“Blessed and thrice-blessed is the man who will not desire to do so and, hence, will not see the God-abominated person of antichrist. Whosoever will see him and hear his blasphemous words promising all earthly blessings, the same will be seduced and will go forth to worship him. And they will perish, along with him, as far as eternal life is concerned; they will burn in eternal fire!”

It is not a bad thing to analyze, and analyze and analyze what led us here. We analyze it from a historical point of view, from an economical, social or any other point of view. There is nothing wrong with analyzing. In fact I reached some valuable conclusions reading what is posted here.

We have to do more than this. If there is a city destroyed by a calamity, you do not start to analyze what happened. A brief analysis might be necessary in order to properly proceed to actually save whatever is left, the survivors, and get them out of the debris. We can do that by placing the light on Christ and the Saints. Fr. Arseney’s story is not unique. On the contrary, there are so many. When you know these stories you want to become like Fr. Arseney, you start to understand and love Christ.

You should have used quotes for the Big Bang. Very few people can read minds here (if any 🙂 ). May you conversion
be for the salvation of your soul.

I’ll tell you a real story. Just before the communism came fraudulently to full power in an eastern European country a priest, Fr. Arsey, was preaching to a large crowd gathered outside his church. The people were waiting and waiting, but the priest would not start to talk. After a while he said: I am not going to talk until the poisonous serpents who are hiding in the crowd of believers will leave. All of a sudden some motion took place in the crowd and some people left. The priest started to talk. After he talked for a while he stopped and was looking above the crowd. There were two minutes of complete silence and nobody understood why. Later on the priest told some of his closest followers that he had seen seven crowns coming down from the sky and placed on the heads of seven men. Later on those men were arrested and died in the communist prisons. Those were the crowns of martyrdom.

Later on, Fr Arseney was arrested and put in prison. But great is our Lord and God Jesus Christ! He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. When the priest was praying at midnight the chains and locks will fall apart. The people (guards, officers, etc) will gather at midnight to see this miracle. After work, all they will talk about is Fr. Arseney. The authorities were forced to take him out of jail and give him an imposed residency.

What I mean is that venomous serpents are still around writing on blogs, appearing to be no different than a true faithful. What they have difficulties with is writing down with capital letters “Christ is my God and my Lord!” or something similar.
And yes, we are to give thanks to Him for everything!

Brother L Coman,
Certainly we are to always remain steady and endure suffering. I am an ignorant man, I don’t understand the teaching of microchips from the holy fathers. How will this help us to engage the cultural issues of the day from within our tradition?

H. Mitchell: I think the Church should work as hard as it can to make things better here. Nor was I meaning to imply that the Church should do anything to reduce. Indeed, may it grow! As a relatively new convert, I want others to find what I have been blessed to have received.

What I meant is that in the coming days I don’t think people will claim to be Christians as a career enhancer. It seems to me that we are returning to a general atmosphere reminiscent of the first two centuries, although I don’t expect believers to be thrown into arenas with wild animals. If I am right, it is the times that will do the reducing since it will take hardiness and true belief to identify oneself as a Christian. When that happens, the Church will be reduced to its core essence of the truly faithful, at which point I expect history to repeat itself and the world to once again be transformed, which was my meaning in using “Big Bang.”

Thanks.

He is born!

Then, as we saw in the first few centuries, we could experience another Big Bang that once again transforms the world.

Except for the quote above, Wesley’s comment seems very sound.
The questions one should ask are:
1. Doesn’t Wesley know that the Big Bang has nothing to do with Christianity?
2. Did he made this mistake out of ignorance or intentionally?

Out there are hierarchs, not only lay people, who know a great deal about Christianity but they work to distort it.

Note 29.
What we need to do is to know our faith and the teachings of the Holy Fathers.
We should not accept the microchip and be prepared to live with a piece of bread and few olives a day ( Elder Paisios). We should know that antichrist will work false miracles and generally, will try to copy Christ.

This is what we should expect:
Prophecies

In the meantime, is not our job to speak the truth to the best of our ability, and to do so in love? And isn’t that the “why” and not the “how?”

As for me, by God’s grace, I am going to repent my many failings, work to bank my anger and frustration, and prayerfully seek to exhibit the charity in my heart that is the minimum that is expected of me.

The seduction of the world and its problems is too great for many to ignore. Witness the insistence of the ecumenical patriarchate on green issues. The Indiction this year was served in honor of the ecosystem. While I believe that we should be good stewards of the earth, this is but a step a way from Gaia-worship.

However, a bigger challenge today is the worship of nothing that is nihilism. At least in paganism some thing is worshiped.

This is what I was saying: paganism is not the default state of humanity. What we meant by paganism was “man living and trying to find happiness in a purely worldly sense, without reference to God”. This is our western world today. It is not a natural state, we were led here. The proof of it is the second sentence in the quote: at least in paganism some thing is worshiped. Here by paganism you mean something else: people worshiping false gods. They are more serious in their religious life. Why is that? Because of what they are exposed to through education in schools and mass media.

However, a bigger challege today is the worhip of nothing that is nihilism. At least in paganism some thing is worshiped.

I don’t consider my statement a merely a literary device. Satan is a real being, not simply a personifying metaphor.

Corruption (i.e. sickness, despair, death), is what we default to. Even the saints who have overcome the passions physically die.

Then you say there is no (significant) difference between a saint and a sinner. Wow …

You say:

As far as the Antichrist is concerned, IMO, I fear he will be an orthodox-believing Christian, one who will be able to deceive “even the elect.”

How in the world can antichrist be an orthodox-believing Christian? You are abusing the language. An orthodox-believing Christian is by definition (a very basic one) a person who believes in Christ. Antichrist will say that he is the Messiah! When did he change his mind? At some point he started to doubt Christ and believe that he is the Messiah. Or he pretended all the time to be an orthodox-believing Christian but never really was. I do not see any other possibility.

The only conspiracy is Satan’s.

It is just a literary device? The angels, the devil, hell and heaven are all literary devices? Some “Catholics” teach this.

St John Maximovitch was taken to court by real people, but he accused the devil.

Paganism: idolatry, hedonism, and today, political ideology, are all the results of the Fall. Corruption (i.e. sickness, despair, death), is what we default to. Even the saints who have overcome the passions physically die. Our normal state will not be repaired completely until the Last Judgment.