The Last Days

In those times the love for God in most souls will grow cold and a great sadness will fall onto the world. One nation shall face-off against another. Peoples will move away from their own places. Rulers will be confused. The clergy will be thrown into anarchy, and the monks will be inclined more to negligence. The church leaders will consider useless anything concerned with salvation, as much for their own souls as for the souls of their flocks, and they will despise any such concern. All will show eagerness and energy for every matter regarding their dining table and their appetites. They’ll be lazy in their prayers and casual in their criticisms. As for the lives and teachings of the Holy Fathers, they’ll not have any interest to imitate them, nor even to hear them. But rather they will complain and say, “if we had lived in those times, then we’d have behaved like that.” And the Bishops shall give way to the powerful of the world, giving answers on different matters only after taking gifts from everywhere and consulting the rational logic of the academics. The poor man’s rights will not be defended; they’ll afflict widows and harass orphans. Debauchery will permeate these people. Most won’t believe in God; they’ll hate each other and devour one another like beasts. The one will steal from the other; they’ll be drunk and will walk about as blind.

His disciple again asked, “Abba, what can we do in such a state?”

And Elder Pambo answered, “My child, in these times whoever will save his soul and prompt others to be saved will be called great in the Ruling Power [ ‘Vasileia’ = often translated “Kingdom”) of Heaven.”

after its departure from the body

The Testing of a Soul as It Passes From Earth to Heaven:

Hypothesis X

The soul, after its departure from the body,
undergoes testing in the air by evil
spirits which encounter it
and attempt to impede
its ascent.

A. From the Life of St. Anthony the Great

St. Anthony the Great was once preparing to eat at his normal time; according to custom, he stood to pray. It was then the ninth hour. But at that very moment he felt himself somehow carried off spiritually. And this unusual thing took place: While he was standing there, he looked on himself, as though he had left his body, and his soul was taken into the air by several beings. After this, he saw a number of fearful and ugly creatures standing in front of him in the air, trying to keep him from passing.

Those who were guiding his soul began to wrangle with these frightening creatures, who were asking for an account of the soul which they were accompanying and whether it was responsible to them for some debt. While the latter wanted to begin their assessment from St. Anthony’s birth, those who were accompanying him stopped them, saying:’Whatever errors Anthony committed from his birth have been erased away by the Lord; however, all of his deeds from the time that he became a monk and dedicated himself to God you may examine.”

Though the demons accused Anthony, they could not prove their accusations; so his path remained free of impediments. Immediately he saw himself return to his body, and he revived. And St. Anthony became as he had earlier been.

However, such was his agitation that he forgot to eat, and he passed the rest of the day and the whole night groaning and praying.

He was stunned when he reflected on how many temptations we must combat and what trials one must endure to pass by the air-borne demons. And he thought that this must be the meaning of the words of the Apostle Paul: “According to the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2).

For this power alone belongs to the enemy of our souls, that is, to war against us and try to impede those souls ascending into Heaven. Thus St. Paul counsels us with even greater insistence, saying: “Take unto yourself the whole armor of God so that you can withstand the devil on that wicked day, that the enemy might be brought to shame and thus have to say of you nothing dishonorable” (Ephesians 6:13).

2. After this vision, several people went to visit St. Anthony and began to discuss with him the soul and where it goes after its departure from the body. The very next night, he heard a voice call to him saying:

“Anthony, arise. Come out from your cell and look”

Indeed, St. Anthony the Great went out (for he knew what voices he should heed) and, having lifted his gaze up to Heaven, saw the following vision.

A tall and fearful creature, horrible in form, was standing straight up. His height seemed to reach up to the clouds, while a multitude of creatures flew around him, as though they had feathers. He would stretch out his hand and some of these he prevented from flying, while others succeeded in passing by and flying higher, continuing on their path without obstruction. This immensely tall demon would grit his teeth over those who escaped him; but, on the contrary, he would rejoice over those who drew near and were knocked down.

Forthwith St. Anthony heard a voice:

“Anthony, try to digest all that you have seen. And thereupon he cleansed his mind and reflected on what he had seen. It was the passage of souls into Heaven, and the immensely tall and frightening wild man, who was standing erect, was the Devil, who despises the Faithful. He takes hold of those who were guilty of sins and tries to prevent them from passing. Those who did not in their lives heed his counsel, however, he cannot hold, and for this reason such persons succeed in soaring above him and making their way to Heaven. When St. Anthony the Great saw this vision, it reminded him of the earlier one that he had seen, and he struggled daily, thereafter, to excel in the virtuous life.

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Excerpt from The Evergetinos – On Death and the Future Life

Pentecostals

- Geronda, those things the people affiliated with the Pentecostals claim – in other words, that they see visions, speak in tongues, etc. – are they just fantasy or from demonic energy?

-They are from demonic energy. Because, when they  go to the Pentecostals and are rebaptized, they disdain and deny Holy Baptism – “I confess one Baptism for the remission of sins,” says the Symbol of Faith. When they(1) are rebaptized, they receive demonic energy and speak pseudo languages. They say, “The Holy Spirit of Pentecost is speaking.” But it’s not the Holy Spirit. It’s a heap of unclean spirits. What speaking in tongues is this? They speak contradictions. They don’t even understand it themselves. They record it and everything and afterwards go over the details in order to make their conclusions: “There are this many “alleluias” in this tongue and this many in the other.” Man, with all the “Brrrrr” going on, you’re bound to find something that sounds like an “alleluia” in one of the world’s languages! And see, although it is demonic, they consider this demonism the action of the Holy Spirit and say how they experience what the Apostles lived on the day of Pentecost. Those things they believe are blasphemy, that’s why they are demonized.

1 – i.e. baptized Orthodox Christians

* Translation from the Book: “Spiritual Struggles” by Elder Paisios the Athonite. Published by the Sacred Hesychastirion of St. John the Evangelist – Souroti, Greece – 2002

Is Orthodoxy a Religion?

Many are of the opinion that Orthodoxy is just one religion among many and that its chief concern is to prepare the members of the Church for life after death, securing a place in paradise for every Orthodox Christian. Orthodox doctrine is presumed to offer some additional guarantee, because it is Orthodox, and not believing in Orthodox dogma is seen as yet another reason for someone to go to Hell, besides his personal sins that would otherwise send him there. Those Orthodox Christians who believe that this describes Orthodoxy have associated Orthodoxy exclusively with the afterlife. But in this life such people do not accomplish very much. They just wait to die, believing that they will go to paradise for the simple reason that while they were alive they were Orthodox Christians.

Another section of the Orthodox is involved with and active in the Church, interested not in the next life, but chiefly in this life, here and now. What interests them is how Orthodoxy can help them to have a good life in the present. These Orthodox Christians pray to God, have priests say prayers for them, have their homes blessed with holy water, have services of supplication sung, are anointed with oil, and so forth, all so that God will help them to enjoy life in the present: so that they do not get sick, so that their children find their place in society, so that their daughters are ensured a good dowry and a good groom, so that their boys find good girls to marry with good dowries, so that their work goes well, so that their businesses go well, even so that the stock market goes well, or the industry they work in, and so on. So we see that these Christians are not so very different from other people who follow other religions, for those people do the very same things.(1)

From what we have said, we can clearly see that Orthodoxy has two points in common with all other religions. First, it prepares believers for life after death, so that they will go to paradise, whatever they imagine that to be. Second, Orthodoxy protects them in this life so that they will not have to experience sorrow, difficulties, disaster, sickness, war, and the like – in other words, so that God will take care of all their needs and desires. Thus, for this second type of Orthodox Christian, religion plays a major role in the present life and on a daily basis at that.

But among all these Christians we have just discussed, who cares deep down whether God exists or not? Who really yearns for Him and seeks Him out? The question of God’s existence does not even come up, since it is clearly better for God to exist, so that we can appeal to Him and ask Him to satisfy our needs, in order for our work to go well and for us to have some happiness in this life. As we can see, human beings have an extremely strong predisposition to want God to exist and to believe that God exists, because we have a need for God to exist in order to ensure everything we have mentioned. Since we need God to exist, therefore, God exists. If people were not in need of a God and could take measures to ensure sufficiency for the necessities of life by some other means, then who knows how many would still believe in God. This is what happens in Greece as a rule.

So we see that many people who were previously indifferent to religion become religious towards the end of their lives, perhaps after some event that has frightened them. This happens because they feel that they cannot live any longer without appealing to some god for help – that is, it is the result of superstitious beliefs. For these reasons, human nature encourages man to be religious. This holds true not only for Orthodox Christians, but also for adherents to all religions. Human nature is the same everywhere. Since as a result of the Fall the human soul is now darkened, people are by nature inclined toward superstition.

Now the next question is this: Where does superstition stop and real belief begin?

The Fathers’ views and teachings on these matters are clear. Consider first someone who follows, or rather thinks that he follows the teachings of Christ, simply by going to Church every Sunday, communing at regular intervals, and having the priest bless him with water, anoint him with oil and so on, without examining these things very closely.(2) Does this person who remains at the letter of the law, but does not enter into the spirit of the law, stand to gain anything of any account from Orthodoxy? Now consider someone who prays exclusively for the future life, for himself and for others, but is completely indifferent towards this life. Again, what particular benefit does such a person stand to gain from Orthodoxy? The former tendency can be seen in parish priests and those who flock around them with the attitude described above. The latter tendency can be seen in some elders in monasteries, usually retired archimandrites waiting to die, and the few monks who follow them. (3)

Since purification and illumination are not their main focus or concern, both these tendencies, from the viewpoint of the Fathers, have set the wrong goals for themselves. But insofar as purification and illumination become their focus and the Orthodox asceticism of the Fathers is practiced with a view towards attaining noetic prayer, then and only then can everything else be placed on a firm foundation. These two tendencies are exaggerations that reflect two extremes and share no common core. But there is a common core, a structure that runs throughout Orthodoxy and holds it together. When we take into account this one core, this unique structure, then every subject that concerns Orthodoxy finds its proper place on a firm foundation. And this core is purification, illumination, and theosis.

What will happen to man after death was not an overriding concern for the Fathers. Their primary concern was what will man become in this life. After death, his nous cannot be treated. The treatment must begin in this life, because “in hades there is no repentance.”(4) This is why Orthodox theology is not outside of this world, futuristic, or eschatological, but is clearly grounded in this world, because Orthodoxy’s focus is man in this world and in this life, not after death.

Now why do we need purification and illumination? Is it so that we can go to Heaven and escape Hell? Is that why they are necessary? What are purification and illumination and why do Orthodox Christians want to attain them? In order to find the reason for this and to answer these questions, you need to have what Orthodox theology considers the basic key to these issues.

The basic key is the fact that, according to Orthodox theology, everyone throughout the world will finish their earthly course in the same way, regardless of whether they are Orthodox, Buddhist, Hindu, agnostic, atheist, or anything else. Everyone on earth is destined to see the glory of God. At the Second Coming of Christ, with which all human history ends, everyone will see the glory of God. And since all people will see God’s glory, they will all meet the same end. Truly, all will see the glory of God, but not in the same way – for some, the glory of God will be an exceedingly sweet Light that never sets; for others, the same glory of God will be like “a devouring fire” that will consume them. We expect this vision of God’s glory to occur as a real event. This vision of God – of His Glory and His Light – is something that will take place whether we want it to happen or not. But the experience of that Light will be different for both groups.

Therefore, it is not the Church’s task to help us see this glory, since that is going to happen anyway. The work of the Church and of her priests focuses on how we will experience the vision of God, and not whether we will experience the vision of God. The Church’s task is to proclaim to mankind that the true God exists, that He reveals Himself as Light or as a devouring fire, and that all of humanity will see God(5) at the Second Coming of Christ. Having proclaimed these truths, the Church then tries to prepare Her members so that on that day they will see God as Light, and not as fire.(6)

Read More…

Saint Symeon the New Theologian

When the Church prepares her members and everyone who desires to see God as Light, She is essentially offering them a curative course of treatment that must begin and end in this life. The treatment must take place during this life and be brought to completion, because there is no repentance after death. This curative course of treatment is the very fiber of Orthodox tradition and the primary concern of the Orthodox Church. It consists of three stages of spiritual ascent: purification from the passions, illumination by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and theosis, again by the grace of the Holy Spirit. We should also take note. If a believer does not reach a state of at least partial illumination in this life, he will not be able to see God as Light either in this life or in the next.(7)

It is obvious that the Church Fathers were interested in people as they are today at this moment. Every human being needs to be healed. Every human being is also responsible before God to begin this process today in this life, because now is when it is possible, not after death. Everyone must decide for himself whether or not he will pursue this path of healing.

Christ said, “I am the Way.”(8) But where does this Way lead?  Christ is not referring to the next life. Christ is primarily the Way in this life. Christ is the Way to His Father and our Father. First, Christ reveals Himself to man in this life and shows him the path to the Father. This path is Christ Himself. If a man does not see Christ in this life, at least by sensing Him in his heart, he also will not see the Father or the Light of God in the life to come.(9)

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Notes

(1) As we noted in the Prologue, Father John’s words are at times caustic.
(2) Of course, genuine Orthodox Christians do these same things and it is not wrong for them to desire to do them. The problem is when someone stagnates at this level.
(3) As a rule, this is seen when the spiritual father and his monks are not interested in hesychasm.
(4) St. John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book II,
Chapter IV.
(5) Of course, all people have a partial experience of this vision of God immediately after the departure of the soul from the body at their biological death.
(6) “In the fire of revelation on the final day, the deeds of each will be tested by fire as Paul says. If what one has built up for himself is a work of incorruptibility, it will remain incorruptible in the midst of the fire and not only will it not be burned up, but it will be made radiant, totally purified of the perhaps small amount of filth…” St. Nikitas Stithatos, “On Spiritual Knowledge,” §79, The Philokalia, vol. III, page 348 [in Greek] [in English, page 165].
(7) “We have fallen so far from the vision of Him, corresponding to the dimness of our sight, since we have voluntarily deprived ourselves of His Light in this present life.” St. Symeon the New Theologian, Extant Works, Discourse 75 [in Greek].
(8) John 14:6.
(9) “…At Christ’s Second Coming, all mankind will be raised and will be judged according to their works. The sinners who did not acquire spiritual eyes will not cease to exist. They will continue to exist ontologically as persons, but they will not participate in God. The righteous will both participate in God and commune with Him. As Saint Maximos the Confessor teaches, the sinners will live with an ‘eternal lack of well being,’ while the righteous will live in a state of ‘eternal well being.’” Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos, The Person in Orthodox Tradition (Levadia: Birth of the Theotokos Monastery, 1994), p. 162 [in Greek].

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This is an excerpt from: Patristic Theology, The University Lectures of Father John Romanides, by Uncut Mountain Press.

~+~
Know that we must serve, not the times, but God.
—St. Athanasios the Great

On Theology

When the Fathers speak about God, they begin with Holy Scripture as well as with what earlier Church Fathers said. In the meantime, they do not present their own theology until they gain the experience of illumination, because until they reach illumination they are merely disciples. In other words, they are still being trained under spiritual fathers who prepare them for illumination. These spiritual fathers give their apprentices the Old and New Testament to read. They sit down with them and interpret the Bible, so that their disciples will be historically well versed in Orthodox tradition. They assign them the task of practicing noetic prayer, fasting, and so forth. And in general,’ they train them in order for each disciple’s nous to be thoroughly purified and emptied of all thoughts, both good and bad. In this way, those disciples who have acquired a pure nous are in a position to receive a visitation by the Holy Spirit. They begin to speak theologically only now that the Holy Spirit has come and begun to pray within them.

Advancement along such an ongoing process also brings about the healing of the human person. In practice, this is achieved through a continuous and intense struggle lasting many years. During this struggle, grace repeatedly comes and goes until it purifies the struggler of his passions and makes him skillful in opposing them.

Now during this entire struggle, philosophy is not at all helpful. It is not even the least bit helpful, because what is ultimately purified is not the human reason or intellect [dianoia], but the human nous. The human intellect is purified quickly during the initial stage of the struggle, while the human nous or heart requires a much greater length of time in order to be purified, provided, it goes without saying, that the struggler abides by the precepts of the ascetic life.

So as we have said before, the human intellect and the human nous are different faculties. In science, the human intellect or reason is what is enlightened by scientific knowledge. A genuine theologian, however, is doubly illumined. Although his reason also needs to be enlightened by instruction in the faith, it is mainly his nous, or spiritual heart, which must be illumined.

But in Western theology, theologians identified inspiration by the Holy Spirit with bringing the reason into harmony with Plato’s archetypes, which were thought to exist within God. In fact, according to Augustine, inspiration is identified with knowing these archetypes, if not directly, at least through creation. More specifically, the theologian was to know these archetypes by studying the Bible and philosophy as well as by meditating on the Bible. So they claimed that in this way the theologian comes to know the archetypes and automatically knows the laws of truth, ethical behavior, and so forth.

Patristic Theology: The University Lectures of Father John Romanides Chapter 51. On Theology

Perilous Times Shall Come

Where, then, is the optimism for the last days? When the Lord foretells that deception shall cover the whole earth so that even the chosen shall be in danger of being deceived at their every step by the false Christians and false Christs who shall be everywhere, how can we be optimistic about the future? How can we be optimistic when the Lord foretells the multiplying of iniquity and the chilling of men’s love?

Of course, there are forecasts of the union of churches, of the union of all those who come in His name to deceive many. But “take heed that no man deceive you; behold, I have foretold it to you”. The union which the false Christians of our times seek is one of the most perfect machinations of falsehood, a snare of hypocritical piety from which the Lord wants to save us by making us cautious. If the unity and worldwide expansion of Christianity is the final destiny of mankind as they teach, why then does Christ foretell tribulation for His elect in those days?

If the Gospel will be accepted and lived by all the nations of the earth, why does Christ say that the days at the end of the world will be like the days of Noe, when apostasy had covered the earth, and only a handful of people were found faithful to God and entered the ark, which symbolizes the Church? If the last days of the earth are characterized by the idyllic image of which the sentimental, the “spiritual” Christians dream, how does the Apostle Paul write these words to Timothy? “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, slanderers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof” (II Tim. 3:1-5) …

Where, then, is the optimism of the Apostle Paul when he writes to the Thessalonians, who where awaiting from minute to minute the coming of Christ? “Let no man deceive you by any means [that is, that Christ is coming right now], for except there come apostasy first and that man of sin [the Antichrist] be revealed, the son of perdition who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God”, Christ shall not come. “Remember ye not that when I was yet with you I told you these things?” And later he continues about the Antichrist: “And then shall the wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the breath of His mouth and shall destroy with the brighness of His coming, even him whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and false worders, and with all deception of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them a working of delusion that they should believe a lie, so that they all may be judged who have believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (II Thess. 2:3-5, 8-12).

The future then is not a beautiful as “they who perish” imagine, they who “receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved”. It will be characterized by apostasy, the worst falling away the world has ever known. Because it will not be a clean and honest denial of God, but a hypocrisy, a falsification of the Faith and of the truth.

Did not the Fathers of the desert and the great cloud of Saints of our Church prophesy the same things about the last days? Here is a conversation between a desciple and his spiritual father taken from the Evergetinos (1958 edition, Vol. II, p. 114): And the brother said to him, “What then? Shall the customs and Traditions of the Christians change, and shall there be no priests in the Church so that such things happen?” And the elder said, “In times such as those, the love of many shall grow cold, and there shall be not a little tribulation: overrunning of nations and movement of peoples, apostasy of kings, prodigality of priests, negligence of those in monastic life; and there shall be superiors disdaining their own salvation and that of their flock, all of them eager and outstanding at banquets, contentious, indolent in prayers, and eager to slander, ready to condemn the lives of the Elders and their sayings, neither imitating nor hearing them, but rather reviling them and saying, “If we lived days shall be respecters of powerful persons, making decisions according to gifts, not defending the poor under judgement, oppressing widows, abusing orphans; and unbelief shall enter into the people, depravity, hatred, enmity, jealousy, rivalries, thievery, drunkenness.” And the brother said, “What then is one to do in those times and years?” And the elder said, “Child, in such days as those, he who can save, let him save his own soul, and he shall be called great in the kingdom of Heaven”.

From these prophecies which in great part have already been fulfilled, one can easily come to a conclusion about where man-kind is headed. Its future is a spiritual bankruptcy, where love for God and neighbor will have grown cold, and men will have become to the extreme limit agotists, covetous, boasters, blasphemers, lovers of pleasure.

But that spiritual bankruptcy will not appear bare and monstrous as it is, but will be covered by an amazing appearance of religiosity. These people with their many spiritual ulcers will have none the less an appearance of piety. There will be many who will preach in the name of Christ and will deceive with their false piety and religiosity those “who perish”, all those who do not have in their hearts the love of the truth in order to be able to discern the wolves in sheep’s clothing. And furthermore, the false Christs and false prophets in the last days will accompany their message with signs and great wonders which they shall effect through the power of Satan (spiritualism, magic, fakirism, etc.).

Finally, when the faith of the great masses of humanity has been corroded by these false prophets and their souls have been prepared, then he whom the Jews awaited and still await will be revealed; it is he whose way mankind has been preparing now for centuries, he who will become the symbol and god of the entire lost generation of the last people, “the man of sin” – the great Satanic sin of the spirit – the son of perdition, the adversary, who like Lucifer exalts himself above everything which men have honored until then. He will sit in the temple of God as God, and by means of fearful powers and signs and wonders which he will perform with the power of Satan, he will prove to the darkened and shortsighted minds of men that he and no one else is God.

He will make the desired union of the sentimentalists a reality.

Before his throne people of all the religions and spiritual currents will bow to worship as brothers. He will unite all the nations of the earth under his scepter because “power has been given to him over every race and people and tongue and nation. And all who dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:7-8).

For worldly people, that preview of a universal state and universal religion is something very pleasant. It is the same today with those who desire the union of the churches and do not care about the truth. For the latter, dogmatical subjects are futile Byzantinologies. But “for this cause, God shall send them a working of delusion that they should believe a lie, so that they all may be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness”.

- Dr. Alexander Kalomiros: Against False Union

The Masks

For the present, let all who wish to live near Christ hasten to acquire discretion in order to recognize beforehand the false prophets and false Christs, and let them wear the armor of the Faith so that they will be able to strike them and their followers invincibly.

For our age is a cunning age, where falsehood is disguised and poison is offered sugar-coated, where the roads are full of snares and well-camouflaged pits. Whoever is misled by appearances is lost.

We must learn to distinguish the Church from the world, for the destiny of the Church is one thing and that of the world another. We must have as much distrust of the world as we have faith in the Church, as much hate towards the world (not towards men, but the world) as we have love for the Church, as much pessimism for the world as we have optimism for the Church.

The world is the camp, the mentality, and the intentions of those who have rejected the offering of God, who have turned their backs when He wanted to speak to them, who have separated themselves from Him forever. These people have given preference to death over life. They are not punished, just as the demons are not punished, for no one wishes them any harm. Of their own accord they chose death, of their own accord they chose to be enemies of God and to stand far away from Him.

This choice is made in life, independent of moments and time, in the depths of our heart, and it is irrevocable. Freedom separates the spiritual beings into two camps. There are two types of people, as there are two types of angels: the friends of God and the enemies of God.

Freedom does not lie in individual actions, but in the whole inclination and disposition of man, in the final positive or negative response to God’s call. Freedom lies in the general direction of man’s life, and not in the details of that life.

The details are deceiving: they make the Pharisees and Scribes appear to be friends of God, and the thief, the harlot, the publican, and Saul [Paul] appear to be His enemies.

We must be able to recognize the true enemies and the true friends of God under the masks of hypocrisy or weakness.

We are in an age where the masks of hypocrisy have multiplied and reached an astonishing degree of perfection. From one moment to the next we are in danger of being deceived by men who, while wearing the mask of the friends of God, are actually His enemies.

Such are those who speak of the union of the churches. They are the Church’s most dangerous enemies, the false prophets of the Gospel.

The enemies who appear without any mask – the atheists, the materialists, the communists – cannot fool anyone. They are the ones who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But the others – “Orthodox” patriarchs, bishops and archbishops, leaders of Christian organizations, theologians and professors of theology – all who speak with hypocritical Christian love for our “brothers” the heretics and spread the message of union, all of these mask-wearers may not be killing the body, but they are surely killing the soul. This is why the battle against them must be relentless.

- Dr. Alexander Kalomiros: Against False Union Chapter One

Peace without Truth

The tragic experience of recent generations has brought to humanity an intense thirst for peace. Peace is now considered a good higher than many ideals for which people formerly gladly shed their blood. Contributing very much to this is the fact that war is not what it often was in the past, that is, a conflict between injustice and justice, but has become a conflict without meaning between which the injustice of various parties has used to appear just in the eyes of its followers, has caused people to lose faith in the existence of justice and to fail to see anything before them that is worthy of defending. Thus war, any form, seems to be something completely absurd.

This reluctance on the part of humanity for any kind of conflict would have been something admirable if it were the offspring of spiritual health. If injustice, hatred, and falsehood had ceased to exist, then peace would have been the consummation of human happiness. Unity would have been a natural and not an artificial result. But something totally different is noticeable. Today when everyone is speaking of peace and unity, self-love and hatred, injustice and falsehood, ambition and greed, are at their zenith. All – everyone in his own way – speak of love for man, of love for humanity. But there has never existed a greater hypocrisy than that so – called love. Because love towards something theoretical, for something imaginary, such as the concept “humanity”, is equally theoretical and imaginary. It has no relation to love for the particular man we have before us. This love for a particular person, when it exists, is the only real love. It is the love for our neighbor that Christ asked.

This particular man with his imperfections and weaknesses, instead of being loved, has been hated in our time more than in any other age. Not only has he been hated, but he has been scorned and humiliated; he has been regarded as a “thing” without any particular value, a means for the attainment of “high goals”, a particle of the mass. Those who speak the most of love towards man and humanity, of peace and union, are precisely those who hate their neighbor, their acquaintance, the most. They love man the creation of their own imagination; they do not love man the reality. This worship of the idol “man” is in reality narcissism; it is the worship of the ego.

It would be naivete, therefore, if one were to believe that the pacifist disposition that characterizes humanity today proceeds from love. These words about love are hypocrisy and self-deception. The desire for peace proceeds from the loss of ideals, from fear, and from the love of comfort. It is the desire to be left in peace to enjoy the good things of this earth. It is the conventional cooperation for the acquisition of goods which each person separately would not be able to acquire. It is a universal understanding upon something which has become the passion of the wincle earth: sensualism and materialism. It is a product of necessity.

The peace of which the world speaks is an unconditional capitulation of everything good and sacred and great, and the dominance of pettiness, mediocrity, and lukewarmness. It is the blotting out of the personality of individuals and of peoples. It is a marmalade of compromises and calculations, a sea of hypocrisy, indifference for the truth, the betrayal of everything holy and sacred.

War is a terrible thing, a result of the fall of man, and no one is about to praise it. But the peace for which the world is haggling is something infinitely more fearful. A fever is a very unpleasant thing, but it shows at least that the organism is reacting against something bad which has entered it. The peace which they wish to bring is not, unfortunately, that which comes from the victory over evil, but that which comes from defeat. It is the feverlessness of a corpse.

At bottom, the peace which men pursue is not only a peace of weapons. It is the peace of conscience. They wish to reconcile good with evil, justice with injustice, virtue with sin, truth with falsehood, in order to be able to make peace with their conscience.

- Dr. Alexander Kalomiros: Against False Union Chapter One

Dr. Alexander Kalomiros

Against False Union (or as a Word doc file here), offers a criticism of ecumenism

The Touchstone (pdf file; sequel to Against False Union)

And do you love God?

Love Of God

by Saint Herman of Alaska

Once the Elder was invited on board a frigate that had come from St. Petersburg. The captain of the frigate was a man quite learned, highly educated; he had been sent to America by Imperial command to inspect all the colonies. With the captain were some 25 officers, likewise educated men. In this company there sat a desert-dwelling monk of small stature, in an old garment, who by his wise conversation brought all his listeners to such a state that they did not know how to answer him. The captain himself related: “We were speechless fools before him!”

Father Herman gave them all one common question: “What do you, gentlemen, love above all, and what would each of you wish for his happiness?” Diverse answers followed. One desired wealth, one glory, one a beautiful wife, one a fine ship which he should command, and so on in this fashion. “Is it not true,” said Father Herman at this, “that all your various desires can be reduced to one – that each of you desires that which, in his understanding, he considers best and most worthy of love?” “Yes, it is so,” they all replied. “Well, then, tell me,” he continued, “can there be anything better, higher above everything, more surpassing everything and in general more worthy of love, than our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who created us, perfectly adorned us, gave life to all, supports all, nourishes and loves all, who Himself is love and more excellent than all men? Should not a person then love God high above all and desire and seek Him more than all else?” All began to say: “Well, yes! That is understood! That speaks for itself!”

“And do you love God?” the Elder then asked. All replied: “Of course, we love God. How can one not love God?” “And I, sinful one, for more than forty years have been striving to love God, and cannot say that I perfectly love Him,” answered Father Herman; then he began to show how a person should love God. “If we love someone,” he said, “we always think of him, strive to please him, day and night our heart is occupied with this subject. Is it thus that you, gentlemen, love God? Do you often turn to Him, do you always think of Him, do you always pray to Him, and fulfill His holy commandments?” It had to be acknowledged that they did not! “For our good, for our happiness,” concluded the Elder, “at least let us make a promise to ourselves, that from this day, from this hour, from this very moment we shall strive to love God above all, and fulfill His holy will!” Behold what an intelligent, superb conversation Father Herman conducted in society; without doubt this conversation must have imprinted itself on the hearts of his listeners for their whole life!

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(Yanovsky, in Life of Monk Herman of Valaam, 1868)