Epilogue.

Although it is not for us to know the times or the seasons, end-times prophecies abound, and their astonishing messages clearly show that we are at the very threshold of the end of the ages. The Apostle Paul, for example, writes that in the last days, people shall become:

…lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, without self-control, fierce, despisers of those who are good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof (2 Tim 3:2-5).

The Greek Elder Philotheos Zervakos (+1980) additionally states that:

Concerning the end of the age, [Christ] did not set the date precisely; He said only: “When you see wars, earthquakes, floods, disbelief, impiety, lawlessness, lack of love, false prophets, false messiahs and deceivers, then consider that the end is approaching.” In an ancient book it was written that when the disciples asked the Teacher when these things would happen and He told them the above, He also told them that when men became women and the women men, then the end would take place. And [St. John] Chrysostom said that the Lord also said this, that the Second Coming will take place when women are lacking in modesty [Paternal Counsels, vol. 1, p. 59].

One of the most striking prophecies for our times is that given by a hermit of Mount Athos, St. Nilus the Myrrhstreaming (+1651). In it, the saint speaks in part of the tremendous technological advances hundreds of years before they were discovered. He also gives the following disheartening picture, one modern people can readily recognize because of its incredible accuracy:

... Toward the middle of the twentieth century, the people of that time will become unrecognizable. When the time for the advent of the antichrist approaches, people's minds will grow cloudy from carnal passions, and dishonor and lawlessness will grow stronger. Then the world will become unrecognizable. People's appearances will change, and it will be impossible to distinguish men from women due to their shamelessness in dress and style of hair. These people will be cruel and will be like wild animals because of the temptations of the antichrist. There will be no respect for parents and elders, love will disappear, and Christian pastors, bishops and priests will become vain men, completely failing to distinguish the right-hand way from the left. At that time the morals and traditions of Christians and of the Church will change. Falsehood and greed will attain great proportions, and woe to those who pile up treasures. Lust, adultery, homosexuality, secret deeds and murder will rule in society.

At that future time, due to the power of such great crimes and licentiousness, people will be deprived of the grace of the Holy Spirit which they received in Holy Baptism, and equally of remorse. The Churches of God will be deprived of God-fearing and pious pastors, and woe to the Christians remaining in the world at that time; they will completely lose their faith because they will lack the opportunity of seeing the light of knowledge from anyone at all. Then they will separate themselves out of the world in holy refuges in search of lightening of their spiritual sufferings, but everywhere they will meet obstacles and constraints. And all this will result from the fact that the antichrist wants to be lord over everything and become the ruler of the whole universe, and he will produce miracles and fantastic signs. He will also give depraved wisdom to an unhappy man so that he will discover a way by which one man can carry on a conversation with another from one end of the earth to the other. At that time men will also fly through the air like birds and descend to the bottom of the sea like fish. And when they have achieved all this, these unhappy people will spend their lives in comfort without knowing, poor souls, that it is the deceit of the antichrist. And, the impious one — he will so complete science with vanity that it will go off the right path and lead people to lose faith in the existence of God in three Hypostases....

In America's own brand of enforced atheism, people have been reduced to a chance collection of molecules, and the time has come when absolutes are conditioned by an elite. This grim situation is one manifestation of the barbarism of modernity, but there are others: the near-universal apostasy from Christianity; the proliferation of false teachers and deceivers; the growth of a superficial, pseudo-Christianity; the hatred of children for parents; the insubordination to authority and a massive growth of lawlessness and other disorders; the growing cold of human love; the multiplication of people in high places who would like to see all religious freedoms removed; and many other symptoms as well.

            In view of these developments, even secular commentators of the world now speak of a “quickening” process. One of them, the secular philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset writes that “before long will be heard throughout the planet a formidable cry, rising like the howling of innumerable dogs to the stars, asking for someone or something to take command.” The stage has been set for the one-world government of the antichrist, the preparations for which have already begun through technological manipulation. The door is already open to the nightmarish world of the future described in the final book of New Testament Scriptures, and the specter of that cataclysm now haunts the entire world. In the warning of the twentieth-century prophet, Elder Ignatii of Harbin, Manchuria, “What began in Russia will end in America.”

            In view of the pre-apocalyptic times in which we are currently living, this course must conclude on the sad note of some observations made by the nineteenth-century Father, St. Ignatii  Brianchaninov, who tells us:

One may recognize the work of the Orthodox faith as approaching its definite conclusion.... Do not expect from anyone the restoration of Christianity. The vessels of the Holy Spirit have definitely dried up everywhere, even in the monasteries, those treasuries of piety and grace.... The merciful long-suffering of God extends and delays the final end for the small remnant of those who are being saved, while those who are becoming corrupt attain the fullness of corruption.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus (Apoc 22:20).