trust it as I used to...and I've become more cautous about other supposed monastic prophecies.

For those reasons, until I have this prophecy on better authority I no longer look to it or reference it.

Herman and Robert,

Tomorrow we celebrate St.Nilos the Myrrhgusher of Mount Athos and the OCA page describes the same prophecy. I think that it is not a forgery. Read St. Nilos' life in the OCA page:

http://www.oca.org/FSlives.asp

[Michael Stickles]

Looks like the one thing clear about St. Nilus' prophecy is that there is no consensus.

OCA's site does mention the prophecy as if genuinely made by St. Nilus the Myrrhgusher of Mt. Athos (repose 1651). Fish Eaters (a Traditional Catholicism site) also treats it as genuine (http://www.fisheaters.com/nilus.html), but ascribes it to St. Nilus the Faster of Sinai (5th century), as do several other Catholic sites. OrthodoxWiki's page on the prophecy (http://orthodoxwiki.org/Prophecy_of_St._Nilus) treats it as of uncertain origin, and concludes that either it was not written by St. Nilus or it was altered in transmission. Herman has already mentioned the Spooky-Doxy coverage of the prophecy (http://southern-orthodoxy.blogspot.com/2005/01/spooky-doxy.html) over at Orthodixie. There is also a very different version of it (http://handmaidleah.wordpress.com/2007/07/18/did-st-nilus-prophesy-global-warming/) over at the blog Christ Is In Our Midst.

For myself, after looking over some of the various versions, I tend to agree that the normal version (including its variants) is a fabrication. What convinced me was the evolution of one word as the prophecy was copied from site to site.

In the most common version I found, one of the lines reads:


Christian pastors, bishops, and priests will become vain men, completely failing to distinguish the right-hand way from the left.
However, another variant reads:


Christian pastors, bishops, and priests will become vile men, completely failing to distinguish the right-hand way from the left.
Why the difference? Because the oldest version I found (http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread220/pg1) (Feb 2002) rendered it this way:


Christian pastors, bishops, and priests will become vial men, completely failing to distinguish the right-hand way from the left.
To get from "vain" or "vile" to "vial" as a transcription or OCR error is highly unlikely. It looks to me like someone composed this fairly recently and trusted their spellcheck to catch any misspellings ("vial" slipping through since it's a valid word), and the error was "corrected" in two different ways, one by someone working from the look of the word and the other by someone working from the sound of the word.

The different version, though, I'm not as sure. I found a copy (http://impantokratoros.gr/3858CD33.en.aspx) on the website of the Monastery of the Pantocrator near Thessaloniki, which also links the Greek text (http://www.impantokratoros.gr/B7CF7301.el.aspx). I would not be surprised if this is the older (and possibly even authentic) text, which someone used as a basis for the better-known version. Guess the old one wasn't specific enough for some people...

In Christ,
Mike

[Nina]

Mike, there is a person who is going to St. Nilos monastery in Athos and I will ask him about it. But here I got the impression that it was a forgery but it is not. In any case there are many saints who have said prophecies in the same lines.




The different version, though, I'm not as sure. I found a copy (http://impantokratoros.gr/3858CD33.en.aspx) on the website of the Monastery of the Pantocrator near Thessaloniki, which also links the Greek text (http://www.impantokratoros.gr/B7CF7301.el.aspx).
In Christ,
Mike

Yep. That's the prophecy I linked in post #63.

[Matthew Namee]

Please forgive my late arrival to this discussion. I wanted to comment on the so-called prophecy of St. Nilus. To the best of my knowledge, the earliest publication of the prophecy was in the book A Ray of Light: Instructions in Piety and the State of the World at the End of Time, compiled by Archimandrite Panteleimon and translated into English by Michael Hilko. This book was published in English by Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, New York in 1991. According to one website, however, it was originally published in Russian in 1946.

The prophecy, then, at the very least predates the Internet. A friend of mine who owns a copy of A Ray of Light has informed me that the prophecy it contains is much fuller than the version which appears online. It also provides various details which could possibly be corroborated. For instance, the prophecies (plural) were said to have been revealed by the deceased St. Nilus the Myrrh-Gusher in a vision to a monk (whose name, if I recall correctly, was Theophan) during the years 1813-1819 (or something close to that). There are other details as well, and presumably these could be verified. It would also be interesting to learn how long the prophecy has been known on Mt. Athos.

[Irene]

My copy of "A Ray of Light - Instructions in Piety and the State of the world at the end of times" Compiled by Archimandrite Panteleimon of Holy Trinity Monastery. Translated by Michael Hilko. Published by Holy Trinity Monastery Printshop of St Job of Pochaev Jordanville New York 1991 with the blessing of Archbishop Laurus of Syracuse and Holy Trinity Monastery. First Printing in Russian 1946 at Holy Trinity Monastery Jordanville NY.

With a Foreward from Abbot Panteleimon of the Holy Trinity Monastery January 16 1946

I bought this book not long after it was published, I can tell this by my personalised address sticker inside the book so I had the book when my adult children were very small.

There are about 24 pages of our Holy Father Nilus the Myrrh-streamer of Athos, followed by "The Word of our Holy Father Ephraim the Syrian on the coming of Antichrist"...

I am currently working through the Chapters.

...Irene

[Matthew Namee]

Irene, thank you for posting that. It bears only a vague resemblance to the Internet version of the prophecy. I still think it would be fascinating to verify the A Ray of Light version of the prophecy itself (e.g. was there a monk Theophan at the time, what are the earliest references to the prophecy). But I would also like to know where the "Internet version" comes from. My first thought is that it might have come from a publication of the St. Herman Brotherhood (Platina), perhaps an old issue of The Orthodox Word. Anyway, I suspect that the original interpolation is of non-electronic origin.

[Irene]

A Ray of Light - Compiled By Archimandrite Panteleimon 1946.


We firmly confess and deeply believe in the truth of the heavenly appearances of St Nilus and the godliness of his sayings…..


Posthumous Prophecies of our Holy Father Nilus the Myrrh-streamer of Athos.

Foreword

This book describes the miraculous events which occurred on the Holy Mountain between the years 1813 and 1819 when the Athonite hermit St Nilus the Myrrhstreamer +1651 made a number of posthumous revelations to a monk of Monk Athos concerning the Antichrist, the decline of monastic life, and an understanding of the true path of salvation. The saint communicated through Theophan that he was being sent by God…

…the saint made known to those searching for salvation that they need not be troubled and fearful, but try to guard their faith in God inviolate and pure. The saint also foretold of the mark of Antichrist; the worldwide anarchy, which should precede the coming of Antichrist; the coercion of poor farmers; the degree of depravity of the later generations;* the preaching of Enoch and Elijah against the seal of Antichrist, and their call to people to sign themselves with the sign of the cross, and much more in a similar vein. These “posthumous revelations” unceasingly tell us of the struggle against Satan.

St Nilus says that he is appearing to monk Theophan so that Theophan might pass the message on to his advisor Father Gerasim as the Biblical Moses was slow of speech and got his brother Aaron to tell of the Ten Commandments.

St Nilus asks that when Father Gerasim passes the message on that he do it concisely “for much wordiness causes contradictions and this causes great confusion among people.” And he warns “After he has transmitted my words to people clearly, let him go where he pleases, for they will try to obliterate you from the face of the earth, to kill both of you, and will try to prove that my words are diabolic prattle.”

St Nilus does not speak of years in terms of the 19th or 20th or even 21st century, he speaks in a way that the compiler of the book translates as 7400 years from the creation of the world etc…


Chapter Twenty:

Prophetic Characteristics of People before the End of the World.

……To what decadence will people then descend, to what corruption through fornication? Then there will be confusion and great struggle for power; there will be interminable wrangling with no beginning and no end.

Later an eighth council shall meet in order to appraise the disorder and to impart well-being to the good, evil to the wicked... The farmer separates wheat from chaff. The wheat is for man and the chaff for animals. We maintain that the good will be separated from the evil doers, -- the right-believing from the heretics, and for a short time people will see peace restored.

Later they will again change their good outlook, will turn to evil and with the same evil as those who are perishing. ….. They will have the same fate, one general fall into perdition, just like Sodom and Gomorrah. ….. To the extent that people become engrossed in evil, so too will grief come upon them.

The more calamities afflict them, the more evil will they become, instead of repenting; they will be angered at God. The evil deeds of people will surpass those of people at the time of the flood. ….. every person's works will be only evil ones, with general plundering and oppression, aloofness, and disunion. At the same time they will think that the doer of evil is being saved. Then they will become greedy. They will lend money out of interest and will receive interest on interest. They will beg in order to feed themselves and will cry that they have no food. Their main aim will be the gathering of capital in order to have more possessions; as much as their greed will increase, so too will calamities mount in the world.

That is why I say to you; when four quarter centuries will pass, what will be the state of monastic life then? If three more quarter centuries will pass: meaning seven, and five rising halfway to eight, there in the centre of the five, what confusion will occur ….?"

Saint Nilus said this to (Monk) Theophan in the year 1817 from the birth of Christ …according to Orthodox teaching.

"Chapter 21: The Prophecy on the Increase of Poverty Persecution of the Poor Peasants, their Resettlements; The Grain Monopoly Preceding the Birth of Antichrist"

This chapter basically talks about poor being so poor that they will be forced to move from place to place in "order to find rest" and that they will long for the rest of death. "The groans of the poor will rise like incense before God. Seeing such sufferings, God will provide for the whole world, and the poor seeing such good will happily praise God." But the greedy will gather and store the harvest and inflate the price. The people will blame God for this.”


..."Yea you have grasped for riches and ended with what? Avarice, usury, and extortion from the poor. Yea you have acquired treasure, and ended with what? Fornication, adultery, sodomy; a dissipating gluttony, insatiable plundering, and dissolute drunkenness. ...pride ... arrogant self esteem ....negligent sloth ... despair of cowardice and ungodly forgetfulness.... you pretend to seem better than all....

...All will think much of themselves....

...Avarice will especially menace monastic life, where this curse has begun to flourish to such an extent ....that it threatens to ruin monastic life itself. ...

....the whole world is in confusion from the curse of avarice...”


There is much more, I typed out nine pages in my word program.

The many internet versions of the St Nilus prophecies are very distorted. For instance in this old book version he says nothing about men looking like women and women looking like men or anything at all about the appearances of people. He says nothing about people flying or descending to the bottom of the sea, or having conversations from one side of the earth to the other.

He does however mention the heating up of the seas. He also mentions people becoming hungry even when there is plenty to eat “Terrible hunger will come and the world will experience a great insatiability for food. In comparison to the amount of food a person eats today, he will then eat seven times more and not be satisfied.”

He talks about Antichrist being born of a depraved woman “Then the evil of the world will be born in the impure womb of the virgin of evil, who will give birth to Antichrist.” “Yea, evil will be incarnate (the Antichrist will be born) without any masculine seed. Yea, he will be born of seed, but without man’s sowing.” The book which was written decades ago mentions artificial insemination as “already being used practiced with horses and cattle” and that at the time of Monk Theophan it was unknown. Now we modern people are used to the idea as it has been practiced on humans for years.

St Nilus says the mark of Antichrist in people’s hearts is resentment (remembered wrongs/anger/bitterness).

That the seal of Antichrist will have four things written on it basically saying that the recipient accepts the seal of Antichrist of his/her own free will. That Enoch and Elijah will come back to preach to the people not to accept the seal of Antichrist. That Antichrist will become enraged and kill them himself....

The printing of the English version was Blessed by Archbishop Laurus of ROCOR and compiled by Archimandrite Panteleimon of Holy Trinity Monastery ROCOR.

In the end the main thing this all just reminds us to check the facts before believing what is on the Internet.

In Christ
Irene

* here is mentioned all sorts of depravity including the buying and selling of children.

[Father David Moser]

St Nilus says the mark of Antichrist in people’s hearts is resentment (remembered wrongs/anger/bitterness).

Interestingly enough, yesterday as I was driving about listening to the radio, there was talk show on the topic of "forgiveness". One of the guests was an author and therapist who advocated the healthiness of "not forgiving". She maintained that a "healthy resolution" did not necessarily include forgiveness and that, in fact, sometimes it was better not to forgive at all. I was basically speechless listening to this foolishness.

Fr David Moser

[Effie Ganatsios]

Interestingly enough, yesterday as I was driving about listening to the radio, there was talk show on the topic of "forgiveness". One of the guests was an author and therapist who advocated the healthiness of "not forgiving". She maintained that a "healthy resolution" did not necessarily include forgiveness and that, in fact, sometimes it was better not to forgive at all. I was basically speechless listening to this foolishness.

Fr David Moser

Yesterday evening, my husband and I were astounded when listening to two people on a panel (both university professors) saying that marriage is antiquated and causes more harm than good and that only when people refuse to take part in worthless ceremonies will society progress. This was aired at approx. 6 pm so as to be sure that many children and young people would be watching.

Maybe radios should be thrown out with TVs.

Effie

[Irene]

Maybe radios should be thrown out with TVs.

Effie

:) Yes and no, it's good to keep up with what's going on to a certain extent, some documentaries are fascinating after the assasination of Benazir Bhutto I watched a documentary about Pakistan, how the country came to be etc., except that led me into reading up on all the religions in that area of the world and how they came to be... On second thoughts, yes better to get rid of the thing, I'm so easily side tracked.

However, I still feel lonely and need human voices - but I've got Ancient Faith Radio - Yay! I'm listening to a program now "Living in the Ruins of Christendom" on the Illumined Heart program. Really interesting.

...Irene

[Irene]

A little of what Saint Ephraim the Syrian says in the "Ray of Light" ...

"For Holy God, seeing their indescribable weeping and true faith, will show them mercy like a tender father, and will watch over them wherever they will hide"

... "If any person proves to be even slightly careless, he will be more easily captivated and overcome by the signs of the evil and crafty serpent. "

"Therefore be vigilant, as faithful servants who love their Master and are receptive to no other. For this ungodly, threatening thief will come in his time .... He will assume the appearance of a true shepherd in order to beguile the sheep. Those who are well-acquainted with the holy voice of the True Shepherd will immediately recognise the deceiver; for the voice of the ungodly does not at all resemble the voice of the True Shepherd and is venomous. "

"Many of the Saints who may be then found at the coming of the foul one shall shed tears to God in rivers...flee to the deserts, hide in the hills and caves in fear, sprinkle earth and ashes on their heads, praying with great humility day and night. this will be granted them by the Holy God. His grace will lead them to specified places, and they will be saved, hidden in chasms and caves, not seeing the frights and signs of Antichrist: for to those who have knowledge, the coming of Antichrist will be effortlessly made known. But, for whoever has his mind on worldy matters is always tied down to worldly things, even though he hears, will not believe, and will abhor those who speak. But the saints will be strengthened, for they have cast aside every care for this life."

[M.C. Steenberg]

Interestingly enough, yesterday as I was driving about listening to the radio, there was talk show on the topic of "forgiveness". One of the guests was an author and therapist who advocated the healthiness of "not forgiving". She maintained that a "healthy resolution" did not necessarily include forgiveness and that, in fact, sometimes it was better not to forgive at all. I was basically speechless listening to this foolishness.

This has also been heard on this side of the pond in very recent memory. There is a certain mentality which believes that forgiveness is a culmination of emotional satisfaction; that it ought only come about when everything else has been set aright, when one 'is ready' and 'feels right', and that in the meantime, the 'intention to forgive' is what matters.

The fact that this is profoundly and irreparably anti-Christian does not seem to phase its proponents. Yet there is not more blatant denial of the life of Christ.

INXC, Dcn Matthew

[Nina]

We got to give them credit though! At least they are not hypocrites. How much I know about the power of forgiveness and how much I learn and am enriched by our Christ and His Church and still I act worse than unbelievers when it comes to forgiveness (and other things). As it is said Sodom and Gomorrah will have it easier (during the Judgment) than us who received the Treasury and reject it daily with our actions. Where are the caves???

[Effie Ganatsios]

We got to give them credit though! At least they are not hypocrites. How much I know about the power of forgiveness and how much I learn and am enriched by our Christ and His Church and still I act worse than unbelievers when it comes to forgiveness (and other things). As it is said Sodom and Gomorrah will have it easier (during the Judgment) than us who received the Treasury and reject it daily with our actions. Where are the caves???

Nina, who among us doesn't have trouble with forgiveness? I know I do. I don't heed the little voice inside me that says "you know that you are also to blame - be charitable and phone and say you're sorry".

Do I do this? NOT when the voice inside me tells me to but a couple of days later when I feel less. That is me. Forgiveness? I have to laugh at myself and my deceiving ways.

Effie

[Father David Moser]

who among us doesn't have trouble with forgiveness? I know I do. I don't heed the little voice inside me that says "you know that you are also to blame - be charitable and phone and say you're sorry".


I think that perhaps this is one "test" of forgiveness - that is the ability to see your own error and seek forgiveness as well. This is certainly reflected in our "ritual" of forgiveness when one person asks forgiveness of another, the second person often replies "God forgives - forgive me also a sinner" Forgiveness is ideally a reciprocal act and even when only one party is asking forgiveness, it then indicates a willingness to forgive the other as well.

Fr David Moser

[Nina]

I have read from the Fathers that the one who asks forgiveness first, receives a crown. The second person is also rewarded for forgiving (if he/she does forgive the one who asks first), but not as much as the one who asks for forgiveness first. And of course if the second one does not forgive, that's a recipe for spiritual disaster. The grace of God departs from that person.

Have you read the story of the guy who was such a wonderful Christian and was being led to martyrdom for Christ but refused to reconcile and forgive a brother? On the way there one of the people who was not a Christian (I think he was a pagan - but I am not sure) started asking forgiveness so the prospect for martyr would not die without reconciling. But the Christian one stayed frozen and did not accept to forgive. Then the second man started imploring and supplicating him to forgive but the Christian guy did not consent. Therefore the grace of God departed from him and at the moment when they were ready to decapitate (?) him, he said: "Why am I being executed?" and denied Christ and committed also apostasy. The other person took his place and was martyred instead of the apostate. Scary, no? For the apostate. But for the blessed martyr with a soft and forgiving heart meant Heaven - literally.

Whoever knows reference please supply - because I can't recall where I read it, or names of saints or fathers who wrote these.

[Antonios]

Dear Nina,

May this saint pray for us daily, with the same love as he prays for the soul of his apostate brother.
Lord, have mercy us sinners and teach us to love with our hearts the glory of Your Goodness and Love.

In Christ,
Antonios

[Effie Ganatsios]

I just remembered the beautiful tradition on the Sunday before Lent starts.

Here people visit their family home and kiss the hands of their parents and ask for forgiveness for whatever they may have done to hurt others during the year. On that day, I usually telephone my family and my husband's family and ask forgiveness. There has not been one instance where the person I phoned has not been touched and immediately offered their own plea for forgiveness. I have to state here that we are a very loving family, but even in this type of family there are times when a careless word might have hurt the other person without you being aware of it. Forgiveness is also needed for negative thoughts about the other person.

Forgiveness blesses the forgiver much more than it does the forgiven, in my experience.

Effie

[Paul Cowan]

I think that perhaps this is one "test" of forgiveness - that is the ability to see your own error and seek forgiveness as well. This is certainly reflected in our "ritual" of forgiveness when one person asks forgiveness of another, the second person often replies "God forgives - forgive me also a sinner" Forgiveness is ideally a reciprocal act and even when only one party is asking forgiveness, it then indicates a willingness to forgive the other as well.

Fr David Moser

Fr. if I may ask...

Are we to offer forgiveness to those who do not ask for it? I seem to remember when the Columbine High School shootings happened there were people out saying we needed to forgive the boys that did the shootings. But why? They did not ask to be forgiven of killing innocent people. In fact they then killed themselves.

I can understand people trying to convince themselves to forgive the wrong doer to make themselves better or to internally go on with the healing process, but if a man robs me (and he can have the lint in my wallet) am I to forgive him if 1) he does not ask to be forgiven and 2) makes no amends in giving back what he stole?

It is one thing to ask forgivness of someone. It is another to complete the forgiveness by making restitution of the wrong committed. Kind of like Christ saying not only are your sins forgiven, but get up and walk. This to show us that He has power to forgive what cannot be seen by working a miracle of healing as well.

Paul

[Herman Blaydoe]

Are we to offer forgiveness to those who do not ask for it?

Yes, we are under no obligation to require restitution or even acceptance of the person we are forgiving, we are free to forgive them regardless of how they react to that forgiveness. In addition to the rather obvious commandment of Christ, forgiveness frees us from the power of the offender. Our "hate", or nurturing of the offense against us influences our actions, this person continues to be an influence. Once we give up our hate, our requirement for recompense, we can act in a manner no longer influenced by that person. We are free from them whether they want us to be or not.


but if a man robs me (and he can have the lint in my wallet) am I to forgive him if 1) he does not ask to be forgiven and 2) makes no amends in giving back what he stole?

Yes, absolutely. Your spiritual state is improved by forgiveness, whether or not he chooses to improve his by restitution or asking of forgiveness. What is the 'benefit' of NOT forgiving? Does it change the offender's life in any tangible way? But it can change yours.


It is one thing to ask forgivness of someone. It is another to complete the forgiveness by making restitution of the wrong committed.

That is something else entirely. If YOU want forgiveness, it is certainly better to make restitution for the wrong YOU committed if at all possible, but it would be spiritually harmful to YOU if YOU require restitution before you forgive. Where would we be if Christ did that to us? "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do".

[Paul Cowan]

Yes, we are under no obligation to require restitution or even acceptance of the person we are forgiving, we are free to forgive them regardless of how they react to that forgiveness. In addition to the rather obvious commandment of Christ, forgiveness frees us from the power of the offender. Our "hate", or nurturing of the offense against us influences our actions, this person continues to be an influence. Once we give up our hate, our requirement for recompense, we can act in a manner no longer influenced by that person. We are free from them whether they want us to be or not.



Yes, absolutely. Your spiritual state is improved by forgiveness, whether or not he chooses to improve his by restitution or asking of forgiveness. What is the 'benefit' of NOT forgiving? Does it change the offender's life in any tangible way? But it can change yours.



That is something else entirely. If YOU want forgiveness, it is certainly better to make restitution for the wrong YOU committed if at all possible, but it would be spiritually harmful to YOU if YOU require restitution before you forgive. Where would we be if Christ did that to us? "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do".

Herman,

This is almost what I am asking. I think I am looking at this from a slightly different angle though. Let me try again.

If a man rapes my daughter am I to forgive him? Is she? (I don't have a daughter) Even if he asks forgiveness, whether real or not, we do not have to engage with that person ever again. What resitituion can there be for this offence other than what man imposes as punishment, jail? (I can think of something)

I accept Christ's commandment seventy times seven times. Or rather always. I am currently reading the "The explanation of Blessed Theophylact of the Holy Gospel according to St. Mattew". He says Peter asked his question from a point of view that the person has come to him begging repentantly .

I understand to forgive from this point of view. My question if the person does ask forgiveness from a repentent heart or feins (is that spelled right) repentence do we? I can understand and accept to not harbor ill-will towards this person and to even pray for this person, but if a robber does not ask forgiveness from a repentant heart he is not asking for forgiveness. Nor is it to be offered.

What is the purpose of Forgiveness Vespers if not this?

Yes I agree restitution from MY wrongs to another is what I am speaking of. But to turn the table if that person is also to complete the cycle for him/herself they also need to do this. Not an anticipation of the receiver but the offender.

Paul

[Herman Blaydoe]

If a man rapes my daughter am I to forgive him? Is she?

Based on my understanding, and my experience (which we will not go into here) the answer is still YES. Putting our Christian faith aside for a second, there is a purely psychological reason for this regardless of what those other secular "experts" have to say. If you cannot forgive the rapist, that person still exerts a power over you and has an influence in your life that is negative. Forgiving that person means you are no longer in bondage to hate. You are FREE. I would rather be free than in bondage but that might just be me.

All that notwithstanding, we still have the examples that Christ our Lord gave us. "Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses (debts) AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US (our debtors)." I used to say the Lord's prayer as a child as part of my bedtime prayers. But when I was thirteen I realized what I was saying. There were people in my life that I was NOT prepared to forgive, so asking God to forgive me as I forgive others suddenly sounded like a very bad idea, so for several years I refused to say the Lord's Prayer. I certainly did not want Him to treat me like I wanted to treat others. What can I say, I was young and ignorant at the time. Now at least I am no longer young, and feel like I know a lot less now than I "knew" then. But I know that if we cannot forgive others, then we cannot (or perhaps simply will not?) be forgiven by God.

In the specific example given, what restitution can be made, really? What can this person do to "earn" forgiveness? Nothing? Then how can it be possible to EVER forgive him?

Here is a story from a book called Forgiveness is Loving by Rev. Robert DeGrandis, SSJ (RCC):

When I was very young I was molested twice by a man very close to me. Afterwards he told me how sorry he was and that he did not know what he was doing. I thought I had forgiven him and forgotten both incidents until I got married. At first everything was fine. Then suddenly, at times when I least expected it, pictures of those incidents would come into my mind. They ruined the intimate moments with my husband. Things became so tense between us that I finally opened up to my husband what had happened to me. Being the kind and loving person that he is, he helped me. But this problem never completely went away, until yesterday. And now, praise God, I am free! Of guilt, of shame, of bitterness toward this person. I know now that I have truly forgiven him and God has erased those horrible pictures from my mind.

I have experienced two major healings now—the first spiritual and the second emotional. I am so grateful. I love God so. I want to spend the rest of my life serving Him. My life really began with the first healing. (Chapter 2)

I guess I really do not understand the question, because the answer seems pretty obvious and unequivocal. As Christians, we really do not have a choice in the matter if we want to live as Christ tells us to live. We will not be forgiven if we do not forgive, plain and simple. For every sin against us (trespass/debt) we hold accountable, our Lord will also hold us accountable, remember the parable of the servant who was granted relief of his debts but did not "forgive" the other servant who owed him? Yes, we forgive, whether or not the person asking forgiveness is serious or merely pretending. The person benefiting from this action is NOT the offender, it is YOU. So yes, forgive, regardless of their sincerity, whether they want you to or not. At least that is my understanding, such as it is. The life you SAVE will be your own.

Herman the Pooh

[Kypreos]

I have read from the Fathers that the one who asks forgiveness first, receives a crown. The second person is also rewarded for forgiving (if he/she does forgive the one who asks first), but not as much as the one who asks for forgiveness first. And of course if the second one does not forgive, that's a recipe for spiritual disaster. The grace of God departs from that person.

Have you read the story of the guy who was such a wonderful Christian and was being led to martyrdom for Christ but refused to reconcile and forgive a brother? On the way there one of the people who was not a Christian (I think he was a pagan - but I am not sure) started asking forgiveness so the prospect for martyr would not die without reconciling. But the Christian one stayed frozen and did not accept to forgive. Then the second man started imploring and supplicating him to forgive but the Christian guy did not consent. Therefore the grace of God departed from him and at the moment when they were ready to decapitate (?) him, he said: "Why am I being executed?" and denied Christ and committed also apostasy. The other person took his place and was martyred instead of the apostate. Scary, no? For the apostate. But for the blessed martyr with a soft and forgiving heart meant Heaven - literally.

Whoever knows reference please supply - because I can't recall where I read it, or names of saints or fathers who wrote these.

This story is written in "The Meaning of Suffering and Strife & Reconciliation" by Archimandrite Seraphim Aleksiev pages 71-77. Your summary is pretty accurate. It was a priest and a laymen, though. As the priest (Sapricius) was being brought to the town to be tortured and executed, the layman (Nicephorus) approached him and said "Martyr of Christ, forgive me! As a human I sinned against you. Now you are being given a heavenly crown by Christ, because you confessed His Holy name before many witnesses."

The rest is as you say Nina. "Thus Sapricius fell away from Christ and passed away in his malice. Nicephorus was honored with martyrdom and was saved."

"Even martyrdom without love does not save. Even though you may have carried out the greatest of feats, if you are irreconcilable to your personal enemies, you are destroying all your good deeds and dooming yourself to death" (page 77).

[Paul Cowan]

Afterwards he told me how sorry he was and that he did not know what he was doing.

remember the parable of the servant who was granted relief of his debts but did not "forgive" the other servant who owed him?

But Herman,

You are making my point with your two examples. Both of these peope ask for forgivness.

I am not saying we have to stay in bondage to the hurts people suffer us. I believe we can still "love" the transgressor in a Christian sense and we can pray for the person to own up to what they did and turn and repent. Love yes, Suffer injustices yes, turn the other cheek yes. We must forgive them if they ask, but if they don't ask, I am sorry, I don't see where we are commanded to forgive.

I know this comes across as harsh to our loving Lord, but what parable or direct story did he tell that says otherwise? Even the Lord's Prayer is viewed from a light of God will forgive us if we ask so we must forgive others if they ask.

The Prodigal Son asks, the Publican asks, had Judas asked Jesus for forgiveness he would have been and would not have hanged himself.

I am not trying to be confrontational with you. I really want to understand or disprove what I have been taught.

Paul

[Herman Blaydoe]

Let me put it another way.

What do the words "forgive them Father, for they know not what they do" mean to you? Did He say "forgive them Father when they ask You to"? Did He put ANY conditions on the forgiveness He pronounced?

Are we anywhere commanded NOT to forgive someone unless they ask for forgiveness? Are not the emotional and psychological benefits enough reason to forgive, our Lord's commandments notwithstanding? It is simply a choice. You can choose to forgive or you can choose not to forgive. If you choose not to forgive, it is a choice you have to keep on making from now until eternity if the other person does not "cooperate", whereas the choice to forgive is made once and forever, regardless of what the other person chooses to do. Which choice gives YOU more freedom? Which choice do you think is better in the long run? WWJD?

[Herman Blaydoe]

had Judas asked Jesus for forgiveness he would have been and would not have hanged himself.

Did God punish Judas or did Judas punish himself? Judas hanging himself had nothing to do with God's forgiveness, other than Judas evidently was not able to forgive himself. This is the sort of thing not being able to forgive drives us to. It is suicide, spiritually if not literally.

Am I wrong here? This bear of little brain would like to know.

Herman the Pooh

[Paul Cowan]

Christ, as He does even today, intercedes for all mankind. That is what He was doing there. It is not that He forgives them. He is asking God the Father to forgive them. They were not asking forgiveness. As scripture has it they all said let His blood be on our heads and that of our children. I am also not trying to imply Jesus as God did not forgive them. But it is not how scripture reads. He did not say I forgive you for killing me.

I am not the Judge, but I don't think the people that killed Him unless they had a change of heart later we don't know about will be in Heaven. Do you?


Are we anywhere commanded NOT to forgive someone unless they ask for forgiveness

Nor are we told to. Yes, of course it is easier to release the hurts people shower upon us than to hold on to resentments. But I truely think this is a more Protestant thinking than how it was. I use the 'P' word in a more touchy feely way than a critical way.


WWJD?

[insert smiley]

Jesus accepted all to himself. He also rebuked and chastised those doing evil. Namely the Jewish leaders. He was severe with those that deserved it and gentle with those that also deserved it. He did not forgive the money changers. He did not forgive the soldiers or the scribe that slapped Him. He did turn the other cheek.

That's the difference I am talking about. He endured every insult. It does not say he forgave every insult. He never raised a hand to anyone.


31 “Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.

Please reconcile this passage with your premise. It seems both of our premises leave some to be desired.


As far as Judas yes, he punished himself, Peter though did not commit suicide but Jesus gave him the opportunity in the end to make up for it.

BTW: You are not a Pooh of little brain. Your gray matter is much larger than mine.

Paul

[Herman Blaydoe]

are two different things. As a parent, I had to chastise my children, but I always forgave them and always will.

As a parent I had a responsibility to raise my children properly even as God works to "raise us" properly. I am not called to raise somebody else's child but I can still forgive that child if I feel that I have been "wronged", without chastising that child, whether that child wants me to or not. Vengeance belongs to God, not to me. To not forgive is to put myself in God's place, and isn't that what got us into the "original" mess to begin with?

If we love those who love us, do not even the pagans do the same? Are we not called to a higher standard? Forgiveness is not an option, it is a requirement.

If I have spoken out of place, please correct me.

Herman the Pooh

[Nina]

I am not the Judge, but I don't think the people that killed Him unless they had a change of heart later we don't know about will be in Heaven. Do you?

Paul

Dear Paul,

I think that St. Kornelius is one.

Also about the example you mention the raper and the daughter... I know it is extremely difficult for us, but there are examples of Saints who did so. For instance St. Dionisius of Zakynthos (http://orthodoxwiki.org/Dionysius_of_Zakynthos):


St. Dionysius was remarkable in his forgiveness and love for his fellow man.
A man came to St. Dionysius's cell and begged the saint to hide him from his pursuers. When St. Dionysius asked the man why he was being pursued, the man told him that he had killed a monk (http://orthodoxwiki.org/Monk), the saint's own beloved brother. St. Dionysius was very grieved but hid the man and did not surrender him to the law. The murderer later repented and became a monk himself.
St. Dionysius is an example to us all for his forgiveness of even the most grievous sins against us.

[Antonios]

Dear Paul,

The commandment is to forgive. Our enemies, we are to love. The two are inseparable. There is love when one forgives, and God is love.

Even if the forgiven one has no remorse, the love was offered, and that is by the grace of God. Glory to God who offers such abundant gifts and bestows true life upon His children! For even when we are so far from you by our own sins and estrangement, still you wait patiently, knocking, urging us to open the doors of our hearts and let You come in.

We must re-evaluate WJAD (what Jesus actually did!) :)

He prayed for all of them, in fact for all of creation. Even when He was suffocating and dying, He forgave and prayed for the Roman torturers, the Sanhedrin mobs of condemning Jews, and all His executioners, of which I am one. The events of the Gospel are a collection of events and of course does not include every conversation, prayer, or act of love and mercy performed in Christ's earthly life. Thus we should be cautious when a certain interpretation we arrive at contradicts the Lord's commandments or limits God's mercy and love.

For example, some events even suggest a more stern and authoritative Son of Man. However, we must not confuse chastisement and forgiveness as Herman posted. Both are acts of mercy when done in Christ.

So we, who are called to be saints, should not only pray for the sick souls of the Columbine killers, we should pray for them in tears, and if we must, give our own souls to save theirs. This is the Way.

In Christ,
Antonios

[Father David Moser]

Are we to offer forgiveness to those who do not ask for it? ...
It is one thing to ask forgivness of someone. It is another to complete the forgiveness by making restitution of the wrong committed. Kind of like Christ ...

Certainly, let us follow the example of our Lord, Who while hanging on the cross cried out "Father forgive them for they know not what they do". Those who He forgave not only did not ask for forgiveness, but they did not even know that they had done wrong. Can we do any less than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?

Fr David Moser

[Mary]

Forgive me for using the analogy of sickness once again. I find it to be very useful to me, in dealing with those I need to forgive. Sin is a sickness, something we're all infected by. We all have different symptoms. Some of us are sicker than others. A rapist would be one of the sicker types.

So, he comes around and throws up all over me. Now I have to get cleaned up, or else I'm going to stink. He has also thrown up all over himself, in fact, he stinks more than I do, because he's full of the stuff he threw up, mine's only on the surface. I cannot wash the filth off. I need God's help. I don't need medicine, because I wasn't the one who threw up. So, I just need a really good shower and a new change of clothes. Burn the soiled ones, they're too filthy to wash. (Holding a grudge would be like putting the filthy clothes in your closet, so you can keep remembering your narrow escape...) Anyways, back to getting a shower - show mercy by forgiving. If I wait till he asks me to forgive him, before I forgive him, I'll just stink for that much longer. It's like saying: "I'll stay in these stinky clothes till he's sorry!" He may never be sorry. Eventually, all that stink will seep into me too, my friends will start to distance themselves, and the stink will get deeper into me.

I was just telling my son earlier, that we're going to be sinning all of our lives, and people around us are going to be sinning all the time too. The only way to learn to love is to ask for forgiveness for our own sins, and forgive others for theirs. I cannot love another person, or pray for them, if I have not forgiven them. IF I don't forgive right away, then, by the time they come around to ask for forgiveness, bitterness may have taken root in my heart. In fact, I can stay ahead of things, by forgiving even before I have been sinned against. When that happens, I don't even get offended, and I can very easily pray for their forgiveness, even during the time they're getting sick all over me. (Not speaking of myself here, since I still need some time to enjoy my pain before I can start thinking of forgiving. - I suppose, if I stick to the same story, that's like saying, I need some time to enjoy the stink before I go get washed up... gross! - Ok - I've been chastised.)

I just read, a few minutes ago how St Basil responded to threats of confiscation of goods, exile, torture and death for speaking out against the Arian heresy:
Is that all? Not one of these things troubles me. From him who owns nothing, no goods can be confiscated. Banishment I cannot know, for everywhere on God's earth I am at home. Torture cannot touch me, for I have no longer a body. Death, however, is welcome to me, for it will bring me more swiftly to God. Furthermore, I am, for the most part, already dead and have long been hurrying to the grave.In Christ,
Mary.

[Irene]

You can not heal after being seriously harmed by another if you do not forgive. Even more so if the pain is that of your loved ones being harmed, your children, if you do not learn to forgive then the anger and bitterness festers inside. Talk to parents who's children have been seriously harmed, raped or killed, the ones that don't forgive never move on. The ones that forgive eventually find a kind of peace.

[Effie Ganatsios]

I have seen the bitterness that never goes away when people cannot forgive the person who caused the death of a child. But I can also understand the reluctance to forgive, it would seem to a parent that their child is nothing compared to its murderer. Forgiving the murderer would seem to the parents that they were condoning what he did to their child.

My cousin and his wife have been devastated by a tragedy that happened 8 years ago to their 17 year old son. He was killed in a car accident and the person responsible left him to die on one of the most freezing nights we had that year. This person did not go to the police, did not call an ambulance. When the car with 2 dead and one seriously wounded was found the next morning, my cousin's son's body was still warm, which meant that if an ambulance had arrived at 1 am when the accident occurred he could have been saved. How can you ask these parents to forgive someone who, in acting so cowardly, caused their son to die. On the other hand, as I already said, I have seen a family destroyed because they are unable to forgive and move on. My cousin's wife was even happy that the person responsible for her son's death lost his brother a couple of years ago. Who can tell this woman that she has to forgive? Only another person who has lost a child in this manner.



Effie

[Andreas Moran]

Only another person who has lost a child

Such as the Mother of God who lost her Child.

[Father David Moser]

Forgiving the murderer would seem to the parents that they were condoning what he did to their child.


This brings to mind the life the Grand Duchess St Elizabeth. Her husband was killed by an anarchist for no apparent reason. When the police apprehended the culprit, she went herself to the jail to see the murderer and at that very moment extended to him her forgiveness for his murder of her husband. Forgiveness does not condone the error, but rather opens the path for healing and repentance.

Fr David Moser

[Andreas Moran]

the path for healing and repentance

I suppose for many, this path is not short and it takes time to walk up it.

[Effie Ganatsios]

Such as the Mother of God who lost her Child.

Yes, Andreas. Absolutely.

[Nina]

I do not know much about forgiveness from my own experience since I am an expert at the opposite actually, but Fathers tell us much precious advise about it through their actions and words. Father Dumitru Staniloae writes beautifully about it in one of his essays and gives deep spiritual insights:


If we retain the memory of a wrong done to us, it lodges in us as an impurity; it festers in us continually and its loathsome smell pervades our whole being. The false lights or shadows of this poisonous matter obstruct our vision and we cannot look at the other with purity. In this situation we cannot love the other, neither can the other love us.
Only sincere forgiveness can expel this intruder from our soul and cast the beam from our eye. Only so can we receive God's loving forgiveness. Abba Isaiah said: 'Bear no ill-will towards another man, that your labors may not be in vain; purify your heart towards all men, that you may see in yourself the peace of God... (p.24) From Prayer and Holiness by Dumitru Staniloae

Father Staniloae goes on to tie the entire process of forgiveness with the continuous renewal of the Church through it.

[Andreas Moran]

The one comment our Lord makes after giving us the 'Our Father' is about forgiveness. The only person one does not forgive is oneself; rather one must judge oneself always.

[Irene]

Well, I personally know the journey that it takes to forgive someone who has done something very terrible, the agony of not knowing how that forgiveness will ever be possible, and that the only hope for the injured one is to forgive, it is the only way to find peace.

Glory to God that I have found peace.

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

An important aspect of forgiveness is to place such people into the hands of God rather than amidst our own angry thoughts.

This though is a very hard & fiery struggle. In itself it is a work of forgiveness.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Nina]

Well, I personally know the journey that it takes to forgive someone who has done something very terrible, the agony of not knowing how that forgiveness will ever be possible, and that the only hope for the injured one is to forgive, it is the only way to find peace.

Glory to God that I have found peace.

I know that for me it is so difficult to forgive something that is not even terrible. Therefore I admire you Irene and as you say, glory to God and thank God, that you have achieved to forgive by His grace.

[Mary]

An important aspect of forgiveness is to place such people into the hands of God rather than amidst our own angry thoughts.

This though is a very hard & fiery struggle. In itself it is a work of forgiveness.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

In light of this discussion, the following verses I read in todays epistle reading jumped out at me:


Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm. May the Lord repay him according to his works. You also must beware of him, for he has greatly resisted our words. (2 Tim 4:14-15)

At my first defense no one stood with me, but all forsook me. May it not be charged against them. (2 Tim 4:16)

In Christ,
Mary

[Irene]

An important aspect of forgiveness is to place such people into the hands of God rather than amidst our own angry thoughts.

This though is a very hard & fiery struggle. In itself it is a work of forgiveness.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

This is true, when you truly realise it is in God's hands you are free to feel pity/even compassion for those who wrong you.



I know that for me it is so difficult to forgive

Sometimes it seems that we are living our worst nightmare, sometimes it's just never ending stress. You may get to a point in your life where you can look back and think "wow, how did I/we get through all that" and then you know of course you did because God was with you. When you think you can't cope, God will help you. When you can't let go of anger, God will help you. Orthodox music CDs and Ancient Faith Radio (http://ancientfaithradio.com) help me remain in a peaceful place when my thoughts on God and gratitude.

[Antonios]

An important aspect of forgiveness is to place such people into the hands of God rather than amidst our own angry thoughts.


Dear Father Raphael,

Very true indeed, Father! In addition, I would like to stress that this involves a godly placement on our part when doing so. This is an important aspect and one to consider as well. May the Lord help us in our walk with Him and guide us upon the paths we travel upon.

In Christ,
Antonios

[Victor Mihailoff]

[quote=Christopher;23690]Dear All,

I would be interested to hear from those of you who have good sources from modern saints and elders regarding the "end of days" - e.g. what the signs are (but please don't simply copy out the book of Revelation), what Christians should do and whether "now" is the beginning of those times. I would also be interested to hear of those saints or elders who have clearly said "now is NOT the time". In my humble opinion it would be better to avoid giving opinions, if at all possible as this will only lead to disagreements...

Here a copy of a bibliography of an ebook titled: "The Orthodox End Time Book" and I'd like to recommend reading 2 Thesalonians 2. It explains, I think, why some people believe the end is near and others believe the opposite. I believ it is very near.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ivan Andreyev, Russia’s Catacomb Saints, Lives of the New Martyrs, Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Press, 1982
Archbishop Averky & Father Seraphim Rose, The Apocalypse in the Teachings of Ancient Christianity, Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1998
Saint Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov, The Arena, An Offering to Contemporary Monasticism, Jordanville,
NY: Holy Trinity Monastery, 1983
Constantine Callinicos, Beyond the grave, An Orthodox Theology of Eschatology, Scranton, Pa.: Christian Orthodox Editions, 1969
Constantine Cavarnos, The Future Life According to Orthodox Teaching, Etna, CA: Center For Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, St. Gregory Palamas Monastery, 1985
Translation by C.J. deCantanzaro, Symeon the New Theologian, New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1980
Denis E. Engleman, Ultimate Things. An Orthodox Christian Perspective on the End Times, Ben Lomond, CA: Conciliar Press, 1995
Columba Graham Flegg, An Introduction to Reading the Apocalypse, Crestwood NY: At Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999
T.L. Frazier, A Second Look at the Second Coming, Sorting Through the Speculations, Ben Lomond, CA: Conciliar Press, 1999
Bishop Gerasimos of Abydos, At the End of Time: The Eschatological Expectations of the Church, Brookline, Mass.
Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2004
Dusan Jovanovic, A Vision of Heaven and Hell, Wollongong, NSW: Editor/Publisher-Alec Kamenew, 1984
Archimandrite Athanasios Mitilinaios, The Book of Revelation of Saint John the Evangelist, Allentown, PA: St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite Publication Society, 1993
Archpriest Boris Molchanoff, Antichrist, (Reprinted from Orthodox Life, May June 1980, Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville NY: Liberty TN, Published by St. John of Kronstadt Press
Compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain & St. Makarios of Corinth, The Philokalia, The Complete Text, Volume II, London: Faber & Faber, 1990
Archimandrite Panteleimon, Eternal Mysteries Beyond the Grave, Jordanville NY: Holy Trinity Monastery Print Shop of St. Job of Pochaev, 1989
Translated from Russian by Deacon Lev Puhalo & Vasili Novakshonoff, Apostasy and Antichrist, Jordanville NY: Holy Trinity Monastery, 1978
Archbishop Lazar Puhalo, The Soul, the Body and Death, Dewdney, B.C., Canada: Synaxis Press, 1996
Hieromonk Seraphim Rose, Orthodoxy and The Religion of the Future, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1983
Hieromonk Seraphim Rose, The Soul After Death, Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1980
Hieromonk Ignaty Trepatschko, The Church of Christ in the Time of Antichrist, Jordanville, NY: printed after his death in 1991
Nikolaos P. Vassiliadis, The Mystery of Death, Athens, The Orthodox Brotherhood of Theologians <<The Savior>>, 1997


AUDIO RECORDINGS
Recording of “The Second Coming” by Archimandrite Athanasios Mitilinaios and translated from Greek by Constantine Zalalas, No copyright
Recording of “Can Our Lord Jesus Christ Return to Earth Any Time, Even Tomorrow?” by Archimandrite Athanasios Mitilinaios and translated from Greek by Constantine Zalalas, No copyright
Recording of “The Antichrist-Part 1” by Archimandrite Athanasios Mitilinaios and translated from Greek
by Constantine Zalalas, No copyright
Recording of “The Antichrist-Part 2” by Archimandrite Athanasios Mitilinaios and translated from Greek
by Constantine Zalalas, No copyright


PERIODICALS
ORTHODOX LIFE in Russian (written in Russian in the first half of the 20th century for the Catacomb Church of Russia; translated from Russian) No. 2, Jordanville, N.Y: Holy Trinity Monastery, Feb. 1978,


WEBSITES
Rector, Father Nikita Grigoriev, ROCA – The Beacon of Light, Jordanville, NY: http://sobor2006.livejournal.com/185904.html 27/11/2006
Archbishop Tikhon, Address – Appeal To the Clergy and faithful Sons and Daughters of the ROCA,
http://www.catacomb.org.ua/modules.php?name=Pages&go (http://www.catacomb.org.ua/modules.php?name=Pages&go)= 17/11/2006

[Nina]

Victor, here is a link (http://members.cox.net/orthodoxheritage/Prophecies%20of%20Orthodox%20Church%20Fathers.htm) .

What is new in that link, that I never had read before is this (http://members.cox.net/orthodoxheritage/The%20Righteous%20Dimitri%20Tarabibicz.htm): from Righteous Dimitri Tarabitcz

[Victor Mihailoff]

Victor, here is a link (http://members.cox.net/orthodoxheritage/Prophecies%20of%20Orthodox%20Church%20Fathers.htm) .

What is new in that link, that I never had read before is this (http://members.cox.net/orthodoxheritage/The%20Righteous%20Dimitri%20Tarabibicz.htm): from Righteous Dimitri Tarabitcz

Thanks Nina, but I was not the one you should address. The question was a quote from the poster to whom I was replying. I can see why my post is confusing, I pasted the bibliography I had in MS Word and all those formatting marks appeared. Sorry, that's what comes from not previewing befor posting. I did not see the marks until after the post. I must study the community guide book in detail. Entirely my fault.

Pleas read th post before my reply. That's who you should address in your reply.

God bless you for your help to other members of Christ's Holy body, His Church. Victor

[Victor Mihailoff]

[quote=Christopher;23690]Dear All,

I would be interested to hear from those of you who have good sources from modern saints and elders regarding the "end of days" -

I posted this Bibliography before but did not preview it. It has format marks. I could not edit it after posting, possibly because I posted it in my first week in this forum. There is no edit symbol to click. Here goes again:




BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ivan Andreyev, Russia’s Catacomb Saints, Lives of the New Martyrs, Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Press, 1982
Archbishop Averky & Father Seraphim Rose, The Apocalypse in the Teachings of Ancient Christianity, Platina, CA:St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1998
Saint Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov, The Arena, An Offering to Contemporary Monasticism, Jordanville,
NY: Holy Trinity Monastery, 1983
Constantine Callinicos, Beyond the grave, An Orthodox Theology of Eschatology, Scranton, Pa.: Christian Orthodox Editions, 1969
Constantine Cavarnos, The Future Life According to Orthodox Teaching, Etna, CA: Center For Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, St. Gregory Palamas Monastery, 1985
Translation by C.J. deCantanzaro, Symeon the New Theologian, New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1980
Denis E. Engleman, Ultimate Things. An Orthodox Christian Perspective on the End Times, Ben Lomond, CA: Conciliar Press, 1995
Columba Graham Flegg, An Introduction to Reading the Apocalypse, Crestwood NY: At Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999
T.L. Frazier, A Second Look at the Second Coming, Sorting Through the Speculations, Ben Lomond, CA: Conciliar Press, 1999
Bishop Gerasimos of Abydos, At the End of Time: The Eschatological Expectations of the Church, Brookline, Mass. Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2004
Dusan Jovanovic, A Vision of Heaven and Hell, Wollongong, NSW: Editor/Publisher-Alec Kamenew, 1984
Archimandrite Athanasios Mitilinaios, The Book of Revelation of Saint John the Evangelist, Allentown, PA: St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite Publication Society, 1993
Archpriest Boris Molchanoff, Antichrist, (Reprinted from Orthodox Life, May June 1980, Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville NY: Liberty TN, Published by St. John of Kronstadt Press
Compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain & St. Makarios of Corinth, The Philokalia, The Complete Text, Volume II, London: Faber & Faber, 1990
Archimandrite Panteleimon, Eternal Mysteries Beyond the Grave, Jordanville NY: Holy Trinity Monastery Print Shop of St. Job of Pochaev, 1989
Translated from Russian by Deacon Lev Puhalo & Vasili Novakshonoff, Apostasy and Antichrist, Jordanville NY: Holy Trinity Monastery, 1978
Archbishop Lazar Puhalo, The Soul, the Body and Death, Dewdney, B.C., Canada: Synaxis Press, 1996
Hieromonk Seraphim Rose, Orthodoxy and The Religion of the Future, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1983
Hieromonk Seraphim Rose, The Soul After Death, Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1980
Hieromonk Ignaty Trepatschko, The Church of Christ in the Time of Antichrist, Jordanville, NY: printed after his death in 1991
Nikolaos P. Vassiliadis, The Mystery of Death, Athens, The Orthodox Brotherhood of Theologians <<The Savior>>, 1997


AUDIO RECORDINGS

Recording of “The Second Coming” by Archimandrite Athanasios Mitilinaios and translated from Greek by Constantine Zalalas, No copyright
Recording of “Can Our Lord Jesus Christ Return to Earth Any Time, Even Tomorrow?” by Archimandrite Athanasios Mitilinaios and translated from Greek by Constantine Zalalas, No copyright
Recording of “The Antichrist-Part 1” by Archimandrite Athanasios Mitilinaios and translated from Greek
by Constantine Zalalas, No copyright
Recording of “The Antichrist-Part 2” by Archimandrite Athanasios Mitilinaios and translated from Greek
by Constantine Zalalas, No copyright


PERIODICALS

ORTHODOX LIFE in Russian (written in Russian in the first half of the 20th century for the Catacomb Church of Russia; translated from Russian) No. 2, Jordanville, N.Y: Holy Trinity Monastery, Feb. 1978.


WEBSITES

Rector, Father Nikita Grigoriev, ROCAThe Beacon of Light, JordanvilleNY:http://sobor2006.livejournal.com/185904.html 27/11/2006
Archbishop Tikhon, Address – Appeal To the Clergy and faithful Sons and Daughters of the ROCA,
http://www.catacomb.org.ua/modules.php?name=Pages&go[/COLOR]= [/COLOR][COLOR=black]17/11/2006

[Victor Mihailoff]

Thanks Nina, but I was not the one you should address. The question was a quote from the poster to whom I was replying. I can see why my post is confusing, I pasted the bibliography I had in MS Word and all those formatting marks appeared. Sorry, that's what comes from not previewing befor posting. I did not see the marks until after the post. I must study the community guide book in detail. Entirely my fault.

Pleas read th post before my reply. That's who you should address in your reply.

God bless you for your help to other members of Christ's Holy body, His Church. Victor

Sorry servant of Christ Nina:

Another blunder on my part. I should not have said the post before my reply but the first original post in the thread by Christopher.

I'm a slower typer but I type much faster than I think, LOL.

In Christ, Victor