“On the Antichrist & the End of the World”

By St. John Maximovitch

The Sunday of the Fearful Court

Today we are in the Week of the dreadful Judgment and it is natural to talk about the dreadful Judgment and the signs of the end of the world. No one knows that day except God the Father, but the signs of its approach are given in the Gospel and in the Apocalypse of the Holy Apostle John the Theologian. Revelation speaks of the events of the end of the world and the dreaded Judgment especially in symbols and guessing, but the Holy Fathers interpreted it and there is an authentic tradition of the Church that speaks to us of the signs of the end of the world and the Last Judgment.

Before the end of life on earth there will be unrest, wars, civil unrest, famines, earthquakes. People will suffer from fear, they will die waiting for misfortunes (Luke 21, 26). It will be neither life nor the joy of life, but a torturous state of loss of connection with life. But not only the connection with life, but also with faith will be lost; and when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? (Luke 18:8). People will be proud, they will be dissatisfied, they will reject the Law of God: along with the loss of the connection with life, it will also weaken morale. Good will weaken and evil will increase.

The Apostle John the Theologian also speaks of these times in his God-inspired work, called Revelation. He himself confesses that “he was in the Spirit,” which means that the Holy Spirit himself was in him when the destinies of the Church and of the world were revealed to him in various symbolic images; therefore, Revelation is a revelation of God. He presents the destiny of the Church in the form of a woman hiding in those days in the wilderness: she does not show herself alive, as is now the case in Russia.

In reality, the forces that prepare the coming of the Antichrist will be of decisive importance. The Antichrist will be a man, not the incarnate devil. The word “anti” means “old” or “instead of” or “against.” That man wants to be in Christ’s place, to take His place, and to have what Christ should have. He wants to have the same power of fascination and the same dominion over the whole world. He will receive that power before his death and that of the whole world. He will have as his help a magician who by the power of false miracles will do his will and kill those who do not recognize the dominion of the Antichrist. Before the death of the Antichrist, two righteous people will appear, who will reveal him. The magician will kill them and their bodies will remain unburied for three days. This will be the greatest jubilee of the Antichrist and all his servants. But suddenly the righteous will be resurrected, and the whole army of the Antichrist will be in great turmoil and terrified, and the Antichrist will suddenly fall dead, slain by the power of the Spirit.

But what is known about the man-Antichrist? Its exact origin is unknown. The father is completely unknown, and the mother is a corrupt woman who pretends to be a virgin. He will be a Jew from the tribe of Dan. For this we have a sign that James, dying, said that among his descendants “Dan shall be a serpent in the way, a serpent in the path, poisoning the horse’s feet, that the rider may fall” (Genesis 49:17). This tells us metaphorically that he will act by cunning and wickedness. John the Theologian speaks in Revelation about the salvation of the children of Israel, that before the end of the world a multitude of Jews will return to Christ, but the tribe of Dan is missing from the line of saved tribes.

The Antichrist will be very intelligent and will know how to deal with people. He will be charming and friendly. The philosopher Vladimir Soloviev [1] worked hard to imagine the coming and personality of the Antichrist. He made extensive use of all existing material on the subject, not only of the Holy Fathers, but also of Muslim texts, and painted this disturbing picture. By the time Antichrist comes into the world, his coming is ready. “The mystery is already at work,” and the forces preparing for its appearance are fighting, first and foremost, against the lawful kingdom.

The Holy Apostle Paul says that the Antichrist cannot appear until “he who hinders it” has been removed (II Thess. 2:7). St. John Chrysostom interprets that “the one who prevents it” is the lawful rule of God. This domination fights evil. The “mystery” that works in the world does not want this, it does not want to fight evil by the means of force: on the contrary, it wants the mastery of iniquity and when it obtains it, nothing will prevent the coming of the Antichrist. He will not only be intelligent and charming, but will be merciful, will do acts of charity and good deeds to strengthen his dominion. And when he strengthens it so much that the whole world will recognize him, then he will show his face.

The capital he will choose will be Jerusalem, because here the Savior has revealed His divine teaching and the Person, here the whole world has been called to taste the happiness of good and salvation. But the world did not receive Christ and crucify Him in Jerusalem. In the time of the Antichrist, Jerusalem will become the capital of the world, which has recognized its dominion. She does not want to fight evil by means of force: on the contrary, she desires the mastery of iniquity, and when she obtains it, nothing will prevent the coming of the Antichrist.

Reaching the heights of power, the Antichrist will ask people to recognize him as the one who has attained what no other earthly power has and no one has ever attained and will claim worship as a supreme being, as a god. Vladimir Soloviev describes very well the character of the activity of the Antichrist as a high-ranking leader. He will please everyone, provided they recognize the supremacy of his power. He will create living conditions for the Church, allow them to serve, promise to build splendid churches, provided he is recognized as a “supreme being” and that the world worships him. He will have a personal hatred of Christ. He will live from this hatred and enjoy the rejection of Christ and the Church.

It will be a general apostasy, and on top of that, many bishops will betray the faith, and as a justification, point to the bright state of the Church. The search for compromise will be the characteristic attitude of the people. The firmness of confession will disappear.

People will diligently seek to motivate their downfall, and evil, like a malignant sluggishness, will sustain this general condition. People will have the habit of renouncing righteousness, the sweetness of compromise, and sin. The Antichrist will allow people everything, except that they “fall before him and worship him.” It is not a new attitude toward men: and the Roman emperors were ready to restore the freedom of the Christians provided they recognized their divinity and supreme divine power, and tormented them only because they confessed that, “to the Lord your God you shall worship Him alone.” (Matthew 4: 9-10).

The whole world will obey him, and then he will reveal his face and hatred of Christ and Christianity. St. John the Theologian says that all who worship him will have a mark on his forehead and right hand. It is not known whether this will really be a mark on the body, or whether it is a symbolic expression of the fact that men will recognize with their minds the necessity of worshiping the Antichrist, and that their whole will will be subject to him, during such total submission of the whole world — and will, and conscience — will appear the two righteous ones I have mentioned, who will fearlessly preach the faith and expose the Antichrist.

The Holy Scriptures say that before the coming of the Savior, two “candlesticks”, two “burning olive trees”, “two righteous ones” will appear. These Antichrist will kill with the powers of the magician. Who are these righteous? According to the Church’s Tradition, it is the two righteous who did not taste death: the prophet Elijah and the prophet Enoch. There is a prophecy that these righteous who have not tasted death will taste it for three days, and in three days they will rise again. Their death will be a great joy for the Antichrist and his servants. Their resurrection over three days will bring them into a state of unspeakable horror, fear, and turmoil. Then the end of the world will come.

The Holy Apostle Peter says that the first world was created from water and perished by water. “Out of the water” is also a symbol of the chaos of the physical mass, and perished by the water of the flood. And the world today is kept for fire (II Peter 3:5-7). “The earth and the things that are on it will be consumed” (II Peter 3:10), all the elements will be ignited. This world now will perish in an instant, in an instant everything will change. And the sign of the Son of God will be shown – that is, the sign of the Cross, the whole world that has willingly submitted to the Antichrist “will weep.” It’s all over. The Antichrist was killed. It is the end of his kingdom, of the struggle with Christ. It is the end and time of the answer for a lifetime, the answer given to the True God. Then the ark of the Law will appear from the mountains of Palestine: the prophet Jeremiah had hidden the ark and the sacred fire in a deep well. When water was taken from that well, it ignited. But the ark was not found.

When we look now at the life around us, those who can see see that everything that was foretold about the end of the world is being fulfilled. But who is this man, the Antichrist? St. John the Theologian symbolically gives it its name 666, but all attempts to understand this sign have been in vain. In contemporary life we ​​can have a fairly clear vision of the possibility of burning the world, when “all the elements will light up.” This vision is provided by the fission of the atom. The end of the world does not mean its destruction, but its change. Everything will change at once, in an instant. The dead will rise in new bodies: they will be their bodies, but renewed, as the Savior rose in His body, which bore the marks of wounds and spears, but had new qualities, and in this sense was a new body. It is not clear whether it will be a whole new body or the body with which man was created. And the Lord shall be glorified in the cloud. How will we see him? With the eyes of the spirit. And now, before death, the righteous see around them what other people do not see.

The trumpets will sound loudly. They will sound in souls and consciences. Everything will clear in the human consciousness. The prophet Daniel, speaking of the Last Judgment, tells of an Old Judge seated on the throne, before whom is a river of fire. Fire is the cleansing element. Fire consumes sin, burns it, and if sin has been grafted into the soul of man, then it also consumes man. This fire will be kindled within man: seeing the Cross, some will rejoice and others will fall into despair, they will be troubled, they will be terrified. Thus, people will suddenly separate: in the Gospel account, some sit on the right, in front of the Judge, and others on the left: they have separated their conscience, the very state of man’s soul throws him to one side or the other, to the right. or to the left. The more diligently and insistently a man has longed for God in his life, the greater will be his joy when he hears the word, “Come unto me, you who are blessed!” and, on the contrary, the same words will kindle the fire of horror and torment of those who did not desire, avoided, or even fought Him, or blasphemed Him in life.

The Last Judgment has no witnesses or list of protocol. Everything is written in people’s souls and these notes, these “books” will open. Everything will be revealed to each and every one, and the state of man’s soul will make him go to the right or to the left. Some to joy, others to torment. When the “books” are opened, everyone will clearly understand that the roots of all vices are in the human soul. Here is the drunkard, the fornicator: when the body dies, some believe that sin also dies. Not so, there was an inclination in the soul, for the soul, sin was sweet. And if he has not repented of that sin, if he has not freed himself from it, the soul will come to the Last Judgment with the same desire for the sweetness of sin, and will never satisfy its desire. He will suffer hatred and wickedness. And this is an infernal state.

[1] See Short story about the Antichrist, in Vladimir Soloviov, Three dialogues about the end of universal history, Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 1992.
(Saint John Maximovich, “Spiritual Sermons and Guidelines”, Sophia Publishing House, Bucharest, 2001)