Eschatology Archives • Patristic Faith

Understanding the Signs of the Times: Apostasy and Antichrist (Part 2)

Below the reader will find part two of the very spiritually profitable talk given by Archbishop Averky of blessed memory. The original title is “‘Salt is beguiling’ – a sign of the approaching end: To the centenary of the blessed repose of Bishop Ignatius (Bryanchaninov).” Part one may be found here. I provide the text “as is” from the source that I have. Although the blessed Archbishop reposed in 1976, his words are all the more potent in our days, thus clearly showing forth their true prophetic spirit, which resonates harmoniously with the Holy Fathers, who speak from the Holy Spirit. With no further comment, I present part two of this most needed word.

Fr. Zechariah Lynch

Understand the Signs of the Times (part 1)

Below the reader will find a most spiritually profitable talk given by Archbishop Averky of blessed memory on the teachings of St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov). I have provided the text “as is” below, it is taken from a collection of Archbp. Averky’s works. The original title is, “‘Salt is beguiling’ – a sign of the approaching end: To the centenary of the blessed repose of Bishop Ignatius (Bryanchaninov).” I will be posting the talk in two parts on this blog. I will simply note that in the text below the words “apostasy/retreat” are used as synonyms and are, it seems, used in an interchangeable manner.

Fr. Zechariah Lynch

St. Paisios, The Apocalypse, and a Protestant Ethos

Was St. Paisios the new of Mt. Athos influenced by Protestant Eschatology, and are his teachings on the signs of the times not to be accepted as a legitimate continuation of the tradition of the Orthodox Church on the matter?

Fr. Zechariah Lynch

Misplaced Priorities

Our laziness and misplaced priorities regarding the Sunday and holy day services, keep us from our obligations to God, and endanger the soul, for in keeping ourselves away from God’s temple, we remain afar from the cure that comes from participating in the Divine Mysteries. Saint Gregory Palamas tells us that we “may remain uncured, suffering from unbelief in your soul because of deeds or words, and failing to approach Christ’s surgery to receive… holy healing”.

Abbot Tryphon

All Consuming Love

It is good to remember that in Orthodox teaching, heaven and hell are not about places, but about relationships. God is everywhere, and He did not create a heaven for some, and a hell for others. We choose how we will experience the presence of God in the afterlife. God can not be absent from anywhere, and those who have chosen, in this life, to ignore God, will, nevertheless, be in His presence for all of eternity.

Abbot Tryphon

The Desert: the End Time Dwelling for the Church

The path of a true Christian can be nothing other than the Cross. The Lord asks His disciples, James and John, when they sought passing glory (for they were still thinking that Christ had come for the glory of the material nation of Israel), “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized” (Mk. 10:38)? The Lord had already revealed the nature of His glory when he told them a few verses before, “We are going to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man shall be delivered up to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they shall condemn Him to death and deliver Him up to the Gentiles. And they shall mock Him, and scourge Him, and spit upon Him, and kill Him. And on the third day He shall raise Himself” (Mk. 10:33-34).

Fr. Zechariah Lynch

The Revival of the Heart

Cultivating the heart in Christ Jesus is vital to true Christianity and steadfast confession. Our Lord Himself warns us to guard our hearts so that they do not grow cold with the times (cf. Matt. 24:11). God’s thunder sounds forth to call the hearts of men back to Him, most of all to arouse slumbering Christians. Has our Lord not said, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these things are the beginning of sorrow” (Matt. 24:6-8). Sorrows multiply because of sin. Sorrows multiply because hearts, the hearts of Christians, grow cold.

Fr. Zechariah Lynch

Full Spectrum Data Surveillance, Transhumanism, and the Religion of the End

Julian was a staunch evolutionist, eugenicist, and globalist; he was also the grandson of T.H. Huxley, a contemporary and proponent of Darwin and his theory of evolution. In basic, Julian believed that up until the modern area, humanity had hitherto naturally evolved by chance. Yet now before modern man stood the opportunity to take the reins from “natural selection,” humanity could guide its own evolutionary process. Of course, not all of humanity, only those who have been chosen by history to do so. This idea was not unique to Mr. Huxley. Others such as Jonas Salk, to name but one, also spoken in similar terms in his book “Survival of the Wisest.”

Fr. Zechariah Lynch

This World is Not Our Home

True Christianity is a renunciation of the ways of the fallen world. A Christian is one who has been chosen out of this world. Like our Master, we must be “not of this world” (cf. Jn 15:19). This fallen system of the world is not our home, “For here we have no abiding city, but we seek the one to come” (Heb. 13:14). Since this is the true state of things for a Christian, he must be ever ready to flee from this world, as Lot did from Sodom. By fleeing from the fallen world a person is freed from the desire for the world. For the Christian, authentic flight from the world is a running to Christ Jesus. To know Christ in Truth, the heart must be freed from bondage to sin and the world. This freedom makes room in the heart for the Holy Spirit to dwell, for if a man’s heart is already full then there is no place in it for the Holy Spirit. The heart must be single and undivided, serving but one master.

Fr. Zechariah Lynch

Understanding the Signs of the Times: Apostasy and Antichrist (Part 2)

Understand the Signs of the Times (part 1)

St. Paisios, The Apocalypse, and a Protestant Ethos

Misplaced Priorities

All Consuming Love

The Desert: the End Time Dwelling for the Church

The Revival of the Heart

Full Spectrum Data Surveillance, Transhumanism, and the Religion of the End

This World is Not Our Home

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