The fulfillment of the last prophecies of the apocalypse in our day. Prophecies about the end of time predictions of the elders about the last events at the end of time

The world lives with a premonition of the end of the world ... There are many signs of that, but one should not rush things. Before this end, many more events must occur - China's attack on Russia, the restoration of the monarchy in Rus', the open appearance of alien aliens to mankind, the accession of the Antichrist, who will rule the world for 3.5 years ...

Appearance of the Monk Seraphim of Sarov r.B. Tatyana. About the universal card and not only.

Recorded by Priest Sergiy Polishchuk, from the words of the Servant of God Tatyana.

“Soon this universal card will be introduced, which is already a denial of Christ, and a rather weighty renunciation of Christ. After this card will be the seal of the Antichrist.

The people who accept this electronic universal card will have their will suppressed, and even if they have made a decision for themselves not to take the seal of the Antichrist, they will not be able to resist their intention. It will be impossible for the one who has accepted the universal electronic card to repent before the Lord God, because the attitude towards sin will change. A person will not feel like a sinner and there will be no such proper repentance, which the Lord accepts and for which forgives sins.

The Monk Seraphim said that the grace of God began, especially in recent times, to move away from Moscow. This is connected with the two most terrible sins - this is the sin of Sodom and the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and Mother of God(foul language). Now our life, our speech is sprinkled with foul language, sin. Whether it's even ordinary speech, and not swearing, a mat is already used for a red word. But in fact, this is a very terrible sin, and because of these two sins, the grace of the Holy Spirit departs. After a while, Moscow will begin to fail. Father Seraphim said that Moscow is a dead city, collapsed streets, collapsed squares, said that in a few years the capital will be in a completely different place.

Father Seraphim noticed that with the acceptance of cards, morality will be lost and things will be happening on our streets and in our homes that are scary even to imagine. He said: “You don't need to know what will be in these houses, in this city after a while. Sodom parades and stuff ... "

People who will not hesitate to accept this card will also gladly accept the seal of the Antichrist. The Antichrist is already on the threshold of Moscow. He is not allowed to enter Moscow only by the prayers of the monks and the righteous. In order for this entry to take place, the prayer in the temples will soon be changed, and when this happens, it will no longer be possible to go to the temples. Not to churches, not to Communion.

There will be a terrible war, there will be a famine, very strong and for several years; the heat will be strong and the water will go deep into the ground, BUT if you pray, and there will be conciliar repentance, then the Lord will extend the time.

YOU NEED TO PRAY NOW CONSTANTLY AND EVERYWHERE!!!”

Predictions of schemamonk John from the village of Nikolskoye

“When the “bald” one is taken out of the Mausoleum, Moscow will fall into salty waters and little will remain of Moscow (according to the latest research, there is an ancient sea under Moscow under a layer of the earth’s crust - approx.) Sinners will swim in salt water for a long time, but save there will be no one. They will all die. Petersburg will be flooded. Only those who leave the cities (Moscow, St. Petersburg) to live in the countryside will have a chance to survive. It is not worth starting to build houses in the villages, there is no time left, you will not have time. It is better to buy a finished house. There will be a big famine. There will be no electricity, no water, no gas. Only those who grow their own food will have a chance to survive. China will go to war against us and occupy all of Siberia to the Urals. The Japanese will be in charge in the Far East. Russia will be torn apart. A terrible war will begin.

Russia will remain within the borders of the times of Tsar Ivan the Terrible. The Monk Seraphim of Sarov will come. He will unite all the Slavic peoples and states and bring the Tsar with him. The government will literally go berserk. There will be such a famine that those who have accepted the "seal" will eat the dead. And most importantly - pray and hurry up to change your life so as not to live in sin, since there is no time left at all ... "

PROPHETIC PREDICTIONS OF SCHIARCHIMANDRITO CHRISTOPHER THE OLD OF TULA (1905-1996)

“The Antichrist is at the door. It's already hard to live. His (Antichrist's) seal will be placed only on those who do not have the seal of God. He also said that there would be a sharp cooling in the Church towards everything: towards prayer, towards repentance, towards faith... good deeds... to all. (...) There will be no heat in the Church.” “The Lord will shorten the time for the salvation of our souls. And if it does not reduce, then we will not be saved. (...) You will run around looking for elders all over the world, but there will be no true elders anymore. The Lord will take them all (...) and you will remain at the will of God. (...) But not long after me there will be a mixture of faiths, and it will no longer be possible to go to churches, there will be no Eucharist and there will be no Communion. This horned one will crawl so cunningly that you will see: the temples will be open, and the services will continue as they went, as they sang, and they sing there. (...) It will no longer be possible to go to church, the Orthodox faith is already everything, it will not exist, and there will be no Communion. Two or three priests of true believers will remain in Tula, no more. (...) Pray in your cells, but never leave prayer.”

“There will be no crosses. First, monastic crosses will disappear, then small crosses on the pectoral... if you want to baptize a child, there will be no crosses. Save your crosses. Store candles, store oil, so that you can light a candle, a lamp and pray at home. (...) “Chop the prosphora finely, dry it and put it in hermetic jars, and then, through the prayers of your Epiphany water, the Lord will impute a drop and a drop of prosphora to you in Communion. It will be impossible to go to church, and Epiphany water and prosphora will be given to you instead of Communion ... And then our churches will be occupied, and everything will collapse, as it was then, and it will be again.

“Lately, people will get sick a lot, but do not despair, this will be for the purification of your souls.” He said about Petersburg: “After all, the city is doomed. He will go under the water. Moscow is doomed. There are only a few prayer books left.” “The wheel of the Apocalypse moves at great speed (...). Yes, Russia will be reborn... And Moscow? Moscow part will fail, and in Tula it will fail. (...) In Moscow - where is the mausoleum and further away, across the river, and where is the hotel Rossiya. In Tula, the Leninsky district will fail and Skuratovo will fail. (...). And Peter will go under the water. (...). So please the Lord God. Were there Sodom and Gomorrah? Also here." “The elders pray very much that there will be a war, and after the war there will be famine. And if there is no war, it will be bad, everyone will die. The war will not be long, but still many will be saved, and if not, then no one will be saved.

He said that soon everything would be Catholic in the Church, as the Symbol of Faith would be changed in the churches, it would be impossible to walk, and then all the churches would be closed. “We must have a supply of water and crackers for ten days, and it will be such that it will not even be possible to leave the house. But for the elect, everything will be reduced.”

He greatly revered the tsar and the royal family, and even then, in the 80s, he said that there would be a glorification of the tsar (Nicholas II). "The Tsar with his immaculate children suffered for us, washed Russia with his blood, redeemed us." The priest said that “the Tsar is God's anointed, the people will still cry. (...) So we need it, that all this is happening to us. (...) it’s all for the king-father, for betraying him.”

“Soon I will be gone, but I leave you a prayer. Read it always, especially in the morning: "Lord, deliver us from the Antichrist, the enemy of violence and sorcery." Everything is contained in this prayer; wherever you are, it should be read."

“This is how Sodom and Gomorrah died for debauchery, this is how the Lord will burn us with fire, this world will burn. Such large cities as Moscow, St. Petersburg will perish.” “Russia will prosper, there will be a new tsar, she will rise again and be freed from this satanic infection, and life will be very good, pious, but everything depends on our repentance, we need conciliar repentance so that we have a new tsar, without repentance the tsar will not come. For a short time, the Lord will send us a king again, but first there will be wars. The war will be very fast, missile, and such that everything will be poisoned. Batiushka said that everything would be poisoned a few meters into the ground. And it will be very difficult for those who remain alive, because the earth will no longer give birth. (...) He said that after the war there would be so few people left on earth.

(...) There will be heat after the war and a terrible famine all over the earth, and not only in Russia. And the heat is terrible, and there will be crop failures for the last five to seven years. At first everything will be born, and then it will rain, and everything will be flooded, and the whole crop will rot, and nothing will be harvested. All rivers, lakes, reservoirs will dry up, and the oceans will dry up, and all glaciers will melt, and mountains will leave their places. The sun will be very hot. (...) People will be thirsty, they will run, look for water, but there will be no water. They will see - something glitters in the sun - and they will think that it is water, they will run up, but this is not water, but glass glitters. “Lately, you won’t live alone... They will run away from the monasteries! (...) The devil will take possession of the monasteries ... and it’s good if someone has a house left, his own corner where to run! And those who have nowhere to run will die under the fence.” Batiushka was very negative about apartments. “Buy, he said, - a house with a land. Relatives do not disperse, but unite, buy together. (...) Buy houses in the village, even a dugout. God's blessing is on it. Buy and immediately dig a well so that you have your own water, and immediately plant a willow (on the north side), because there is always water under the willow (...)

It will be possible to collect water drop by drop. These drops are the tears of the Mother of God. (...) We will eat roots, herbs, and we need to collect a linden leaf. Here you will have bread and water. The Lord will feed by a miracle, by a miracle. Then the Lord will give crowns to the living, whoever does not betray God, whoever follows Him. (...) There will be a terrible famine, the corpses will be lying around, and you will have your own land, it will feed you. And don't be lazy, don't be lazy. The Lord loves work. You will return "scythe to scythe" - as the blessed Matronushka said, (...), - plow to plow, you will all return to manual labor. (...) In those days, it would be possible to save oneself only in one's own homes. And in the city ... what passion will be! The light will be turned off, the gas will be turned off, the water will be turned off ... there will be nothing, and people will almost rot alive in their apartments.” Christopher worried about Russia and wept: “Mother Russia, poor Russia! What awaits you, what awaits you!

In recent years, the priest was very sad, and sadness was characteristic of the time. Batiushka said that the world is not going to salvation, but to its imminent death. When Boris Yeltsin was still in power, he said: “He did nothing good, but he does not touch the Church either, and this is the main thing. And after him he will be young, he will generally confuse everything. And then such a thing will begin that only God will figure it out. The elder said that now is not the time for rebirth, but for the salvation of souls. Everything, he said, will be done cunningly and slyly. He did not bless taking electronic numbers, plastic cards, passports, all this, he said, was antichrist, he did not bless anything, starting with vouchers, he did not even bless marriages. He warned me not to vaccinate. Recently, no doctors can be trusted, as they will be very cunning and can introduce these chips under the skin.

Rev. Kuksha of Odessa (1875 - 1964). Spiritual children.

My dear sisters in Christ our Lord Jesus, peace and grace to you from the Lord for the letter I received recently. I thank you and save you, Lord, that you have not forgotten me, a sinner. My dear sisters, I believe your grief and thank you from the bottom of my heart in everything, but it is a pity that I cannot get rid of it, but bear with me, my dear sisters, for it is pleasing to the Heavenly Father! My sisters, know that everything is sent from God: good, bad and sorrowful, and you will gladly accept everything from the hand of the Lord and do not be afraid, God will not leave you! He will never send grief, grief and heavy burdens beyond your strength, but gives everything according to your strength. Your great woe to him - this means that you have a lot of strength to endure him, but this or that grief, endure everything patiently, for time is coming to death. Now the chapter of the 3rd book of the prophet Ezra is beginning to be fulfilled. Death is fast approaching us. Oh, my sisters, what a terrible time is coming when you don’t want to live in this world, but it’s here ... here it is.

Oh my God, my God, my God! Terrible disasters are coming to earth: fire, famine, death, death and destruction, and who can avert them! And this time is very close, do not listen to anyone if they say that there will be peace, no, there will be no peace, there will be war. And then there will be a terrible famine. And where does it all go! There will be nothing to eat, and death awaits people from hunger. The people will be sent to the east, but not a single soul will return, they will all die there from hunger, there will be a terrible death, and whoever remains alive will die from pestilence. It is a contagious disease with no cure. It was not in vain that the holy prophet Ezra said: woe, woe for you, our land, one grief will pass, a second and a third will come, etc.

Oh, God, my God, do you know, dear sisters and brothers, that even now the Lord has put an end to earthly prosperity. Truly I tell you that now is not the time to get married and get married, because the Lord gave us these days only for repentance and repentance from the sinful life of the flesh: this time is not for feasts and weddings, not for overeating and drunkenness, we all must leave this ... We should cry day and night to our true God for the forgiveness of our grave sins. We must ask Him with tears to have mercy and mercy on us at His Terrible Judgment, for after all these disasters, the glorious Terrible Day of God's Judgment will come. The Scripture says that the chosen ones of God can find out, that is, the Lord can reveal to them the year of the end of the world, but no one knows the day or the hour, even the Angels in Heaven; only the Lord knows about it… A terrible, terrible time is approaching, God forbid, since the creation of the world there has never been such a thing, Lord, but who will not be afraid of you!

Listen, my sisters and brothers, know that I will tell you that God has prepared such a pit for the world that there is no bottom and He will put all the wicked there... Oh, God forbid to get there, Lord, save and have mercy! Truly I tell you, I do not lie, that it is by His grace that the Lord has revealed to me. Telling lies is a terrible sin. God save us not only talk about marriage and marriage now, but you can’t even think about it, this is a terrible sin. Young boys and girls should not marry. Those who live in marriage also need to live chastely, Lord, save and have mercy on us. There was a time when they lived quietly and the Lord Himself blessed the marriage, but now all this has come to an end. But the people of this world will do iniquity to the very end, and for sins they will be cast into a bottomless pit into hell-fire, because they do not know what they are doing. What the Lord revealed to me for the people of this world is a mystery. I feel sorry for everyone that they don’t know all this and people walk like blind people, they don’t see this bottomless pit in front of them into which they are about to fly. I thank the True God to everyone that He is merciful and announced to me about this and showed me everything. Do not think that it was shown to me through my prayer, only through His mercy the Lord revealed and showed me everything that should be soon. But the Lord does not give everyone such joy as He has shown me, a great sinner. Give Him thanks and praise forever and ever. Amen.

Kind people! Say goodbye to earthly goods, for no one will live. Pray and be saved in the Lord! Precious time given for the acquisition of eternal life. Strengthen yourself with deeds of mercy and love for your neighbor! Fulfill the commandments of the Lord! The last times have come. Soon there will be a great council called "holy", but it will be just the Eighth (Impious!) Ecumenical Council, at which all faiths will unite into one, holy fasts will be canceled, bishops will marry. Then they will be driven there, but in no case can you go there. Stand for the Orthodox faith until the end of your days and be saved. May peace and salvation be upon you and us forever. Amen.

Prophecies of Schema-Archimandrite Seraphim

Schema-Archimandrite Seraphim (Tyapochkin, + 6.4.1982) from Rakitnoye (1977): “During the memorable conversation, a young woman from a Siberian city was present. Christians and those who disagree with their rule. "This was an answer to her doubt about the words of the elder that almost all of Siberia would be captured by the Chinese. The elder said what was revealed to him about the future of Russia, he did not name dates, he only emphasized that the time of the accomplishment of what was said - in the hands of God, and much depends on how the spiritual life of the Russian Church will take shape, how strong faith in God will be among the Russian people, what will be the prayer feat of believers [...] The elder said that the collapse of Russia, despite the apparent strength and rigidity of power, will happen very quickly. First, the Slavic peoples will be divided, then the union republics will fall away: the Baltic, Central Asian, Caucasian and Moldavia. After that, the central power in Russia will begin to weaken even more, so that autonomous republics and regions will begin to separate. Further collapse will follow: the authorities of the Center will no longer actually recognize individual regions, which will try to live independently and will no longer pay attention to decrees from Moscow. The biggest tragedy will be the capture of Siberia by China. This will not happen by military means: due to the weakening of power and open borders, the Chinese will begin to move to Siberia in droves, buying up real estate, enterprises, and apartments. Through bribery, intimidation, agreements with those in power, they will gradually subjugate the economic life of cities. Everything will happen in such a way that in one morning the Russian people living in Siberia will wake up ... in the Chinese state. The fate of those who remain there will be tragic, but not hopeless. The Chinese will brutally crack down on any attempts at resistance. (That is why the elder predicted the martyrdom at the stadium of the Siberian city of many Orthodox and patriots of the Motherland). The West will promote this creeping conquest of our land and support China's military and economic power in every possible way out of hatred for Russia. But then they will see the danger for themselves, and when the Chinese try to seize the Urals by military force and move on, they will prevent this by all means and can even help Russia in repelling the invasion from the East. Russia must endure in this battle, after suffering and complete impoverishment, she will find the strength to rise in herself. And the coming revival will begin in the lands conquered by the enemies, among the Russians who remained in the former republics of the Union. There, the Russian people realize what they have lost, realize themselves as citizens of that Motherland that still lives, wish to help it rise from the ashes. Many Russians living abroad will help restore life in Russia... Many of those who can escape persecution and persecution will return to their original Russian lands to fill abandoned villages, cultivate neglected fields, and use the remaining unexploited subsoil. The Lord will send help, and, despite the fact that the country will lose the main deposits of raw materials, they will find on the territory of Russia both oil and gas, without which a modern economy is impossible. The elder said that the Lord would allow the loss of vast lands granted to Russia, because we ourselves could not use them worthily, but only polluted, spoiled ... But the Lord will leave behind Russia those lands that became the cradle of the Russian people and were the basis of the Great Russian state. This is the territory of the Grand Moscow Principality of the 16th century with access to the Black, Baltic and North Seas. Russia will not be rich, but it will still be able to feed itself and force itself to be reckoned with. To the question: "What will happen to Ukraine and Belarus?" The elder replied that everything was in the hands of God. Those who in these nations are against an alliance with Russia - even if they consider themselves believers - become servants of the devil. At Slavic peoples one fate, and the reverend Fathers of the Kiev Caves will still say their weighty word - they, together with the host of the New Martyrs of Russia, will beg for a new Union of three fraternal peoples. Another question was asked about the possibility of restoring the monarchy in Russia. The elder replied that this restoration must be earned. It exists as a possibility, not as a predestination. If we are worthy, the Russian people will choose the Tsar, but this will become possible just before the accession of the Antichrist or even after it - for a very short time."

Venerable Theodosius (Kashin, + 1948), Elder of Jerusalem

"Was that the war [the Great Patriotic War]? Here there will be a war. It will start from the east. And then from all sides, like pruzi [locusts], enemies will crawl to Russia. This will be a war! .."

Blessed Kievan Elder Nun Alipia

“This will not be a war, but the execution of peoples for their rotten state. Dead bodies will lie in mountains, no one will undertake to bury them. Mountains, hills will disintegrate, will be razed to the ground. People will run from place to place.”

Quarreling over housing: “Here you quarrel, swear for an apartment, disperse ... And there will be a time when there will be a lot of empty apartments, but there will be no one to live in them”

Matushka paid special attention to the topic of land - those who had houses in the villages, land, livestock were forbidden to sell, indicating that they still need a farm.

Pasha Sarovskaya's prediction

On August 1, 1903, the holy prophetess Pasha Sarovskaya predicted a terrible fate for the Tsar and Tsarina: to be killed along with their children in 15 years. And so it happened.
“Next,” said the saint (she was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church), “four of your servants will be martyred with you. For each of the 11 people killed, the Lord puts 10 years. For Your Family - seven people, take it out and put it - the devil will walk And for each of Your servants, the Lord will double-check every ten years: has the Russian people repented? so much the better, the sooner he repents. But I tell you, Tsar, by the end of these 110 years there will be a Tsar in Russia from your dynasty."

The Russian people betrayed and rejected Christ - God, when they betrayed and rejected the Holy Tsar, the Anointed One, thereby committing a terrible SIN. After they betrayed and rejected the King of God, Russia was captured by the forces of the devil, who are destroying Russia, the Faith and the Russian people. The only salvation of Russia is ALL NATIONAL REPENTANCE for the sin of regicide and PRAYER for the Coming King of God's ANOINTED. When ALL RUSSIAN PEOPLE REPENT THE SIN OF TSARMURDER AND WILL PRAY FOR THE COMING KING BEFORE CHRIST GOD, then the Lord will give the Tsar the Conqueror, who will save Russia and the Russian people from the Antichrist and the horrors of the last times.

Prophecy of Saint Malachy

One of the most famous prophets of Rome Catholic Church is Saint Malachi, who died in 1148. This Irish priest made a list of all future popes since Celestine II (1143).

On April 2, 2005, John Paul II died, in the world a Pole Karol Wojtyla. He was 110th in the list of Malachy, who awarded this Pope with the motto "from the labors of the Sun."
About the 111th pope ( Benedict XVI) Malachi succinctly reports as the "glory of the olive" (in another translation - "the triumph of the world"). Malachy does not say how long the peace-loving Pope will last in power, but with his successor (already replacing Benedict XVI in early 2013), whom the soothsayer calls by name, the world is in for a catastrophe. When the holy throne is occupied by the 112th Peter of Rome, or Peter II (the first, as you know, was the Apostle Peter, a disciple of Christ, who established the institution of the papacy), the end of the world will come. Against his custom, Malachi dedicates a whole paragraph to the last Pope of Rome, which says the following: "At the end of time, the place of the Holy Roman Church will be occupied by Peter of Rome, who will feed the weak-willed, committing many disasters. At this time, the City of Seven Hills will be destroyed and the Monstrous Judge will judge the nations. The end."

Here is such a picture of the future...

“Small but daring – RFID adoption in full swing” was the headline of a Euronews report on June 23, 2015.

RFID- This is a microchip that is implanted under the skin of everyone. According to Sandro Portner, one of those who implanted the chip, he, being fascinated by modern technologies, decided to try them out for himself. Now, with the help of a chip, he can open doors, unlock a smartphone and interact with other electronic devices. “In the beginning there were skeptics”, says Sandro, “who were suspicious of the idea, and then, after observing, they began to say - why not? A chip like this makes a lot of things easier in life.”.

Anthropologist Daniela Serki echoes him: “Today, the understanding of what is convenient and what is not has changed. We live in a consumer society and the bar is being raised all the time. And what today seems strange, raising questions, tomorrow turns out to be something that we cannot do without. The more intensive the progress is, the shorter this distance becomes.”

“Employees of one of the banks in Stockholm, having implanted microchips, do not need any cards or “badges” to gain access to customers' safes” Euronews journalists say.

Well, as we see, everything is for the sake of man. To make life easier for him. Today this is a voluntary matter - if you want to install a chip, you don't want to, but it's only a matter of time. From the Revelation of John the Theologian, we know that times will come when “Little and great, rich and poor, free and slaves, a mark will be put on their right hand or on their forehead, and that no one will be able to buy or sell, except the one who has this mark, or the name of the beast, or the number his name."

The only question is when this will happen. However, it cannot be said that this will happen unexpectedly and suddenly. This will happen over time. Society will be stigmatized gradually. Why forced chipization, when a person himself is ready to implant anything under the skin in order to open doors without a key? Such a person will enter the electronic concentration camp himself, and will also close the door behind him.

But smartphones, doors, and the so-called smart home are all trifles for technology geeks (a geek is a person who is extremely passionate about something). Satan has a weapon and a much larger caliber. The Achilles' heel of modern man is his health. Therefore, one of the key arguments of those who promote mass chipization is forerunner of the mark of the name or number of the beast, the ability to test the state of human health in real time.

It is no secret that when our health deteriorates sharply and problems begin, we easily become prey for propagandists and charlatans. One is ready to buy expensive medicines that famous actors talk about on TV, the other is ready to go to Kashpirovsky. Just think, people even with higher technical education are beginning to believe in magic, spells and voodoo dolls. This is where the servants of the evil one are waiting for us.

“Do you want to protect yourself from cancer? Get a chip!” propagandists say. And people will run. “Do you want to protect your child from illness and sudden death? Do you want to know where he is and how he feels? Implant him with a chip from birth!” And people will start chipping newborns.

The task of Christians is to fight this phenomenon. Talk about it. Explain to people. Do not create sects of anti-INNs and anti-chipists, but in peace of mind resist this diabolical work. (Remember how the apostles and early Christian martyrs testified of their faith—in the power of the Spirit and faith.)

Don't run foaming at the mouth with burning eyes, frightening people, but calmly, with faith in God and His providence, testify that the words of the Apocalypse are coming true, and that one should not implant a chip for the sake of health and convenience. After all, health and comfort are temporary that it is only a means of influencing us.

Satan's task is to captivate as many of the faithful as possible. Our task is not to get carried away and, if possible, to help the weak. The main thing is to stay in the Church. She is the ship of salvation. And remember that Christ will come again and conquer. Hey, come, Lord Jesus!

In contact with

Archpriest Alexander Khlebnikov. The sermon was delivered in the Church of the Holy Royal Martyrs in Izhevsk on September 26, SS/October 9, NS. 2013 at the All-Night Vigil before the Six Psalms. Attributed additions in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019

There is an opinion that the Apocalypse is not read at the service, it is not so. According to the church charter, the Revelation of John the Theologian is supposed to be read in full on the day of his memory at the all-night vigil, before the Six Psalms, in the so-called. Great readings. The fact that such readings are omitted everywhere does not mean that believers should not know and read this book, which contains prophecies about the time before the Second Coming of Christ.
“The Apocalypse is read after the Epistles, probably it is supposed to be read during Great Lent, although in those places in the Typicon that relate to the rule of the Sundays of Great Lent, the reading of the Epistles, and not the Apocalypse, is mentioned. In addition, the Apocalypse is specifically listed as the Great Reading on the day of remembrance of St. John the Theologian on May 8 (Typicon. [T. 2.] S. 623, 627), and this is evidence that in the late Byzantine era, ap. John was recognized as the author of the Revelation of John the Evangelist. Thus, V. h. is the only moment in the divine service where the Apocalypse can be read. (Orthodox Encyclopedia).
The situation is paradoxical and sometimes even incomprehensible. The fact is that some of the prophecies of Revelation have come true, some of them before our eyes. We actually experience page after page of the Apocalypse. And, although Revelation was written as a warning, a warning for Christians in the last times, sometimes you hear the opinion that this book is almost harmful, if not dangerous, to read. The danger lies not in reading this book written by the apostle John, but in ignorance of it, otherwise it is worth asking the question, but at what historical moment should one read it?
The unwillingness to listen to the warnings written in Revelation is akin to the state in which the Lord reproaches the Pharisees: “He answered and said to them: in the evening you say: there will be a bucket, because the sky is red; and in the morning: bad weather today, because the sky is purple. Hypocrites! you know how to discern the face of heaven, but you cannot tell the signs of the times” Mt. 16:2-3.
And we also talk a lot about the weather, and what the weather will be like tomorrow, watch the news, look on the Internet, but the thing is, take an umbrella when it rains and put on a fur coat when it snows. At the same time, events occur before our eyes that change the face of the world overnight, and we do not notice or sleep. Also, people were careless before wars, revolution, the death of the Empire, the destruction of the state, but in one day, or even an hour, the whole ordinary way of people changed forever.
So those who humiliate the prophecies of the Apostle of Love John also sin against the Truth and against common sense. The Lord, in great love, opens the veil of the last times for us, not with the aim of frightening us, but with the aim of saving us, and somewhere even comforting us, so that we do not despair, seeing the general Apostasy and the related appearance of the Antichrist and the end of the world.

So let's take a quick look at some of the prophecies of Revelation. Unlike the fearful, the sleepy, and the unbelieving, the apostle John writes to believers:
“Blessed is he who reads and hears the words of this prophecy, and keeps what is written in it; for the time is at hand” Rev. 1:3. He calls those who read, listen and observe what is written in Revelation blessed. If this is written, then it is really so, for the words of Holy Scripture are the words of the Holy Spirit. But what is this bliss? He who will read the Apocalypse before the end of the world will be truly blessed, for he will understand what is happening. And understanding, he will prepare himself. While reading, he will see in the events described in the Apocalypse, these or other events contemporary to him.

Almost the most important sign of the last times is spiritual lukewarmness.
Apostasy from God occurs primarily in the spirit. Here is how the apostle John describes the spiritual state of Christians of pre-end times:
“And write to the Angel of the Church of Laodicea: thus says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God: I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot; oh, if you were cold, or hot! But since you are warm and not hot or cold, I will spew you out of My mouth. For you say, "I am rich, I have become rich, and have need of nothing"; but you do not know that you are unhappy, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. I advise you to buy from Me gold purified by fire, so that you may become rich, and white clothes to clothe yourself so that the shame of your nakedness will not be seen, and anoint your eyes with eye ointment so that you can see. Those whom I love, I rebuke and punish. So be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and I will dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, just as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne” Rev. 3:14-21
The Laodocian church is a prototype of the church of the last times, showing the lukewarmness of Christians before the end of the world, mixed with pride, “rich, I have become rich, I have no need” - apparent spiritual prosperity, without repentance, correction of sinful life, spiritual warfare, hypocritical faith, confusion of concepts good and evil, spiritual blindness, following those who flatter their ears: “For there will be a time when they will not accept sound doctrine, but according to their whims they will choose for themselves teachers who would flatter their ears; and turn their ears away from the truth and turn to fables.” 2 Tim. 4:3-4.
Literally, such a soul makes God vomit: “I will vomit you out of My mouth.” How many Christians do you see who have been going to the temple for years, “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” 2. Tim. 3:1-7. Or in their blindness, those who are proud of their “spiritual” prosperity, thinking that they have already read everything, have been everywhere, comprehended everything, know everything, and they themselves are “unhappy, miserable, poor, blind and naked”, deprived of any real spiritual work, discernment of good and evil, love, true virtue, "having a form of godliness, but denying its power" 2 Tim. 3:5.
“Know that in the last days there will be hard times. For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, ungodly, unfriendly, implacable, slanderers, intemperate, cruel, not loving good, traitors, insolent, pompous, more voluptuous than lovers of God, having an appearance of piety, but his powers are denied. Get rid of those. To these belong those who creep into houses and deceive women, drowning in sins, led by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so these also oppose the truth, people corrupted in mind, ignorant in faith. But they won't get much done; for their folly will be revealed before all, as it happened to those ... Yes, and all who want to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Evil people and deceivers will prosper in evil, leading astray and going astray. 2 Timothy 3:1-13.
The words of St. Theophan the Recluse about the last times begin to come true with one’s own eyes: “Then, although the name of the Christian will be heard everywhere, and churches and church rites will be seen everywhere, but all this is just an appearance, but inside the apostasy is true.”

This is how Archimandrite John (Krestyankin) writes about it in his “Sermon on the Memory of Death”:
And God is forgotten! But again, will I not hear objections to my words - is God forgotten?! All around there is only talk about opening monasteries, churches, about grace, about God. Yes, our dear ones, there is a lot of talk, but the combination of the human with the Divine is now simply monstrous. Verbal piety and going to church are now combined with the cynicism of perversity in an unthinkable inner harmony.
Terrible idle talk, slander, deceit, lies, falsehood, selfishness and the lawlessness of cohabitation coexist in the conscience of many with sighs, weeping and the acceptance of the Holy Mysteries.
And the man thinks that he is with God. But no, in vain thinks. This is not Christianity, this is its cynical extermination. And it has already broken into the Church itself, when many, calling themselves Christians, adapt the lofty truths of God to their needs, enveloping the truths with the mud of their earthly understanding and feeling.
This is not the revival of the Christian spirit in our world - this is its extermination. And what an answer will be given by the blasphemers who have mixed truth with lies, doing the deeds of the devil and trampling on the holy things of God, which they dare to touch! And the ax of death lies already at the tree of life. And God is waiting for repentance!
God is still waiting!
But will not soon - today, now - the one who gather in himself, and not in God grow rich: foolish, this very night your soul will be tortured from you: and even thou hast prepared, for whom will they be? (Luke 12:21:20)"
In "The Healing of the Crooked Woman":
“But now you and I are no longer distant examples, but our own life makes us aware of the violence and tyranny over us both of the devil himself and the sons of disobedience, that is, people who became the executors of his evil will on earth.
... All the little evil that we, sinful people manage to do, is brought together by the great conductor - Satan, the one who sows small things in us. It is he who will grow the small into the big. This is called the mystery of iniquity (2 Thess. 2:7). And the mystery of lawlessness ascends from strength to strength (Ps. 83:8) precisely because our resistance, our understanding of it, has completely weakened.
In our seduction we forget God, we forget heaven, we forget eternity. And on this basis of the total immersion of people in carnal life, a monstrous depravity grows.
Babies, conceived in iniquity, appear in the world sick, possessed from birth by the spirit of malice, and surpass adults in craftiness. The youths, not knowing childish innocence, play adults, and look for special visions and sensations in stupefying chemical reagents. Boys and girls, not even knowing the very concept of innocence and purity, are immersed in the blato of such dirt, which is scary to think about and shameful to speak about. And drug frenzy for many becomes the only real life. And the roar of demonic noise that burst into our homes from television screens deafened, fooled everyone, from small to large, and involved everyone in a whirlpool of hellish whirling, enslaving souls with violence.
... And it becomes the norm of life - walk over the corpses crushed by you, tear a piece from someone else's mouth and spit on all sorts of precepts. And the enemy that sowed the terrible weeds of malice and pride of a false mind, a manslayer from time immemorial, a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44) - admires the fruits of his deeds. He succeeded. He defeated the people. And now we do not so much deny God as we displace God from the heart of man with all his passions and worldly cares. God is simply forgotten.
…But no! The great "boyfriend" - the devil - at the very threshold of the Church steals from most of them the humble consciousness of who he is and why he came here. And a person does not enter, but “tumbles” into the Church with everything that is and was in him before, from the life he has lived, and from these positions he immediately begins to judge and judge what is so in the Church, and what it is time to change.
And he already knows what grace is and how it looks like, before he even starts to be an Orthodox Christian, he becomes a judge and a teacher. So again the Lord is driven out of his heart by him.
And where? Right in the Church.
And a person will not feel this anymore, because he is in the Church, because he has already flipped through all the books, and it’s time for him, in his opinion, to take holy orders, and it’s time for her to dress in monastic clothes.
But, our dear ones, they can accept and will accept holy orders, they will also accept monasticism, but all without God, led by the same force that led them in life before coming to the Church and that deceived them so cleverly now. And then wait for other exceptional phenomena that are possible only on the basis of a distorted faith.
Without labor, without struggle, and without suffering on the Cross, accepted Christianity—without life, but only in name, and therefore without God—will manifest various deceptions in visions and revelations.
And we all need to remember that in a soul that is bright and pure, and one thought thrown from the devil will immediately cause embarrassment, heaviness and heartache, but in a soul darkened by sin, still bodily and defiled, even the very presence it will be inconspicuous. And this inconspicuousness is helped by the very spirit of malice, for it is beneficial to him. And he, tyrannically ruling over the sinner, tries to keep him in temptation, as if a person acts by himself, or inspires that the Angel of light, whose image the evil one took, has already honored the life of a person with his appearance ...
From the lives of the ascetic fathers we know that they recognized a demon that appeared to them even in the form of Christ. The spiritual blindness of almost the majority of modern people, even those who call themselves Christians, will amaze them with ever-increasing demonic temptations.

This crafty combination of the human and the Divine is now completely unthinkable. A person goes to the temple, but at the same time, faith in astrology, omens, divination, going to all sorts of sorcerers, “grandmothers”, belief in the year of the pig, dragon, etc. coexists in his soul, pagan abomination.
Life without a crown and even a marriage concluded before people, cohabitation with married or married. Adultery, fornication - betrayal of one's closest people on earth, one's children, one's husband or wife. Killing your children by abortion, hormonal contraceptives, or otherwise. They even go so far as to conceive children in an unnatural way.
Actually, spiritual blindness leads to the fact that a person outwardly, while doing and looking like a believer, “Orthodox” doing everything, actually becomes on a par with the God-killers - the Pharisees, accepts the spirit of the Antichrist. A person who is not able to discern the ostentatious hypocritical service to God, a wolf in sheep's clothing, will easily accept the Antichrist. The Antichrist is the greatest actor who will deceive the whole world. Behind the mask of kindness, love, piety there will be a terrifying Beast, a God-opponent, a misanthrope. Why will people accept it? Yes, because they have long accepted it with their spirit. And the spirit of antichrist is hypocrisy. The apostasy itself, the apostasy from God, will take place precisely at the moment when the “mystery of lawlessness,” the apostasy, will take place within the Church. When that invisible threshold of outwardly believing, hypocrites, Pharisees will exceed those who sincerely believe in God. So it was before the revolution of 1917, when the entire mass of believers in spirit had long ago departed from Christ and brought only external Pharisees' worship.
“Fear this hypocrisy,” teaches St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov), “fear hypocrisy, firstly in yourself, then in others: be afraid precisely because it is in the nature of time and is capable of infecting anyone at the slightest deviation into frivolous behavior Pursue hypocrisy in yourself, driving it out of yourself, turn away from the masses infected by it, acting both intentionally and unconsciously in its direction, covering up the service of the world by serving God, the search for temporal blessings in the search for eternal blessings, covering the wicked life and the soul, wholly devoted to passions, with the guise of holiness "St. Ignatius (Bryanchaninov). At the same time, St. Ignatius himself recalls how much he suffered from an almost constant meeting with spiritual “leaders who were ill with blindness and self-delusion, and how many bitter and heavy shocks” he experienced from this.

Revelation is full of images, some events can only be understood when they happened. “The third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a lamp, and fell on a third of the rivers and on the fountains of water. The name of this star is "wormwood"; and a third of the waters became wormwood, and many of the people died from the waters, because they became bitter” Rev. 8:10-11.
Elder Paisios Svyatogorets (†1994), one of the greatest pillars of Athos monasticism in the 20th century, said that the Apocalypse was already being fulfilled today, but, unfortunately, not everyone sees this. He pointed out that the Apostle John the Theologian gave us a detailed and clear description of the coming events. “Perhaps,” said Elder Paisius, “we will have to go through much of what is said in the Apocalypse. The apostasy has come, and now it remains only for the “son of perdition” to come (2 Thess. 2:3). Reading the Apocalypse today is like reading a newspaper, everything is written so clearly.” As an example, he cited the prophecy about the fall of the "wormwood" star, which poisoned a third of the waters, which led to the death of many people. Rev. 8:10-11. This prophecy, the God-wise elder claimed, had already come true in the form of the Chernobyl tragedy of 1986 (wormwood in Ukrainian is Chernobyl), and therefore “those who expect the fall of a star are deeply mistaken, and will not understand that this has already been fulfilled.”
Wormwood in Ukrainian "Chernobyl", it would seem, and here is a star. The nearest star to us; Sun. Basic processes in stars; nuclear reactions. Nuclear missiles are those stars that "fall from the sky" Matt.24:29.
The Lord showed the apostle John the events of the last time. As a Galilean fisherman could describe, the action of nuclear weapons, rockets falling from the sky and a nuclear explosion. Just like shooting stars, and even from a scientific point of view, he is right, because the same processes take place in nuclear weapons as in the stars. "And many of the people died from the waters, because they became bitter" - infected with radiation. The continuation of this prophecy can be seen in the tragedy at Fukushima, where not one, but several reactors are throwing tons of radiation-contaminated water into the world's oceans.

In the description of the world war, we see modern equipment, tanks, missiles:
“The number of cavalry troops was two darkness; and I heard the number of it. Thus I saw in a vision horses and on them riders, who had armor of fire, hyacinth and brimstone on them; the heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and fire, smoke, and brimstone came out of their mouths. From these three plagues, from the fire, smoke, and brimstone that came out of their mouths, a third of the people died; for the strength of the horses was in their mouth and in their tails; and their tails were like serpents, and had heads, and with them they harmed” Rev. 9:16-19.
Doesn’t this evidence of Revelation point to modern military equipment (tanks spewing fire, etc.) In the Third Book of the Prophet Ezra, which is rightly called the Old Testament Apocalypse, we find, for example, such an episode from the upcoming war: “And great clouds (planes) will rise and strong, full of ferocity ... and they will pour on every place ... a terrible star, fire and hail, flying swords (rockets, shells, bombs) ”(3 Ezra 15, 40-41).

The Chinese army is the largest in the world, 2.5 million people, which in wartime, according to experts, can be brought from 200-400 million people. “Two dozens of topics” (in the Church Slavonic account, “darkness” is 10 thousand, which means: “two dozens of topics” is 2 × 10.000 × 10.000, that is, two hundred million).

Explanatory Bible edited by Professor Alexander Pavlovich Lopukhin (1852-1904): Evil angels will be released then, at that particular hour of the day, month and year in which this release is appointed by Divine predestination, that is, when wickedness among people of the last time reaches its highest level of development. This time will also be the time of the coming of the Antichrist. Then, through the action of evil spirits, terrible disasters will begin, which will entail the death of many people - a third of them, according to the Apocalypse. Even the chosen Christians will be subjected to these end-time calamities along with the wicked (Mt. 24:13, 21, 22). Calamities will come from an innumerable host, for which the four evil angels will be only secret inspirers, not excluding their ordinary natural leaders. Moreover, a certain number of this army - two hundred million - is taken not in the sense of the exact number of individual soldiers, but in the sense of an indefinite indication of its immensity.
The only country in the world that can muster such an army is China.

V.S. Soloviev (October 1, 1894)
...From Malay waters to Altai
Chiefs from the Eastern Isles
At the walls of drooping China
Gathered the darkness of their regiments.

Like locusts, innumerable
And insatiable like her
We are kept by an unearthly power,
The tribes are moving north.

Oh Rus! Forget the past glory
The double-headed eagle is crushed,
And yellow children for fun
Given shreds of your banners.

Resigned to trembling and fear,
Who could forget the covenant of love ...
And the Third Rome lies in the dust,
And there won't be a fourth.

There are many prophecies of Orthodox saints about the end of the world. From the life of Andrew the Holy Fool: “At that time the Lord God will open the gates of existence in Indolia ... and the kings 70 and two with their people, called unclean tongues, will come out and disperse throughout all lands, human flesh is living, eating, and drinking blood and dogs and flies and eating frogs and all the filth of this world… Then the days will fade… And then Satan the Antichrist will rise from the tribe of Dan…” nowadays there are reports of eating human embryos. Saint Ignatius (Bryanchaninov) 19th century writes as follows: “To explain this to yourself, think about China, then look at yourself, look at the relationship of your mind and heart to this country. .. You will see that your heart for this country is also dead, as if for a country that does not exist at all or exists only in fables.” Hieroschemamonk Aristokliy Athos (1918): "... The end will be through China." K.N.Leontiev Russian Orthodox philosopher (letter from Optina on May 3, 1890): “Peoples, incl. Slavic, "blown out" in the "hated European bourgeoisie" will be "devoured by the Chinese invasion." Note that the religion of Confucius is almost pure practical morality and does not know the Personal God, and Buddhism in China, which is also so strong, is directly religious atheism - why not Gogi and Magogi. Saint Andrew, Archbishop of Caesarea (5th century): “... that it is said about Gog that he is preparing from ancient times and will come in the last times, and finally, because in this Revelation, predicting the future, it is said that Gog and Magog will appear at the end of the world."
Schema-Archimandrite Seraphim (Tyapochkin, + 6.4.1982) from Rakitnoye (1977): “During the memorable conversation, a young woman from a Siberian city was present. Christians and those who disagree with their rule. "This was an answer to her doubt about the words of the elder that almost all of Siberia would be captured by the Chinese.
The elder said what was revealed to him about the future of Russia, he did not name dates, he only emphasized that the time for the accomplishment of what was said is in the hands of God, and much depends on how the spiritual life of the Russian Church will develop, how strong faith in God will be among Russians people, what will be the prayer feat of believers.

We, to our deep regret, will be pushed against each other by politicians (the world elite, as they call themselves), and ordinary Chinese themselves are sympathetic normal people, in whom there is even more hospitality than many Russians.

About Gog and Magog
Sts. Ephraim the Syrian and John Chrysostom under Gog and Magog meant the peoples who oppressed the Jews shortly after their return from Babylon (Creations of Ephraim the Syrian. T. V. C. 58; Chrysostom. T. S. 668).

“The word Magog is used for the first time in the book of Genesis (X, 2). This is one of the sons of Japheth. Ezekiel's prophecy speaks of Gog and Magog; from it these names are transferred to the Apocalypse with the same concepts in which they were accepted by Ezekiel, but with different applications. Gog in Ezekiel is portrayed as a glorious and terrible conqueror who invades the land of the people of Israel with a large army (XXXVIII, 15,-16) ... Gog was an instrument of God's wrath against Israel, but then he himself became the subject of vengeance also for God's wrath for cruelty and wickedness. The word Magog meant either the land or the people commanded by Gog... From the Apocalypse it is clear that the predictions sometimes in the same words referred to the Judgment of God over the wickedness of the last times of the existence of the world, the time of the advent, the kingdom of the last Antichrist. The concept of Gog at all times was the concept of a fierce, warlike ruler, commanding diverse tribes and numerous crowds of warriors, violating the ordinances of God, a bloodthirsty villain, an enemy of God, faith and His Church and worship Him. Gog is the antichrist; Magog is his army. Gog means one who gathers, and Magog means an assembly of peoples. Jerome. Tolkov. At 7 st. XXth Ch. Apoc. S. 259). Satan unleashed at the end of time and will raise them up to battle with the city of God. Gog and Magog are those nations in which the devil is imprisoned until the time, as it were, in the abyss. (To the same topic, S. Nilus "Near is at the door" chapter L "empire du Milieu - the Middle Kingdom).

“And I saw another beast coming out of the earth; he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. He acts before him with all the power of the first beast and makes the whole earth and those who dwell on it worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed; And he does great signs, so that he brings down fire from heaven to earth before people. And by the miracles that he was given to do before the beast, he deceives those who live on the earth, telling those who live on the earth to make an image of the beast, which is wounded by the sword and lives. And it was given to him to put the spirit into the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast both spoke and acted in such a way that everyone who did not worship the image of the beast was killed. And he will make sure that everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, will have a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and that no one will be able to buy or sell, except the one who has this mark. , or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Whoever has a mind, count the number of the beast, for this is the number of a man; his number is six hundred and sixty-six." Rev. 13:11-18.

Revelation tells us that a world state will be built, covering the whole earth, all countries and peoples, social groups, built on total control and despotism, that without some kind of mark of the beast it will be impossible "neither to buy, but to sell." Complete total world control. Under the rule of a single ruler of the Beast from the sea - Antichrist. Rev. 13.1.
We see the fulfillment of this prophecy every day when we come to the store, already now all products have a barcode; long parallel stripes; at the beginning, middle and end they indicate the number 6. Archimandrite (now bishop) Tikhon (Shevkunov), rector of the Sretensky Monastery in Moscow, wrote about this many years ago in his article “Schengen Zone”. http://www.pravoslavie.ru/shengen/shengen6.htm
The international spelling of the word “barcode” is bar-code, and the word bar in translation from English is a bar, a bolt, a rod, a strip, a line ... The Apocalypse was originally written in Greek, where the word "draw" literally means - to draw deep straight lines, cut them out, scribble. Encoding on a magnetic tape in various types of bank cards is carried out using the same barcode.
There is a lot of controversy as to what mark the beast-false prophet will put. The number is human, i.e. it will be some number instead of a name. The number will replace the name of the person, instead of the name that is given to us in baptism, expressing our personality, there will be some satanic depersonalizing digital code. This code will be a pass to the world economic system, and since such a system is being built by the mystery of lawlessness (2 Thess. 2.7) with the sole purpose of enslaving humanity to one world leader, the false messiah, the Antichrist, then participation in this system is a direct denial of Christ and acceptance, agreement with the Antichrist. Therefore, all the arguments on the topic of universal cards, biopassports, microchips, laser application technologies are completely incomprehensible. No matter how a person entered this anti-Christian system, the world kingdom of the Antichrist, he equally renounced Christ.

Moreover, when describing the mark of the Beast, the apostle John directly speaks of three various types seal: “the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name” Rev. 13:17. Or one, or the other, or the third. If by means of a certain document we enter the world economic system, then we, using this document, will be able to “buy and sell”, i.e. let us quite consciously accept the mark of the Antichrist under whatever form it may be. From a passport card to a microchip and laser inscriptions (this technology is registered in the USA).

All these cards, etc., are introduced under the slogan of convenience and security, the words of the Apostle Paul are recalled, "For when they say: "Peace and security," then suddenly destruction will overtake them "1 Thess.5,3.

"The process of apostasy, the decomposition of a living and integral Christian worldview, predicted by the Lord Jesus Christ almost two thousand years ago, is close to completion. Apparently, God has judged us to become contemporaries of the "end times". The Antichrist as a real political possibility of our days is no longer in doubt" . Metropolitan St. Petersburg and Ladoga John (Snychev).

Consecrated Bishops' Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church
(February 2-5, 2013)
The position of the Church in connection with the development of accounting technologies
and processing of personal data
“The Church considers unacceptable any form of coercion of citizens to use electronic identifiers, automated means of collecting, processing and recording personal data and personal confidential information. The realization of the right to access to social benefits without electronic documents must be provided with material, technical, organizational and, if necessary, legal guarantees. The Church considers inadmissible the forced application of any visible or invisible identification marks to the human body, the implantation of identification micro- and nanoelectronic devices into the human body.
Due to the fact that the possession of personal information creates the possibility of controlling and managing a person through various areas of life (finance, medical care, family, social security, property, etc.), there is a real danger of not only interfering in a person’s daily life, but also introducing a temptation into his soul. The Church shares the fears of citizens and considers it unacceptable to restrict their rights if a person refuses to consent to the processing of personal data...
The Church carries out a dialogue on these issues with the authorities of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, the states of Central Asia and other countries, seeking to take into account and understand the position of believers. The Council considers it especially important to observe the principle of voluntariness in the adoption of any identifiers, which implies the possibility of choosing traditional methods of identification. The Council calls on the authorities of the states of the canonical space of our Church to adhere to this principle. At the same time, it is necessary to show respect for the constitutional rights of citizens and not discriminate against those who refuse to accept electronic means of identification.
In case of coercion of citizens to accept such means and discrimination associated with their non-acceptance, the Council invites these people to apply to the court, as well as to inform the diocesan hierarchy and, if necessary, the Synodal Department for Relations between the Church and Society.
However, many things warn us that we may face new challenges. If the narrowing of the boundaries of freedom, carried out including by means of electronic control, leads to the impossibility of free confession of the faith of Christ, and legislative, political or ideological acts that are mandatory for execution become incompatible with the Christian way of life, the time will come for confession, which the Book of Revelation speaks of. (Ch. 13-14)."

To the statements of modern Gnostics that there is nothing terrible, everything can be accepted, it is worth asking to whom and why the Apostle John revealed these terrible events. Why do we not listen to the voice of the Church, to our Archpastors, who call to go to confession, but not to accept the mark of the Beast in whatever form it is offered to us. The Council of Bishops, referring to the 14th chapter of Revelation, had in mind the following words: “And the third angel followed them, speaking with a loud voice: whoever worships the beast and his image and receives a mark on his forehead or his hand. He will drink the wine of the wrath of God, the whole wine prepared in the cup of His wrath, and will be tormented with fire and brimstone before the holy angels and before the Lamb; And the smoke of their torment will ascend forever and ever, and they will have no rest, day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and who receive the mark of his name.”

It is very important to note that this mark will be introduced before the appearance of Antichrist as a person, the mark will be introduced not by Antichrist - a beast from the sea (Rev. 13.1) as the apostle John writes, but a beast from the earth - a false prophet "And I saw another beast coming out earth (Rev. 13:11)" - another beast - the forerunner of the Antichrist. Revelation is very clear about this. Moreover, the seal will be introduced precisely as a world trading system "no one will be able to buy or sell", no one will demand an explicit renunciation of Christ, everything is done slyly, therefore the Apostle John writes in order to understand that it will be necessary to reason "Here wisdom. Who has a mind." Modern interpreters believe that the false prophet is a set of mass media with the help of which anti-Christian morality and the ideology of the “new world order”, new paganism, the cult of violence, depravity and profit, knowledge is only necessary for earthly carnal, animal life, comforts, although it will and some personality. "And the beast was seized, and with him the false prophet, who worked miracles before him, with which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and worshiped his image: both were thrown alive into the lake of fire, burning with brimstone." Rev. 19:20.

See talk. St. Andrew of Caesarea: the serpent is Satan (Rev. 12:3), he is also the beast that comes out of the abyss (Rev. 11:7); the beast that comes out of the sea is the Antichrist (Rev. 13:1), and the beast that comes out of the earth is a false prophet (Rev. 13:11). The inscription on the forehead or on the right hand will be placed not by the Antichrist, as many believers incorrectly believe today, but by a false prophet who will precede the Antichrist in time.

"And I saw that one of his heads was, as it were, mortally wounded, but this mortal wound was healed" (Rev. him with all the power of the first beast and makes the whole earth and those who live on it worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed” Rev.13:12. Christianity inflicted a mortal wound on paganism, but what we see now is a real revival of paganism “the wound has healed”. "Bread and circuses" - this is the pagan slogan that has become the slogan of modern mankind "take everything from life" the slogan of one Western company and the Church of Satan of America, "do whatever you want." A complete overthrow not only of Christian ideals, but also of human morality. Planting unnatural depravity, which was so common in the Roman Empire.

This animal life itself, expressed in the service of one's passions, makes a person a servant of the Antichrist even before accepting any mark. The Antichrist is called the Beast in the Apocalypse, a person who lives according to the flesh also becomes a beast. The absence of fasting, prayer, sincere service to God, the search for God, puts a person on a par with dumb animals.

“A distinctive feature of a sinner,” St. Theophan the Recluse instructs, “is not always obvious depravity, but actually the absence of inspired self-sacrificing zeal for pleasing God, with a resolute aversion to everything sinful — that with him piety does not constitute the main subject of cares and labors, that he, caring about many other things, completely indifferent to his acquisition, does not feel in what danger he is, neglects a good life and leads a cold life in faith, although sometimes a serviceable and impeccable one.

“A friend of the world,” writes St. Ignatius (Bryanchaninov), “is made without fail, perhaps imperceptibly to himself, worst enemy God... When serving the world, service to God is impossible, and there is none, even though it appears to exist. He is not! And what appears to be nothing but hypocrisy, pretense, deception of oneself and others.

"But outside are dogs, and sorcerers, and fornicators, and murderers, and idolaters, and everyone who loves and does unrighteousness" Rev.22:15. The Apostle calls dogs not animals, but people, just as the Apostle Peter writes: “They, like dumb animals, led by nature, born to trap and destroy, slandering what they do not understand, will be destroyed in their corruption. They will receive retribution for iniquity, for they find pleasure in everyday luxury, shameful and defiling, they delight in their deceptions, feasting with you, their eyes are full of lust and continual sin, they deceive unconfirmed souls, their heart is accustomed to covetousness: these are the sons of damnation, leaving the straight path, they went astray following in the footsteps of Balaam, the son of Vosorov, who loved the reward of unrighteousness, but was convicted of his iniquity: a dumb donkey, speaking in a human voice, stopped the madness of the prophet. uttering inflated idle talk, they lure into carnal lusts and debauchery those who are barely behind those who are in error, promising them freedom, being themselves slaves of corruption; for whoever is defeated by whom is the slave to him. For if, having escaped the filthiness of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they again become entangled in them and are overcome by them, then the latter is worse for them than the former. It would be better for them not to know the path of righteousness, than, having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment given to them. But according to a true proverb, it happens to them: the dog returns to his vomit, and: the washed pig goes to wallow in the mud. 2 Peter 12-22.

If a person's whole life is devoted to the acquisition of wealth, the search for pleasure, idleness, the search for power, then he truly becomes a beast. And everything is placed on the altar of this cult; from parents to their own wives and children. Divorces go off scale all conceivable limits, abortions number in the millions; drug addiction, alcoholism, sexually transmitted diseases are comparable to an epidemic, people are dying out at the rate of a million a year. And at the same time, someone is talking about spiritual uplift, when it is necessary to talk about complete spiritual impoverishment.

“Now Russia is one gigantic unhealed wound of spiritual and moral misfortunes prepared by its executioners over the past century. It has never happened in it that obscenity, the permissibility of debauchery, unbridledness and the nakedness of vices are so insolently proclaimed in all its corners, so that bribe-takers are so impudent and robbers, thieves and embezzlers of public funds, so that everyone who is not too lazy to get freedom, to drag, grab, plunder, enrich themselves, turning not even into animals, but into some unknown monsters ... An oncoming beast and that one is dearer than a man to a man in the present Fatherland!" - wrote an outstanding Russian scientist, academician F.Ya.Shipunov.

“But fornication and all uncleanness and covetousness should not even be named among you, as befits saints. Also, foul language and idle talk and laughter are not appropriate for you, but, on the contrary, thanksgiving; for know that no fornicator, or unclean, or covetous person, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you empty words for for this comes the wrath of God against the sons of disobedience; therefore, do not be their accomplices” Eph.5, 3-6. Empty talk that you can commit sin and remain a Christian.
holy Theophan the Recluse in the interpretation of 1 Cor. 5.11. “Now, writings will not mix with you, if a certain brother is called a fornicator, or a covetous man, or an idolater, or an annoyance, or a drunkard, or a predator; with such a person is below food.”
Here, he says, in what sense, I wrote to you! - Do not mix, do not enter into relations, do not have close communion with those who, bearing the name of a Christian, indulge in obvious vices. With such a person, it’s worse than eating - of course, ordinary hospitality, do not call him to yourself, do not go to him, and do not enter into transactions with him. Theodoret remarks: “If one should not have communion with such people in ordinary food, then even more so in mysterious and Divine food.” And in the course of speech it is clear that if we ourselves do not mix with those, then we should not allow them to mix with ourselves; and if this is in the ordinary order of life, then even more so in the church. This means that the Apostle defines: to consider such aliens from Christian society, the same as excommunicated, like that incest, vomited old kvass. The Apostle puts the reason for this - so as not to get infected from them, not to become fermented. Christians should be so holy and so faithful to the commandments that it should not even occur to them that they could sin while remaining a Christian. If obvious sinners remained in their society, then this zeal for moral purity would be greatly shaken by the thought that, it is true, Christians can bear a name and not be in fact what the name requires. To prevent this general relaxation, the Apostle orders to stop communication with such persons.

The Monk Nilus the Myrrh-Streaming calls carelessness and covetousness the forerunners of the Antichrist. “Growing worldly cares foreshadow the imminent embodiment of the dispensation of perdition in the world, i.e., the birth of the Antichrist ... Many-mindedness will darken the feelings of a person in order to make a person insensible to his salvation, so that he could not feel salvation from a multitude of carnal cares, that is, people do not will feel neither the desire for an eternal future life, nor the fear of eternal damnation."

The Apocalypse describes the state of the world at the end of time, i.e. our time is a description of the society in which we actually live. Unprecedented development of trade, the impression that everyone and everything is trading. Among the goods there are also very terrible ones: human bodies and souls.
“And the merchants of the earth will mourn and mourn over her, because no one buys their goods anymore, goods of gold and silver, and precious stones and pearls, and linen and purple, and silk and purple, and every fragrant wood, and all kinds of products made of ivory bones, and all articles of precious wood, copper and iron and marble, cinnamon and incense, and myrrh and frankincense, and wine and oil, and flour and wheat, and cattle and sheep, and horses and chariots, and the bodies and souls of men . And the fruit that was pleasing to your soul did not become with you, and everything fat and resplendent was removed from you; you won't find it anymore." Rev. 18:11-14.
Slave trade, trade in girls, children (“bodies and souls” are human), sale for debauchery, is it not the sale of the soul, trade in human organs, cosmetics made from aborted babies, fetal therapy, etc.
We live in a consumer society, when the purpose of people's life on earth has become the acquisition of various goods. Go to any shopping center, a huge number of people have the impression that they are there from morning to evening, not a single Church, even at Easter, has so many cars as every day at any of the most seedy shopping centers. The desire of people to acquire goods and dependence on everything “fat and brilliant” and “fruits pleasing to the soul” is not this a direct description of our time.

“And they repented not of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts” Rev. 9:21. The description of common sins before the end of the world corresponds exactly to our time. The killings in various wars are nothing compared to the killing of children - abortions, which are performed by millions, and there is no repentance for this sin. We ourselves kill our children, we kill in such a way that His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II exclaimed: The question is, is such a people even worthy of the sacred gift of life? Doesn't it justly become a reproach to people? And His Holiness Patriarch Kirill said that flying in an airplane over Siberia, you see "colossal expanses where no one lives or lives so few people that it's scary."
Sorcery - the spread of various roles of occult sects, Satanism, magic, witchcraft, astrology - because every newspaper publishes forecasts of this pseudoscience, faith in pagan Chinese New Year with their dragons, pigs, and other animals, which is nevertheless preached from all channels of television and other media, unheard-of debauchery, it has become the norm to fornicate, cheat, betray, live without marriage, even concluded before people, and not just without a wedding, adultery, leaving a husband or wife, divorces, leaving children in maternity hospitals and shelters, sodomy, perversions. Theft - they steal terribly and they don’t know what to do with it, but they still steal.
The Lord still gives time for repentance, but seeing the bitterness of many in sin, the Lord leaves such to judgment: “Let the unrighteous still do unrighteousness; let the unclean be still defiled; let the righteous still do righteousness, and let the saint be sanctified again” Rev. 22:11.
“The timid and unfaithful, and filthy, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, will have their fate in the lake burning with fire and brimstone. This is the second death. Rev. 21:8. We see that the Apostle John puts the “fearful” together with the unfaithful, filthy, murderers, fornicators, idolaters and liars, and therefore, when some who, out of fear, betray Christ, accepting the mark of the beast or “humble themselves” with the onset of the kingdom of Antichrist, let they will ask themselves what is more terrible: to endure eternal torment or “to endure to the end” (Matt. 10:22) in order to be saved and abide with God. Fortress all spiritual in the fight against their passions, temptations, temptations. Faith in God and faithfulness in keeping His commandments. "Yea, come Lord Jesus" Amen.

Archpriest Alexander Khlebnikov. The sermon was read in the Church of the Holy Royal Martyrs on October 26 at the All-Night Vigil before the Six Psalms.

2016 addition:

The notorious miracles of the false prophet and antichrist will take place in the air, the area of ​​fallen spirits, these signs will amaze the imagination. The fact that “the icon of the beast will say” is a purely technical “miracle”, when the technology that Tesla discovered will be used not to turn on light bulbs without wires, but to turn on any equipment that has an antenna (TVs, computers, phones , tablets). As well as the very creation of the world trading system, where without some kind of inscription “you can neither buy nor sell” implies the rejection of cash, and as we already see the use of technology (computer) for accounting and control over people.

They openly and frankly talk about the coming into the world of the Antichrist, who among Muslims is called Imam Mahdi, among Catholics, Protestants, Jews "Christ", among Hindus Bodistava, among Hare Krishnas the incarnation of Krishna. All false religions will accept him as their Savior. "The Pope called for the unification of Christians, Muslims and Jews, and prepare for the coming." - the united religion is the religion of the Antichrist. I am more and more inclined to believe that the false prophet is the Pope.

"Pope Francis told Iranian President Rouhani the Bible prophecies regarding the 'end of times', which are now being fulfilled, and that the world has entered a period of irreversible upheaval and will be changed beyond recognition by the next (2017) year.
Responding to President Rouhani's assertion that the Mahdi was coming, Pope Francis confirmed that this was indeed the case, but that his name was Christ.
The Pope called for the unification of Christians, Muslims and Jews, and to prepare for the coming.
“All who are from the Abrahamic religions, now is the time for unity, for the end times are near.”

Several reports have already come out of the Vatican regarding statements made by Pope Francis and President Rouhani while visiting holy museums and churches. Given that this was the first time an Iranian leader had met the pontiff since 1989, the meeting was surprisingly pleasant for both leaders, as if they were trusted old friends.
However, the topic of the discussion was grim - "a warning of dark days in the very near future."
“There were many tears shed,” confirmed an eyewitness from the Vatican.
“Both of them tried their best to support each other. They both know what's going on in the world. Pope Francis said that we have entered a phase - the "end times". Bible prophecies are coming true.”

Saint Cosmas of Aetolia (1779): "The Pope is the Antichrist", "Curse the Pope, because he will cause (apostasy)" (Prophecy).

St. Father Justin Popovich, professor of dogmatic theology (1979): “There are three main cases of fall in the history of mankind: Adam, Judas, the pope... the papacy with its morality is more than Arianism... the domat about the infallibility of the pope is not only heresy , but also utterly. Because none of the heresies rose up in the root and so all-encompassing against the God-man Christ and His Church as papism did with its infallibility of the Pope-man. There is no doubt about it. This dogma is the heresy of heresies, an unprecedented rebellion against Jesus Christ."

The Evangelist John says in his First Epistle: "Children... the Antichrist is coming, and now the Antichrist is many." ...

Ephraim the Syrian, Antichrist will come “in such a way as to deceive everyone: a humble, meek, hater (as he says about himself) of injustice, averse to idols, preferring piety, kind, poor-loving, supremely good-looking, constant, affectionate to everyone” .

Precisely "to deceive everyone" both Christians and Muslims. and the Jews, "resisting and exalting himself above all that is called God or holy things, so that he sits in the temple of God as God, presenting himself as God" 2 Thess. 2:4

“First, Imam Mahdi will appear, then Dajjal (analogue of the Antichrist) will come, after that the prophet Isa (peace be upon him) will descend. Dajjal will be one-eyed, red-skinned, broad-bodied and will have curly hair” Muslim opinion about Antichrist Ali-zade, A. A., 2007 - this is where the big mistake comes in. With us, on the contrary, the Antichrist will come first, and then Christ. Moreover, the Antichrist will be meek in appearance, and so similar to Christ that only spiritually living people can distinguish him, while others will accept him with joy as a savior. People will gladly accept him, they saw newsreel footage of how crowds of distraught Germans joyfully greet Hitler, it will be the same with this, after all, he will come as a savior, after a world (nuclear) war he will offer a plan of salvation, so they will accept him. Although the world war will be unleashed by those who are preparing his arrival, in Holy Scripture this is called the mystery of lawlessness.

Mahdi - in Islam: the last successor of the prophet Muhammad, a kind of messiah (masih), who will appear before the end of the world. The Qur'an does not mention the Mahdi, but the idea of ​​a messiah is widely interpreted in the hadiths of the Prophet Muhammad.
Initially, Mahdi was identified with the prophet Isa (Jesus), who should announce the approach of the Day of Judgment (qiyamat). Then Mahdi began to be thought of as an independent image of the "renewer of faith."
Shiites believe that the Mahdi is alive and will soon restore justice to the earth. Unlike Shiism, the Sunni Mahdi, by the definition of I. Goldzier, is a Hungarian orientalist (Arabist, Hebraist, Islamic scholar) of Jewish origin. Since 1876 - Corresponding Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, since 1897 - Corresponding Member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (with a break in 1916-1919). , "an indefinite face, a mythological decoration of the ideal of the future"

“First, Imam Mahdi will appear, then Dajjal will come (whom Muslims mistakenly consider to be an analogue of the Antichrist), after which the prophet Isa (peace be upon him) will descend. Dajjal will be one-eyed, red-skinned, broad-bodied and will have curly hair” Muslim opinion about Antichrist Alizade. And . A., 2007 Islamic Encyclopedic Dictionary. - this is where the big mistake comes in.
With us, on the contrary, the Antichrist will come first, and then Christ. Moreover, the Antichrist will be meek in appearance, and so similar to Christ that only spiritually living people can distinguish him, while others will accept him with joy as a savior.
Protestants have a similar opinion that first "Christ" will come and there will be a thousand-year kingdom of God on earth, and then the Antichrist, the concepts are also mixed up.
Saint Paisios the Holy Mountaineer - And then they will nominate a person who will say: "I am the imam, I am the fifth Buddha, I am the Christ whom the Christians are waiting for, I am the one whom the Jehovists are waiting for, I am the messiah of the Jews." He will have five "I".

The word "dajjal" means "deceiver, charlatan".

Moreover, according to Muslim beliefs, not Imam Mahdi will kill Dajjal, but our Lord Jesus Christ, whom Muslims in error consider only a prophet.

"This will continue until the Lord of the worlds sends 'Isa (Jesus), the son of Maryam (Mary) [which will be the second coming of one of the greatest of God's messengers who ascended earlier to heaven]. He will descend to the earth east of Damascus, leaning on the wings of two angels ... and kill 'Isa (Jesus) Antichrist ""
Hadith from Navwas ibn Sam'an; St. X. Muslim, at-Tirmizi and others. See, for example: an-Naysaburi M. Sahih Muslim. S. 1177, hadith no. 110–(2937); an-Nawawi Ya. Sahih Muslim bi sharh an-nawawi. T. 9. Ch. 18. S. 66–68, hadith No. 110–(2937); al-Qari 'A. Mirkat al-mafatih sharh mishkyat al-masabih. In 10 vols. T. 8. S. 3456-3462, hadith No. 5475; at-Tirmizi M. Sunan at-tirmizi. 2002. S. 648, Hadith No. 2245, "Hasan, sahih."

The religion of Antichrist is dangerous because outwardly no one will force you to renounce Christ or change your faith, there will be no changes in dogmas letter by letter, there will be no union in its former form, there will be no unification of religions into one. This is too rude and will alienate not only the Orthodox, but also representatives of other faiths. Preached new religion, and you only need one thing - to agree that all religions have one God, that others have the truth, and that each religion goes to him in its own way. Remain Orthodox, only admit that there are no more heresies, heretics and apostates - the acceptance of this devilish lie is the renunciation of the Holy Trinity, our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Orthodox faith and the Orthodox Church. The acceptance of this diabolical lie is the legalization of the religion of Antichrist!

This is to remain a cog in the system at any cost, it will be the most important thing even at the time of the adoption of the Antichrist seal. Remember "you can not ... neither buy nor sell" the same temptation of "bread." And a person who has entered into a deal with conscience many times for the sake of this “bread” will not be able to resist this temptation.
There will not even be any talk of any spiritual background of temptation from the Antichrist. Comfortable, versatile, modern and adopted the universal card. Safe, necessary and implanted a microchip in the hand, they are already being implanted everywhere. Or else, what kind of mark stuck on his forehead.
Neither Christ nor Antichrist will be chosen, for modern people, even for many Orthodox, there is no such question, but is it convenient or inconvenient, that will be the question. Profit is the main selection criterion. Instant benefit.
Addendum, in order not to be accused of not knowing what, I note that on this issue (universal cards) the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Synodal Department for Relations between the Church and Society spoke out.

CONCLUSION: THE SPIRIT OF THE END TIMES.
1. "CHARISMATIC REVIVAL" AS A SIGN OF THE TIMES

From the careful observer of the contemporary religious situation - especially in America, where the most popular religious movements have been springing up for a century - a very definite atmosphere of haliastical expectation cannot escape. And this is true not only of "charismatic" circles, but even of traditionalist and fundamentalist circles that have rejected the "charismatic revival." So many Catholics believe in a chaliastical "age of Mary" before the end of the world, and this is just one version of a more widespread misconception - an attempt to "sanctify" the world or, as Seattle Bishop Thomas Conolly put it fifteen years ago, "to transform modern world Evangelical Protestants, such as Billy Graham, in their erroneous interpretation of Revelation, are waiting for "the millennium" when "Christ will rule the earth." Other evangelicals, in Israel, believe that their interpretation " millennium" and "Messiah" are just what is needed to prepare the Jews for his coming. And arch-fundamentalist Carl McInt is about to build a life-size replica of the Jerusalem temple in Florida (next to Disneyland!), confident that the time has come when the Jews build that "temple into which the Lord Himself will return, as He promised" ("Christian lighthouse", November 1971; January 1972). So even anti-ecumenists consider it possible to prepare together with impenitent Jews for the solemn meeting of the false messiah-antichrist - in contrast faithful Jews who will meet Christ, as the Orthodox Church preaches this, when the prophet Elijah returns to earth.

So the sane Orthodox Christian who knows the prophecies in Scripture regarding the last days finds little comfort in the fact that a Protestant “charismatic” pastor tells him: “Jesus can do something wonderful when we open ourselves to Him. It is not surprising that people different faiths can now pray together" (Harold Bredesan, in Logos Magazine, Jan.-Feb. 1972, p. 24); or a Pentecostal Catholic assures that followers of all denominations from now on "begin to look over these dividing walls, only to recognize in each other the image of Jesus Christ" (Kevin Ranaghan, in Logos, Nov.-Dec. 1971, p. 21). What kind of "Christ" is this, for the sake of which accelerated not only psychological, but also physical training is deployed all over the world? Is it our true God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who founded the Church in whose bosom people can find salvation? Or is it a false Christ who will come in his own name (John V, 43) and unite all who reject or pervert the teaching of the only Church of Christ, the Orthodox Church?

Our Savior Himself warned us: Then if anyone says to you, Behold, Christ is here, or there, believe it not. For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. Behold, I told you beforehand. So if they say to you, "Behold, he is in the wilderness," do not go out; "behold, He is in the secret rooms," - do not believe; for as lightning comes from the east and is visible even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man (Matt. XXIV, 23-27).

The second coming of Christ will be certain: it will be sudden, from heaven (Acts I, 11); and it will put an end to this world. There can be no "preparation" for him, except for the Orthodox Christian preparation - repentance, spiritual life, vigilance. Those who are "preparing" for it in any other way, who say that He is somewhere "here" - especially "here" in the Temple of Jerusalem - or who preach the "soon coming of Christ" without warning of the great error that should precede His coming, these are the obvious prophets of the Antichrist, the false Christ; he must come first and deceive the whole world, including "Christians" who are not or will not become true Orthodox Christians. There will be no coming "millennium". For those who can accept it, the apocalyptic "millennium" has already arrived; life in the grace of the Orthodox Church for a whole "thousand years between the first coming of Christ and the time of the Antichrist", that Protestants expect "thousand years" in the future is only a recognition that they do not live in it now, that is, that they are outside the Church Christ's and do not know Divine grace. http://www.pravoslavie.ru/put/biblio/rose_prb/rose38.htm

HIEROMONK SERAPHIM (ROSE) ORTHODOXY AND RELIGION OF THE FUTURE Chapter VI
"SIGNS IN HEAVEN"

5. THE MEANING OF UFO APPEARANCE

In Christian language, this means: a new invasion of demons is sent to the human race. Based on Christian apocalyptic views (see the conclusion of this book), we can see that the power that has so far held back the last and most terrible manifestation of demonic actions on earth has already been taken from the environment (2 Thess. II, 7), the Christian worldview is more does not exist as a whole, and Satan is released from his prison, where he was kept by the grace of the Church of Christ, and will come out to deceive the nations (Rev. XX, 7) and prepare them for the worship of Antichrist at the end of time. Perhaps never since the beginning of the era of Christ have demons appeared so openly and everywhere as they do today. The theory of "guests from outer space" is just one of the pretexts by which they are trying to inspire people with the idea that "higher beings" are now going to take over future destiny humanity.

Secondly, UFOs are just the latest of the mediumistic methods by which the devil recruits supporters of his occult world. They are a terrible sign that a person has become accessible to demonic influence - as never before in christian times. In the 19th century, it was usually necessary to find a dark séance room in order to get in touch with demons, but now it is enough just to look at the sky (though usually at night). Humanity has lost everything that still remains of the foundations of Christian understanding, and now passively puts itself at the disposal of any "forces" that may descend from heaven. The new movie - "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" - is a stunning revelation of how superstitious modern man has become, ready to instantly, insignificantly, hesitate to believe and follow almost unmodified demons wherever they lead.

Thirdly, this is the "mission" of the UFO: to prepare the way for the Antichrist; the savior of the apostate world is coming to rule over it. It is possible that he himself will come from heaven in order to fully resemble Christ (Matt. XXIV, 30; Acts. I, 11); maybe only "guests from outer space" will land in front of everyone in order to perform a "cosmic" worship of their master; perhaps fire... from heaven (Rev. XIII, 13) will be only a part of the great demonic spectacles of the last times. Be that as it may, the message modern humanity is: to wait for liberation, but not from Christian revelation and faith in an invisible God, but from space aliens.

This is one of the signs of the last times, when there will be terrible phenomena, and great signs from heaven (Lk. XXI, 11). Already a hundred years ago, Bishop Ignatius Bryanchaninov, in his book "On Miracles and Signs" (Yaroslavl, 1870; republished by Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, New York, 1960), noted "the desire that occurs in modern Christian society to see miracles and even to work miracles... Such a desire reveals self-deception, based on self-love and vanity, which dwells in the soul and owns it" (p. 32). True miracle workers have become rare and are disappearing altogether, but people "thrive for miracles more than ever before ... We are gradually approaching the time when a wide field will be opened for numerous and amazing false miracles to bring to destruction those unfortunate descendants of carnal sophistication, who will be seduced and seduced by these miracles" (pp. 48-49).

Here is what will particularly interest UFO researchers: the miracles of the Antichrist will mostly take place in the element of air, where the main possession of Satan is located. Omens will mainly act on the sense of sight, enchanting and deceiving the eye. St. John the Theologian, contemplating in Revelation the events predicting the end of the world, says that the Antichrist will work great signs, so that fire will bring down from heaven to earth before people (Rev. XIII, 13). This is the sign indicated in Scripture as the most important of the signs of the Antichrist, and the place of this sign is in the air: "it will be a brilliant and terrible sight" (p. 13). http://www.pravoslavie.ru/put/biblio/rose_prb/rose27.htm

HIEROMONK SERAPHIM (ROSE) ORTHODOXY AND RELIGION OF THE FUTURE Chapter VIII
CONCLUSION: THE SPIRIT OF THE END TIMES. 2. RELIGION OF THE FUTURE

In our age of apostasy, prior to the appearance of the Antichrist, Satan is released for a short time (Rev. XX, 7) to work false miracles, which he could not work during the "thousand years" of the grace of the Church of Christ (Rev. XX, 3), and to reap in their hellish harvest those souls who have not received ... the truth (2 Thess. II, 10). The very fact that this satanic harvest is now taking place not only among the pagan peoples who have not heard of Christ, but even more so among the "Christians" who have lost the salt of Christianity tells us that the time of the Antichrist is really close. It is in the very nature of Antichrist to present the kingdom of the devil as if it were the kingdom of Christ. Today's "charismatic" movement, Christian "meditation" and "new religious consciousness", of which they are a part, are all harbingers of the religion of the future, the religion of the last humanity, the religion of the Antichrist, and their main "spiritual" activity is to introduce demonic initiation into Christianity, which has so far been limited only to the pagan world. Even if these "religious experiments" are often still discreet and haphazard, and contain at least equal parts spiritual self-deception and genuine rites of demonic initiation; of course, not everyone who has successfully "meditated" or thinks he has received "baptism" Spirit" actually received an initiation into the kingdom of Satan. But this is the purpose of such "experiments", and, undoubtedly, the methods of initiation will be more and more improved as humanity becomes better prepared to accept them with an attitude of passivity and openness to new "religious experiences" promoted by these movements.

What has brought mankind - and Christianity itself - to this desperate state? Undoubtedly, this is not about any open cults of the devil, which are always limited to a very narrow circle of people; it is something more subtle, about which the conscious Orthodox Christian it is even scary to think: this is the loss of God's grace, which follows the loss of understanding of the meaning of Christianity.

In the West, there can be no doubt that the grace of God was lost many centuries ago. The Roman Catholics and Protestants of our day did not know the grace of God, so it is not surprising that they are not able to recognize its demonic imitation. But alas! The success of false spirituality even among Orthodox Christians today reveals to what extent they, too, have lost the concept of the meaning of Christianity, and can no longer distinguish true Christianity from pseudo-Christianity. For too long Orthodox Christians have taken for granted the precious treasure of their faith, forgetting to circulate the pure gold of its teaching. How many Orthodox Christians are even aware of the existence of fundamental scriptures of the Orthodox spiritual life, which teach precisely the distinction between true and counterfeit spirituality; scriptures that describe the lives and teachings of holy men and women who were worthy of the full measure of the grace of the Lord even in this life? How many have learned the teachings of the "Ladder" of St. John, sermons of St. Macarius, the lives of the God-bearing fathers in the wilderness, "Invisible Warfare", "My Life in Christ" by St. rights. John of Kronstadt? http://www.pravoslavie.ru/put/biblio/rose_prb/rose39.htm

“A number instead of a name, as we know, and then we hypocritically celebrate May 9, allegedly condemning fascism, while we ourselves, like in concentration camps, assign a number instead of a name. Ordinary fascism. Total control. Buchenwald, Auschwitz, Dachau ... Death camps where millions were exterminated civilians and prisoners of war. Documentary books exposing the atrocities of Nazi criminals during the years of World War II should today serve as a stern warning about the inadmissibility of the disgusting practice of anti-human numbering and marking of people, which in our time is being implanted in many countries of the world. stunning the most indifferent hearts... Mountains of human skeletons barely covered with skin, the souls of tormented sufferers crying out to heaven, close-ups show concentration camp numbers tattooed on the left arm of adults, and on the legs of infants...

At the Nuremberg Trials, which took place from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946, the International Military Tribunal, among other crimes of fascism, recognized the practice of assigning people lifelong depersonalization numbers and stigmatizing them with these numbers as a crime against humanity. [ 201 ]

From the materials of the Nuremberg trials:

“Question of the Court to the witness: “Were you branded?”

The answer of the witness: "Yes" (shows the concentration camp number on his hand).

Question of the Court to the witness: “How were the children branded?”

Witness response: “Children who were born in the camp were also tattooed. The number was tattooed on his leg."

Question of the Court to the witness: “Why on the leg?”

The answer of the witness: “Because the child is very small, and the number, which is five digits, would not fit on a small pen. Children did not have separate numbers, they had the same numbers that adults had, in other words, a serial number”” [ 202 ].

Such are the terrible lessons of history, which are now consigned to oblivion. The loss of historical memory and the lack of proper sobriety vividly characterize the state of modern Russian society. With the almost complete silence of the people, zealous officials of the Ministry of Taxes and Dues (MNS), acting with all kinds of unrighteous seduction (2 Thess. 2, 10), carry out the universal stigmatization of Russian citizens, assigning life-long depersonalizing taxpayer identification numbers even to newborn babies. The analogy with the stigmatization of prisoners of fascist death factories is obvious. It is easy to understand that the point here is not in tax accounting, but in the assignment of digital names to future prisoners of the Russia barracks of the global electronic concentration camp. The decisions of the Nuremberg Tribunal remain in force to this day, and crimes against humanity have no statute of limitations. At the same time, the International Military Tribunal recognized “the performance of official duties and orders of superiors” as a meaningless excuse that does not remove guilt and responsibility from the performers. Everyone - from a minister to a petty tax official, as well as clergy who encourage the universal numbering of people - should be aware that they are complicit in building a world totalitarian dictatorship. Dictatorships of Antichrist!"
But deliver us from the evil one: Legal problems as a reflection of the theomachic nature of the globalization of power Pravoslavie.By - Belarusian Orthodox information portal.

Addendum 2017

The icon of the prophets of God Enoch, Elijah and the Apostle John the Theologian, painted at my request by the daughter of my parishioner.

From the stichera on the Sunday verse:
Cathedral of the Forefathers, idlers, / come, let us praise Psalmically: Adam the forefather, Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, / Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, / according to the law of Moses, and Aaron, / Jesus, Samuel and David, / with them Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, / and Daniel, and twelve, / in addition to Elijah, Elisha and all, / Zechariah, and the Baptist, and who preached Christ, / the life and resurrection of our kind.

To the Prophet of God Elijah Troparion, tone 4:
In the flesh, the Angel, the foundation of the prophets, the second forerunner of the coming of Christ, Ilia the glorious, from above sending Eliseev grace to drive away ailments and cleanse lepers, the same and those who honor him sharpen healing.

From an akathist
Chosen by God for the conversion of Israel from the charm of Baal, formidable to the accuser of the kings of the law-breakers, shining with fiery zeal for God the Almighty, the holiness of life and miracles, exalted with your flesh to Heaven and having the Second Coming of Christ, laudable recollect you, the prophet of God Elijah you, like have great boldness to the Lord, free us from all evils and circumstances with your prayers, piously crying out to you:
Rejoice, Elijah, great prophet, glorious forerunner of the Second Coming of Christ.

Rejoice, fiery zealot of Divine glory; Rejoice, as in the last days of the world, pray to preach the True God and denounce the accursed Antichrist.
Rejoice, Elijah, great prophet, glorious forerunner of the Second Coming of Christ.

Rejoice, as you enjoy ineffable glory in the light of the saints and incessantly glorify the Lord, rejoice, as at the end of time great signs and wonders will be performed to affirm people in the true faith and to denounce the Antichrist.
Rejoice, Elijah, great prophet, glorious forerunner of the Second Coming of Christ.

Troparion Ap. John the Evangelist
Beloved Apostle of Christ God, /
hasten to deliver unanswered people, /
accepts thee falling. Izhe fallen on Percy received. /
Pray him. Theologian, /
and disperse the darkness of tongues, /
asking us for peace and great mercy.

Prayer of St. Anatoly Optinsky
Deliver me, Lord, from the seduction of the godly and wicked Antichrist, who is coming, and hide me from his nets in the secret wilderness of Your salvation. Give me, Lord, the strength and courage of a firm confession of Your holy name, may I not retreat fear for the sake of the devil, may I not renounce You, my Savior and Redeemer, from Your Holy Church. But give me, Lord, day and night weeping and tears for my sins, and spare me, Lord, at the hour of Your Last Judgment. Amen.
https://azbyka.ru/molitvoslov/protiv-antixrista.html

The Book of Malachi says that God will send the prophet Elijah back to earth: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord” (Mal. 4:5).
About the prophets Enoch and Elijah: "And I will give it to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred and sixty days, being clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth." Rev. 11:3-4.

About John the Theologian: “When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus: Lord, what is he doing?
Jesus says to him: If I want him to stay until I come, what is it to you? you follow me. And this word passed among the brethren, that the disciple would not die. But Jesus did not tell him that he would not die, but: if I want him to remain until I come, what is it to you? - This student testifies of this, and wrote this; and we know that his testimony is true." John 21:21-23

Addendum 2018

Report of Metropolitan Vladimir of Pochaev, Viceroy of the Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra, delivered at the round table "Issues of Spiritual Security in the Information Society", which was held at the Holy Dormition Kiev-Pechersk Lavra on September 6, 2016

HUMAN WILL
AND CONSENT TO THE PROCESSING OF PERSONAL DATA

Spent over the years in different countries scientific examinations revealed that the identification number for the system is the name of the person; that the identification number, written in the form of a barcode, contains the number "666" - "the number of the beast", and is indistinguishable from the "mark of the Antichrist." Today it is already obvious that the “name of the beast” is the name that the “beast” (the Antichrist system) gives to a person, and the clarification “or the number of his name” indicates that the “beast” gives a person a name in the form of a number - digital Name.

Thus, the consent of a person to the processing of personal data is not only consent to any actions with any information about him, but also consent to replace his name in the system with a digital identifier (“the number of his name”), with a personal barcode (“inscription ”) and to resubordinate oneself, one’s will to the masters of the Antichrist system (“the beast”).
The Message of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church dated December 29, 2003 says that the process of creating a technical base "which contributes to the coming to power of the Antichrist" is underway.

End-to-end personal identification. 02/13/2018 Round table in the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation Archpriest Leonid Vlasov
https://youtu.be/pyYrQSjYMac

BIOMETRICS
The mark of the Antichrist is a number instead of a name, no matter how it comes.
People are labeled as a commodity.
Research Article
"EXPRESS METHOD FOR FORMING A BARCODE
FACE IMAGES"
EXPRESS METHOD OF BARCODE GENERATION FROM FACIAL IMAGES
annotation
A method for generating a standard type linear barcode from face images is proposed. The method is based on using the brightness histogram of the original image, averaging it over a limited number of brightness intervals, followed by quantization in the range of decimal digits from 0 to 9, and tabular transformation into the final barcode. The proposed solution does not require large computational costs, as well as the use of specialized image processing software packages, which creates conditions for the formation of barcodes within mobile systems, and the proposed method can be attributed to the class of express methods. Testing was performed on the Faces94 and CUHK Face Sketch FERET Database. As follows from the test results, the proposed method offers a new solution for the practice of using in real conditions - the dynamics of changes in face image parameters. It is shown that the result remains stable when changing the local dimensions of faces, tilting in the XY plane, changing the angle and mirror rotation around the vertical axis, as well as changing facial expressions and the presence of shadows on it from local lighting. The proposed method for generating a standard barcode is built directly from the original face image and thus uniquely represents a particular person.
Scientific and technical bulletin of information technologies, mechanics and optics
Scientific and Technical Journal of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics
2014, No. 2 (90) the link is not displayed on verses ru, search by the title of the article, you can find it in full.

Addendum 2019

On the Spirit of Antichrist

And the Beast's roar is heard, from hellish madness.
The world is going wild and the Beast is coming to the throne.
AND evil people, liars it soaks up souls
And it gets stronger and stronger every day.
In the blood, the grin of the infernal spawn:
Innocent, poor, suffering people.
He enjoys everything, the pain of the unfortunate, the hunger of the poor.
Each injustice is like a sweet dream to him.
He eats and insatiably womb.
And every cry of the baby that killed the mother.
To him, like the sounds of a harp, groans, cries of pain.
And he is ready to devour everyone whole.
Behind the mask of hypocrisy and smiles,
For "justice" and "truth" he is.
And in every proud man, rich to madness,
In the villain, money-lover, greedy HE.
Mercy with love has run out,
There is no honor, no humanity, and no more pity.
And the brutalized man is already waiting for the throne.
The Beast will rise from the abyss to rule over everything.

About Antichrist

Laughter, joy, screams and fun.
What happiness is coming into the world.
The son of Satan is coming, meet him
Happy, joyful people run.
It came true. Came.
The seal of the Antichrist on the forehead.
The crowd of slaves is screaming and waiting.
And in passing, so, between times, imperceptibly.
With a smile, God surrenders.

Sent by one father. I had a dream. Temple people around. Some place, I know something bad is about to break out, something terrible. Someone and I are trying to close this place with locks so that evil does not break out. The people around are different, dressed according to the Orthodox, different faces. And then something terrible happens, people turn into freaks with a disfigured female face, everyone has some kind of scar on their faces, like a seal, they tear off their clothes, and underneath them are long tatters, and they rejoice when they tear off their clothes. I have an antidote somewhere in the room and I'm running after it. All around are these terrible faces, which until recently were different people, men, women, children, and have become terrible freaks with a scar on their faces, in rags like witches.
I can only explain it this way. When a person accepts the seal of the Antichrist, he loses the image of God, his personality, the grace of God departs from him, the soul becomes an ugly stamping monster that does not have its own will, the joyful slave of the Antichrist.
Batiushka sent it to me with the words: "You see it now."

THE BLACK KING IS COMING

The black king is coming, drinking human blood.

The world is going to conquer, taking power over the world.

He will rule over everything, enslaving the souls and bodies of people.

The evil disposition of Satan will hide under the mask of "love."

They call it a peacekeeper, nuclear bombs are around.

He proclaimed freedom to all, bound the world with a strong chain.

A meek and kind look, hiding his teeth in the blood.

Joyfully people are waiting, slavery is the eternal way.

They will betray Christ for bread, they will die of hunger, thirst.

The seal of Satan on the hand, burn in eternal fire.

He will work miracles to capture many souls.

The crooked believers of the "savior" are waiting, he is their savior and friend.

The carnal man joyfully runs after him.

"Friends" flew in from heaven, demons and demons are here.

Death, hunger, thirst and pestilence, he is a liar and a deceiver.

There are no more demons in hell, they have inhabited the souls of people.

The demon people are meaner, the kingdom of darkness on Earth.

But not for long it, for three and a half years in total.

The end of evil, untruth, deceit and lies, the short kingdom of Satan.

The cross shone on the whole world, strengthened the souls of the faithful to Christ.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.

Deliver us from wickedness and unrighteousness.

He wrote poetry at night, the previous evening there was a very restless state that he could not overcome even with prayer.

Priests, if you can call them that, who are afraid to stand for the truth, this is about you: “The fearful and unfaithful, and vile and murderers, and whoremongers and sorcerers, and idolaters and all liars, their fate is in the lake burning with fire and brimstone. This is the second death. Rev. 21:8. We see that the "fearful" apostle John places together with the unfaithful, the filthy, the murderers, whoremongers, idolaters and liars.
The fearful ones are still in the first place, apparently there will be more of them, which in fact is the case.

This article contains value judgments. The article does not pretend to be documentary, and also does not call for active action and is not intended to offend anyone. The article is printed for informational purposes only.
This article is written for informational purposes only.
The author does not call for action.
Everything written here is purely personal opinion.
Also, the author is not responsible for all the actions and deeds of people who read this article.
In the text of the article, one should not look for hints of insults, since it only expresses in literary language the subjective opinion of the author, who does not claim to be right in full.

Man is a creature gravitating toward mysticism. Even if he considers himself an atheist. If an individual does not believe in anything, he still invents some religious surrogates for himself - a higher mind, astrology, the theory of evolution (with all due respect, some pundits often take on signs of religious fanaticism towards Darwin's heritage). Prophecies and predictions are especially popular among both believers and unbelievers, the passion for which has noticeably intensified in recent times.

Opinion leader

In the field of predictions the best representatives Kinds of mankind have been working since time immemorial - remember the prophetic Cassandra, who predicted the death of Troy. If we analyze the popularity of the prophets, to whom our contemporaries treat with the greatest reverence, at least in the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet, then the Bulgarian soothsayer Vanga, the medieval doctor Nostradamus and, oddly enough, the apostle and beloved disciple of Christ - John the Theologian . The latter belongs to the most mysterious book of the New Testament - Revelation or the Apocalypse, the interest in which is only increasing every year.

And this interest is not accidental, since the creation of John tells about the end of the world, and what is happening in full real life sometimes even optimists are forced to think about the finiteness of life: endless wars, earthquakes, tsunamis, the fight against traditions, cloning, epidemics, climate change. All of the above leads many to look for parallels with modernity in Revelation.

The special love of many for this particular book is due to the fact that the creation of the apostle is included in the Bible, which was and remains the unconditional authority for billions of people. Revelation was written by a disciple of Christ already at the end of his life, when he was imprisoned on the island of Patmos. As the Theologian himself writes, the events indicated in the book were revealed to him when he was “in the spirit,” that is, in a particularly prayerful state. Christ appeared to John and told about what should be before his second coming to earth: about cataclysms and miracles, heavenly punishments, resurrection of the dead, the appearance of angels and, most importantly, the appearance of the Heavenly Jerusalem, designed to replace the existing human civilization with a new one. The latter, according to the apostle, will live under the direct control of Christ, after it there will be no other civilizations. Over time, the word "apocalypse" has become a household word.

Despite the fact that the finale of Revelation is very optimistic, the events that preceded it at all times caused fair fears among mankind. Even in the last couple of decades, there have been several instances where the public has begun to speak loudly that John's prophecy is beginning to be fulfilled.

star from the sky

A great ferment of minds was associated with the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986. The reason was verses 10 and 11 of the eighth chapter of Revelation, which say: “The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a lamp, and fell on a third of the rivers and on the sources of water. The name of this star is "wormwood"; and a third of the waters became wormwood, and many of the people died from the waters, because they became bitter.” The parallel was drawn quite unambiguously, since "Chernobyl" is precisely "wormwood". The same thing that began to happen after the catastrophe at a nuclear reactor was quite suitable for the description of the consequences of the fall of a star described by John.

Fallen Babylon

A similar reaction among mystically inclined citizens was noted to the sad event - the terrorist attack on the New York Twin Towers in September 2001. Hand on heart, I must say that this event could not but hurt people's minds: the picture shown live, similar to frames from a stereotyped American action movie, actually happened and made a stunning impression. Immediately after these events, people appeared who said that we are facing the incarnation of the 18th chapter of the Apocalypse, which describes the fall of Babylon (in this case, the name has a symbolic, not actual meaning).

John describes how everyone in the world related to trade “wailed”, watching how the city was dying, which had actually subjugated the rest of the world due to the fact that the main financial flows. The Theologian then lists the losses incurred by trading in commodities that suspiciously match the list of futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange. At the same time, it is also said there that punishment befell the city for the fact that: “your merchants were the nobles of the earth, and all nations were deceived by your magic.” Why not a description of the American oligarchy led by the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers?

Of course, such parallels could not go unnoticed. But, fortunately, New York was not completely destroyed, and stock trading is still flourishing.

Armageddon

On the same day today, if they begin to remember the Revelation, then they associate it with the field of the last battle - Armageddon. The etymology of this word comes from the geographical name in Hebrew - Mount Meggido. This is the name of a hill 10 km from the city of Afula in northern Israel. According to a number of interpretations, the choice of this hill for the last battle of mankind as the place of the final battle, in which the forces of good (Christ) and evil (Antichrist) will collide, is due to the fact that it was here that the first documented battle took place. It was in this place that the Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III defeated the Canaanite kings in the 15th century BC. Accordingly, where the first battle took place, the last must also take place.

Well, what is happening now in the Middle East, I think, does not need to be described in detail. At a time when Russia was not yet involved in the conflict in Syria and the troops of the "Islamic State" (a terrorist group banned on the territory of the Russian Federation) were moving quite cheerfully towards Israel, in the marginal part of the Internet they were quite actively talking about the approach of Armageddon.

Nothing new

However, panic has always been inherent in humanity. So, for example, in everything Christian world with great fear they expected the end of the world when 666 AD was approaching. The second strong outbreak was at the moment when Paschalia (the system for calculating the date of the celebration of Christian Easter) ended in the 15th century. At the end of the 17th century, the reforms of Patriarch Nikon, which ended with the split of the Russian Orthodox Church, and then the innovations of Emperor Peter the Great. The latter, by the way, was not called by many other than the “Antichrist”. A similar epithet was applied to Napoleon I Bonaparte. At the end of the 19th century, if you read Russian literature, apocalyptic expectations simply hung in the air. The end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century were also marked by panic expectations. In our time, numerous sects and self-proclaimed "gods" like to distribute them. Moreover, both in Russia and abroad. In any case, when in reality what John the Theologian prophesied will happen, it is apparently not given to us to know. However, you should not be afraid of all of the above, since the Apocalypse is an optimistic book and it ends well!

Archpriest Andrey Rechitsky, Rector of the Church of Elijah the Prophet in Kitai-Gorod: Humanity has always been characterized by eschatological expectations - both in the Middle Ages and in our time. So, for example, in 1492, many began to prepare themselves for the coming of Christ, as Paschal was ending and the same year was the 7000th from the day of the creation of the world. Medieval people saw this secret sign indicating the end of time. In 2007, a whole group of sectarians in Penza walled themselves up underground in anticipation of the end of the world. This is due to the fact that, unfortunately, we tend to pay more attention to external signs, and not to internal ones. However, Christ said bluntly: "It is not your business to know times and seasons." And as a sign of His second coming, he pointed precisely to the internal structure of a person, which should change in the last times: “And, because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold (Mt 24, 9).” Thus, no matter how similar to the images given to us in the Revelation of John the Theologian, the events taking place around us would not be, we should not treat them as proof that the prophecy is being fulfilled right now. Otherwise, you can become hostages of your own fears.

At all times there were people with a special spiritual vision, who looked at the world not with physical, but with spiritual eyes. For these perspicacious elders there were no barriers and deadlines, for them the boundaries of time and space moved apart, the secrets of heaven and earth were revealed. “It must be said that we, the last representatives of the human race, should be grateful to God for allowing us to see and even participate in the most terrible war between good and evil, about which so many prophecies and predictions have been written about more than anything else. And about predictions it should be noted; they are left by our saints even more than the prophecies of Holy Scripture. Many predictions were made by the saints, who already lived close to the end times, who, as it were, were in a hurry to warn the world about the coming tragedy. Especially valuable warnings were given by Rev. Seraphim of Sarov and Rev. Nile the Myrrh-streaming. In them we will find explanations and interpretations of the prophecies, and even valuable additions to them, which more clarifies the overall terrible picture. Of particular importance to us are the predictions relating to our Russia with its special lot in God's dispensation. The ancient fathers of the Church in brief statements tried to emphasize that the future end times would be difficult, but God's mercy to those who suffered would be special. Thus, in the Fatherland, compiled by Ignaty Brianchaninov, the conversation of the elders is cited: “Once upon a time, the holy fathers of the Egyptian skete spoke prophetically about the last generation of Christians. “What have we done? they said. One of them, the great Abba Ischirion, answered: "We have fulfilled the commandments of God." Then they asked: “What will those who come after us do?” "They," said Abba, "will have a work half against us." Then they asked him: “And what will those who come after them do?” Abba Ischirion answered: “They will by no means have monastic work: but sorrows will be allowed to them, and those of them who stand will be higher than us and our fathers.” The same was said by St. Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem (386): “Therefore, the Lord, knowing the great power of the adversary and condescending to the pious, says: then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains (Matthew 24:16). But if someone realizes in himself that he is really strong and can resist Satan, then (without losing hope in the strength of the Church) let him become such and say: who will separate us from the love of God. and so on. Who is the blessed one who, according to piety, will then be a martyr for Christ, for above all the martyrs I place the martyrs of that time. Also Rev. Nifont, Bishop of Cyprus, predicted: “My son, the saints will not be impoverished until the end of time! But in recent years they will hide from people, and will please God in such humility of mind that they will appear in the Kingdom of Heaven above the first miraculous fathers. And such a reward will be for them because in those days there will be no one before their eyes who would work miracles, and people themselves will perceive the zeal and fear of God in their hearts, for at that time the rank of bishop will be inexperienced and will not become love wisdom and reason, and will only care about self-interest. Like them, the monks will be from the possession of large estates, from the vain glory their spiritual eyes will be darkened, and they will be neglected God-loving with all their hearts, but the love of money will reign in them with all its might. But woe to the monks who love gold: they will not see the Face of God!” However, many ancient prophecies do not have a Russian translation or have not even been preserved, but are revealed there, in retelling, summarized in a general narrative. Such a list from the prophecies of one Russian learned monk is given by the archbishop. Seraphim of Chicago and Detroit (1959), it gives a brief history before the enlightenment of Rus' and then the actual prophecy about the future begins, since predictions were written before the baptism of Rus' for more than a hundred years. “The scepter of the Orthodox Kingdom falls out of the weakening Hands of the Byzantine emperors, who failed to realize the symphony of Church and State. Therefore, to replace the decrepit spiritually chosen Greek people, the Lord Provider will send His third God-chosen people. This people will appear in the North in a hundred or two years (these prophecies were written 150-200 years before the baptism of Rus'), will accept Christianity with all their heart, the commandments of Christ and seek, according to the instructions of Christ the Savior, first of all the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. For this jealousy this people will love. The Lord God will add everything else to him - large expanses of land, wealth, state power and glory. In a thousand years, even this God-chosen people will waver in faith and in standing up for the Truth of Christ, will become proud of their earthly might and glory, will stop worrying about seeking the City of the future, and will want paradise not in heaven, but on sinful earth. And for this great fall, a terrible fiery trial will be sent from above to this people who despised the ways of God. Rivers of blood will spill over his land, brother will kill brother, hunger will visit this land more than once and gather its terrible harvest, almost all temples and other shrines will be destroyed or desecrated, many people will die. Yet the Lord will not be completely angry with his third chosen people. The blood of thousands of martyrs will cry out to heaven for mercy. The people themselves will begin to sober up and return to God. Finally, the term of the cleansing test determined by the Judicial Judge will finally shine and shine again with the bright light of rebirth holy orthodoxy in those northern expanses. This wondrous light of Christ will illuminate from there and enlighten all the peoples of the world, which will be helped by a part of this people thoughtfully sent in advance to the dispersion. Christianity will then reveal itself in all its heavenly beauty and fullness. Most of the peoples of the world will become Christians. And then? Then, when the fulfillment of time comes, a complete decline of faith will begin all over the world and other things predicted in Holy Scripture, the Antichrist will appear and, finally, the end of the world will come. These prophecies are stated in different manuscripts and in different versions, but, basically, they all agree (S.V. Fomin "Russia before the Second Coming"). The second similar prediction, also collected from various Greek books by the Russian monk Anthony Savait, speaks of the time before Antichrist. “The end times have not yet come, and it is completely wrong to believe that we are on the verge of the coming of the “antichrist”, because one and the last flowering of Orthodoxy is yet to come, this time all over the world, led by Russia. It will take place after a terrible war, in which either 1/2 or 2/3 of mankind will perish and which will be stopped by a voice from heaven: “And the Gospel will be preached throughout the world!”<...>There will be a period of universal prosperity - but not for long. In Russia at this time there will be an Orthodox Tsar, whom the Lord will reveal to the Russian people. And after that, the world will again become corrupted and will no longer be capable of correction, then the Lord will allow the reign of the Antichrist ”(S. V. Fomin“ Russia before the Second Coming ”). "St. Hippolytus, Pope of Rome (268) wrote - “... many who will listen to the Divine Scriptures, have them in their hands and ponder them, will avoid deceit (Antichrist) After all, they will clearly understand his intrigues and the lies of his deception: they will avoid of his hands and hide themselves on the mountains and crevices of the earth, and with tears and a contrite heart will seek that Lover of mankind, who will tear them out of his nets and save them from his painful temptations in an invisible way, right hand He will cover them with His, because they worthily and justly fell down to Him. Do you see what kind of fasting and prayer the saints will observe then? Pay attention also to what a difficult time and days will befall all those who will be in cities and villages. They will then move from east to west and back from west to east; they will weep a lot and mourn bitterly; and when the day has just dawned, they will wait for the night in order to rest from their occupations. When night falls on (them), they, due to incessant earthquakes and air hurricanes, will try to see the light of day as soon as possible and how, at last, to achieve at least a heavy death. Then the whole earth will mourn a mournful life, the sea and the air will mourn, the sun will mourn, the wild animals will mourn together with the birds, the mountains and hills and field trees will mourn - and all this is thanks to the human race because everyone deviated from the Holy God and believed into a deceiver, having accepted the image of this wicked and enemy of God, instead of the life-giving cross of the Savior. The churches will also mourn the great tribulation. For (then) there will be no offering, no incense, no service pleasing to God; but the buildings of the churches will be like huts intended for the storage of fruits; in those days neither will the honest body and blood of Christ be lifted up. Public worship will cease, the singing of psalms will cease, the reading of the Scriptures will not be distributed: and darkness will come for people and weeping for weeping and groans for groans. Then they will throw silver and gold along the roads, and no one will collect them, and everything will become disgusting. In fact, everyone will try to run away and hide and, however, will not be able to hide anywhere from the fury of the enemy, as those who wear his mark, they will be easily detected and recognized. Outward fear and within trembling (will be) night and day. As in the street, so in the houses (there will be) corpses, both in the street and at home - thirst and hunger; on the street - turmoil, at home - sobs. The beauty on the face will disappear; in fact, people will have his features, like those of the dead; the beauty of women will be destroyed and the lustfulness of all people will disappear. “Blessed are those who then overcome the tyrant, and they should be considered more glorious and great than the first martyrs. Indeed, the former martyrs were victorious over his (Antichrist's) bodyguards; these will overcome the devil himself, the son of perdition. And having become conquerors (over him), what great rewards and crowns they will receive from our King Jesus Christ. Saint Cyril (386 or 387), Archbishop of Jerusalem: “... The martyrs of that time, in my opinion, are higher than all martyrs. The former martyrs fought with some people, but the martyrs under the Antichrist will wage war with Satan himself. St. Andrew, Archbishop of Caesarea: “And go make war with the rest. - And when the best and chosen church teachers and those who despise the earth retire into the wilderness due to disasters, then the Antichrist, although he is deceived in them, will raise up a battle against those who are militant to Christ in the world in order to triumph over them, finding them easily caught, as if sprinkled with earthly dust. and engaged in the affairs of life. But many of these will overcome him, for they sincerely loved Christ.” “But there is a third reason, and, one might say, an unreasonable reason why the grace of the All-Holy Spirit sometimes deigns to leave even a God-bearing person. And this is already allowed by the Lord God Himself - to test people who have only become extremely strengthened in the grace of God as an extraordinary feat for extraordinary and rewards for that: as it was for the Lord Jesus Christ Himself from His Father God, when on the Cross I abode His Divinity perfectly impassive, that is, who did not feel the sufferings of His flesh, the Divine Sufferer involuntarily deigned to cry out. Eloi! Eloi! lama sawahwani? - What means. My God! My God! why did you leave me? So, the same temptation will be allowed throughout the entire universe at the time of the Antichrist, when all the holy people of God and the holy Church of God of Christ, consisting only of them, will, as it were, be left from the protection and help of God. The wicked will triumph and be exalted over them to the point that the Lord God the Holy Spirit Himself, seeing from afar their invisibly heavy suffering, predicted from ancient times: “Oh, where is the faith and patience of the saints!” Similar immeasurable temptations are and will be allowed until that time on the holy great saints of God and the saints of God to tempt their immeasurably great faith in Christ and to crown them with incomprehensibly great and incredible rewards for the human mind during the time of Past Life and the life of the Future Age (see Apocalypse 20, 4-6, let him who reads understand!) To the brother’s question: “As now the saints have multiplied all over the world, will it be, will it also be at the end of this age?” - St. Nifont (| 11.8.1460), Patriarch of Constantinople, replied: “My son, until the very end of this age, the prophets of the Lord God will not fail, as well as the servants of Satan. However, in the last time, those who will truly work for God will safely hide themselves from people and will not perform signs and wonders among them, as at the present time, but will follow the path of work, diluted with humility, and in the Kingdom of Heaven will turn out to be great Fathers, glorified signs; because then no one will perform miracles before the eyes of men, which would inflame people and induce them to strive with zeal for exploits. Those who occupy the thrones of the priesthood all over the world will be completely unskilled and will not know the art of virtue. The same will be the primates of the monastics, for all will be cast down by gluttony and vanity, and will serve for people more as a temptation than a model, therefore virtue will be neglected even more; the love of money will then reign, and woe to the monks who grow rich in gold, for such will be a reproach to the Lord God and will not see the face of the living God. A monk or a layman who gives his gold in excess, if he does not depart from such extortion, will be immersed in deep tartar, because he did not want to offer (his gold) as a sacrifice to God through doing good to the poor. Therefore, my son, as I said before, many, being possessed by ignorance, will fall into the abyss, deluding themselves in the breadth of the wide and spacious way. Saint Ignatius (Bryanchaninov), regarding these words of St. Nifont of Tsaregradsky wrote: “What a profound instruction, what a consolation for us in these prophetic words of the standard-bearing and spirit-bearing Father! Because of the multiplication of temptations, because of their universality and dominance, because of the oblivion of the gospel commandments and the neglect of them by all mankind, it is necessary for those who want to be saved to withdraw from human society into external and internal solitude. Due to the drying up of grace-filled leaders, due to the multiplication of false teachers, deceived by demonic delusion and drawing the whole world into this deception, it is necessary to live diluted with humility; any infatuation with excitement, thinking to do the work of God with human forces alone, without God acting and doing his work. Save, save your soul, said to the remnant of Christians, said by the Spirit of God. Save yourself! Blessed if you find one faithful worker in the work of salvation: this is a great and rare gift of God in our time. Beware, wishing to save your neighbor, lest he drag you into a perilous abyss. The latter happens every hour. Retreat is allowed by God: do not try to stop it with your weak hand. Remove yourself, protect yourself from it: and that is enough for you. Familiarize yourself with the spirit of the times, study it in order to avoid its influence as far as possible. “Now there is almost no true piety,” says St. Tikhon (Zadonsky) already a hundred years before this. “Now it’s just hypocrisy.” Be afraid of hypocrisy, firstly in yourself, then in others: be afraid precisely because it is in the nature of the time and is capable of infecting anyone at the slightest deviation into frivolous behavior. Do not strive to show people, but in secret for your salvation, before the eyes of God, and your behavior will be cleansed of hypocrisy. Do not condemn your neighbors, leaving God to judge them, and your heart will be cleansed of hypocrisy. Pursue hypocrisy in yourself, drive it out of you; evade the masses infected by it, acting both intentionally and unconsciously in its direction, covering the service of the world by serving God, the search for temporary blessings by the search for eternal blessings, covering the vicious life and the soul, wholly devoted to passions, with the guise of holiness. "Before the Second Coming of Christ<...>Christianity, spirituality and reasoning will become impoverished to the extreme between humanity<...>“The opponents of the Antichrist will be considered rebels, enemies of the public good and order, will be subjected to both covert and open persecution, torture and execution.” “In times of sorrows and dangers, visible and invisible, prayer is especially needed: it, being an expression of the rejection of arrogance, an expression of hope in God, attracts God's help to us.” “At the onset of great tribulations in the time of the Antichrist, all those who truly believe in God will cry out an intensified prayer to God. They will cry out for help, for intercession, for the sending down of Divine grace to strengthen and guide them. The own forces of people, although faithful to God, are not enough to resist the combined forces of outcast angels and people who will act with frenzy and despair, foreseeing their imminent death. Divine grace, having overshadowed the chosen ones of God, will make the seduction of the deceiver invalid for them, his threats unthreatening, his miracles contemptible; it grants them courageously to confess the Savior who has accomplished the salvation of men, and to denounce the false messiah who has come to destroy men; she will raise them to scaffolds, as to royal thrones, as to a wedding feast. The Lord "even at the very time of the Antichrist will guide His servants and prepare for them places and means of salvation, as is testified in the Apocalypse". Saint Lawrence (Proskura, 1868 February 20, 1950), Schema-Archimandrite of the Chernigov Trinity Monastery: “Immediately (on the accession of Antichrist) the persecution of Jerusalem land, and then the last blood will be shed in all places of the globe for the Name of our Redeemer Jesus Christ. Of you, my children, many will live to see this terrible time.<...>Christians will be put to death or exiled to desert places, but the Lord will help and nourish His followers.<...>In those days there will still be strong fighters, pillars of Orthodoxy, who will be under the strong influence of the heartfelt Jesus prayer. And the Lord will cover them with His Almighty grace and they will not see those false signs that will be prepared for all people. I repeat once again that it will be impossible to go to those churches, there will be no grace in them. Hieromonk Nektarios of Optina (between February and October 1917): “And in the last times the world will be girded with iron and paper. The days of Noah are a type of our days. The Ark is the Church, only those who will be in It will be saved. Need to pray. By prayer, by the word of God, all filth is cleansed.” “It is time for prayers. Say the Jesus Prayer while you work. First with the lips, then with the mind, and, finally, she herself will pass into the heart ... "One sister, listening to this conversation, asked:" What to do? I don't want to live until then." “And you are young, you can wait,” said the old man. "How scary!" “And you choose one of two: either earthly or heavenly.”<...>The sister asked: “So it’s all dead?” “No, if the believers are washed with blood, then they will be counted among the martyrs, and if they are not believers, they will go to hell,” answered the priest. And until the number of fallen angels is filled, the Lord will not come to judge. But in the last time, the Lord will also count the living, written in the book of Life, among the angels of the missing count of those who have fallen away.<...>The priest talked with one hierodeacon (George) about the end times, bitterly shed tears, saying: "Many clergy will perish under the Antichrist." And George says: “How can I not die? Am I a deacon? And the father said, “I don’t know.” The deacon's father began to cry, falling at his feet, asking him to pray for him so that he could escape hell, and he prayed and answered: “All right. This is how it happens: he fell ill in the head, and then he himself fell ill, died and entered the Kingdom of Heaven. And this prediction came true. We knew this deacon at the Kyiv Lavra, he was very virtuous and the singing monk suddenly fell ill in the head and soon died. Batiushka often lamented and prayed tearfully, or told something with tears. The sisters reassured him, to which he objected: “Yes, how can one not cry when the abyss of human souls is full.” The priest had a strong love for everything for which the Lord gave him<даром>prayers of heart and insight. “The abyss will be stretched out on the earth,” the priest said, “and the“ sirks ”(demons) will all climb out and will be in people who will neither be baptized nor pray, but only kill people, and murder - original sin. It is interesting to seduce people with this sin more. Amen". Saint Ignatius (Bryanchaninov) writes: “St. Athanasius the Great says that one of the signs of the approaching coming of the Antichrist will be the transfer of church administration from the hands of the archpastors to the hands of secular dignitaries. The sign is very true! This cannot take place otherwise than when the clergy lose their essential spiritual significance, their energy generated by a decisive renunciation of the world. Officialdom destroyed the essential significance of the Hierarchy in the Church, destroyed the connection between the pastors and the flock, and peacefulness, the insatiable desire for vain honors, for the accumulation of capital destroyed the Christians in the pastors, left in them only contemptible hated policemen because of their hatred for the people, because of their abuse and immorality. . Hieroschemamonk Kuksha (Velichko) (1875-1964): “The end times are coming. Soon there will be an ecumenical Council called "Saint". But it will be the same "Eighth Council, which will be a gathering of the godless." On it, all faiths will unite into one. Then all posts will be abolished, monasticism will be completely destroyed, bishops will be married. A new style calendar will be introduced in the Universal Church. Be carefull. Try to visit God's temples while they are still ours. Soon it will be impossible to go there, everything will change. Only a select few will see it. People will be forced to go to church, but we will not have to go there under any circumstances. I beg you, stand in the Orthodox faith until the end of your days and be saved!”