Hieromartyr Damascene, Bishop of Glukhov.

Revelation 13.16-17.

The year 1917 marked the beginning of the time of the end, the time of the Antichrist, in accordance with the prophecies of such luminaries of the Church as St. Seraphim of Sarov, St. Ambrose of Optina, Bishop Theophanes the Recluse, St. John of Kronstadt and the holy new martyrs and confessors of Russia. On November 9, 1917, Divine Providence drew the attention of all those with eyes to see the signs of the times to an extraordinary “coincidence”: in one column of newsprint in the London “Times”, there appeared, one above the other, two articles, the one announcing the outbreak of revolution in Petrograd, and the other – the promise of a homeland for the Jews in Palestine (the Balfour declaration). Thus at precisely the same time the two horns of the beast of the last times, the power of apostate Jewry, appeared above the vast sea of the formerly Christian world: the anti-theist, materialist horn of Soviet power, and the theist, Judaistic horn of Zionist Israel.

The fall of Russia, the last Orthodox Christian empire, was followed by further blows to the monarchical, God-established principle of political government. In 1918 the Catholic empire of Austro-Hungary and the Protestant empire of Germany collapsed. In 1924 the Orthodox kingdom of Greece fell; and in 1941 and 1944 the last Orthodox monarchies of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria also fell. By the end of the Second World War there were no real monarchies left in Europe or America, and the world was dominated by two powers based on the anti-monarchical, democratic principle: the United States of America, representing the more individualist, tolerant variety of democratism, and the Soviet Union, representing the more collectivist, intolerant variety.

50 years later, the situation had changed again. The Soviet Union was no more, and its rival for leadership of the communist world, China, was well on the way to transforming itself into a capitalist democracy. With the fall of the anti-theist, materialist horn of the beast, the attention of many Orthodox was turned to the other, theist horn – Israel, founded in 1948 under the sponsorship of Britain and the Soviet Union, and to Israel’s allies (or “colonies”, as some asserted) in the West, especially America, the only remaining superpower. In particular, alarm was aroused by the spread throughout the West, and thence into the East, of new forms of identification and money exchange – credit cards, bar-codes, 18-figure identity cards, etc. – which appeared to contain the number of the beast, 666. The question raised in many minds, and addressed in the present article, is: could this be the seal of the Antichrist?

Let us begin by examining, not the seal of the Antichrist as such, but the reign of the Antichrist since 1917. In what does it consist? What are its essential characteristics?

According to the holy apostles and fathers of the Church, the reign of the Antichrist will be characterised by an extreme form of anarchy – that is, the absence of law and order. Now the origin of all law and order is God, so all law and order, all true authority, is established by God. That is the meaning of the apostle’s famous saying: “There is no power that is not of God; the powers that be are established by God” (Romans 13.1). Christians honour the king and pray for the powers that be precisely in order to avoid the great evil of anarchy, “that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence” (I Timothy 2.2). Since anarchy is opposed to God-established authority, it is opposed to God, and must therefore itself be opposed by all those who fear God and obey His holy will.

A ruler may be unjust and cruel at times, or even very often, but as long as he prevents anarchy Christians must obey him. Thus St. Irenaeus of Lyons writes: “Some rulers are given by God with a view to the improvement and benefit of their subjects and the preservation of justice; others are given with a view to producing fear, punishment and reproof; yet others are given with a view to displaying mockery, insult and pride – in each case in accordance with the deserts of the subjects. Thus… God’s judgement falls equally on all men.” Again, St. Isidore of Pelusium writes that the evil ruler “has been allowed to spew out this evil, like Pharaoh, and, in such an instance, to carry out extreme punishment or to chastise those for whom great cruelty is required, as when the king of Babylon chastised the Jews.”

But there is line beyond which an evil ruler ceases to be a ruler and becomes an anti-ruler, an unlawful tyrant, who is not to be obeyed. Thus the Jews were commanded by God through the Prophet Jeremiah to submit to the king of Babylon, evil though he was; whereas they were commanded through another prophet, Moses, to resist and flee from the Egyptian Pharaoh, and rebelled again, with God’s blessing, under Antiochus Epiphanes. For in the one case the authority, though evil, was still an authority, which it was beneficial to obey; whereas in the other cases the authority was in fact an anti-authority, obedience to which would have taken the people further away from God.

Anarchy, the absence of true authority, can be of two kinds: organised and disorganised. When a true authority collapses, there usually follows a period of disorganised anarchy, which is characterised by individual crimes of all kinds – murder, robbery, rape, sacrilege, - that go unchecked and unpunished because of the absence of a true power. Such was the period of Russian history that followed the collapse of the Orthodox empire in February, 1917. The Provisional government, having itself contributed to the collapse of the empire, and having received its authority neither (through holy anointing) from God nor (by means of a popular vote) from men, was unable to check the rising tide of anarchy and collapsed ignominiously. The disorganised anarchy of the Provisional government was followed by the organised anarchy of the Bolshevik “government”…

Now Christians are obliged to recognise every power that is in fact a power in the apostolic meaning of the word – that is, which at least tries to prevent anarchy by rewarding the good and punishing the bad (Romans 13.3; I Peter 2.14). Such a power does not have to be Christian: although only the Orthodox anointed kings, working together with the Orthodox hierarchs, are able to establish God’s order in anything approaching fullness, even pagan, heretical and Muslim states punish those crimes that are recognised as such by the vast majority of mankind, and are therefore recognised as legitimate by the Church. However, such recognition can only be relative – relative, that is, to the degree to which the government does in fact establish order, - and in extreme cases can be refused altogether.

Thus in the fourth century, the Persian King Sapor proposed to Hieromartyr Simeon, Bishop of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, that he worship the sun, in exchange for which he would receive every possible honour and gift. But if he refused, this would bring about the complete destruction of Christianity in Persia. Now already before he had made this proposal to Simeon, King Sapor had started to kill the clergy, confiscate church property and raze the churches to the ground. So when he was brought before the king for his reply, St. Simeon not only refused to worship the sun but also, upon entering, refused to recognise the king by bowing. This omission of his previous respect for the king’s authority was noticed and questioned by the King. St. Simeon replied: "Before I bowed down to you, giving you honour as a king, but now I come being brought to deny my God and Faith. It is not good for me to bow before an enemy of my God!"

Again, when Julian the Apostate (361-363) came to the throne, the Church refused to recognize him. Thus St. Basil the Great prayed for the defeat of Julian in his wars against the Persians; and it was through his prayers that the apostate was in fact killed, as was revealed by God to the holy hermit Julian of Mesopotamia. At this, St. Basil’s friend, St. Gregory the Theologian wrote: “I call to spiritual rejoicing all those who constantly remained in fasting, in mourning and prayer, and by day and by night besought deliverance from the sorrows that surrounded us and found a reliable healing from the evils in unshakeable hope… What hoards of weapons, what myriads of men could have produced what our prayers and the will of God produced?” Gregory called Julian not only an “apostate”, but also “universal enemy” and “general murderer”, a traitor to Romanity – that is, the state of the Roman empire - as well as to Christianity.

Again, when the Norman Duke William invaded England in 1066 with the blessing of the Pope, and was crowned as the first Catholic king of England in the following year, the brother-bishops and hieromartyrs Ethelric and Ethelwine solemnly anathematized both him and the Pope, and called on the people to rise up against the false authority.

Again, in 1611 St. Hermogen, patriarch of Moscow, called on the Russian people to rise up against the crypto-Catholic false Demetrius, although the latter had been anointed by a supposedly Orthodox patriarch.

The state that is refused recognition by the Church is the state of organized anarchy – that is, the state in which crime is not only not punished, as in disorganized anarchy, but is confirmed and recognized as lawful. Thus the essence of antichristian power is not simply the doing of evil – all states, even the most Orthodox, at times do evil – but the systematic recognition of evil as good, of lawlessness as the law, of the abnormal as the norm and even the aim of society. Such a state is “the mystery of lawlessness” (II Thessalonians 2.7).

Such a state was the Bolshevik regime, which, taking advantage of the disorganized anarchy prevailing under the Provisional government, not only did not restore order into the chaos, but consolidated, intensified and organized it, made it the norm, made it “lawful”. Church tradition calls unlawful councils, councils that preach heresy instead of truth, “robber councils”. In the same way, unlawful states such as the Bolshevik regime can be called “robber states”, insofar as murder, robbery and sacrilege become the norm under them – indeed, are committed primarily by the state itself. Robber states cannot command the obedience of God-fearing Christians, for they are not authorities in the apostolic sense of the word, but “anti-authorities”. Rather, such states must be rebuked and rejected by them.

That is why, on November 11, 1917, the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church addressed a letter to the faithful calling the revolution “descended from the Antichrist” and declaring: “Open combat is fought against the Christian Faith, in opposition to all that is sacred, arrogantly abasing all that bears the name of God (II Thessalonians 2.4)… But no earthly kingdom founded on ungodliness can ever survive: it will perish from internal strife and party dissension. Thus, because of its frenzy of atheism, the State of Russia will fall… For those who use the sole foundation of their power in the coercion of the whole people by one class, no motherland or holy place exists. They have become traitors to the motherland and instigated an appalling betrayal of Russia and her true allies. But, to our grief, as yet no government has arisen which is sufficiently one with the people to deserve the blessing of the Orthodox Church. And such will not appear on Russian soil until we turn with agonizing prayer and tears of repentance to Him, without Whom we labour in vain to lay foundations…”

In January, 1918, Patriarch Tikhon and the Local Council meeting in Moscow anathematized the Bolsheviks. The significance of this anathema lies not so much in its casting out of the Bolsheviks themselves (all those who deny God are subject to anathema, that is, separation from God, for that very denial), as in the command to the faithful: “I adjure all of you who are faithful children of the Orthodox Church of Christ not to commune with such outcasts of the human race in any matter whatsoever; ‘cast out the wicked from among you’ (I Corinthians 5.13).” In other words, the Bolsheviks were to be regarded, not only as apostates from Christ (that was obvious), but also as having no moral authority, no claim to obedience whatsoever.

It has been argued that the Patriarch’s decree did not anathematise Soviet power as such, but only those who were committing acts of violence and sacrilege against the Church in various parts of the country. However, this argument fails to take into account several facts. First, the patriarch himself, in his declarations of June 16 and July 1, 1923, repented precisely of his “anathematisation of Soviet power”. Secondly, even if the decree did not formally anathematise Soviet power as such, since Soviet power sanctioned and initiated the acts of violence, the faithful were in effect being exhorted to having nothing to do with it. And thirdly, in his Epistle to the Council of People’s Commissars on the first anniversary of the revolution, November 7, 1918, the Patriarch obliquely but clearly confirmed his non-recognition of Soviet power, saying: “It is not our business to make judgments about earthly authorities. Every power allowed by God would attract to itself Our blessing if it were truly ‘the servant of God’, for the good of those subject to it, and were ‘terrible not for good works, but for evil’ (Romans 13.3,4). But now to you, who have used authority for the persecution of the innocent, We extend this Our word of exhortation… “

Most important of all, when the Patriarch’s decree came to be read out to the Council on January 22 / February 4, it was enthusiastically endorsed by it in terms which make it clear that the Council understood the Patriarch to have anathematised precisely Soviet power: “The Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia in his epistle to the beloved in the Lord archpastors, pastors and all faithful children of the Orthodox Church of Christ has drawn the spiritual sword against the outcasts of the human race – the Bolsheviks, and anathematised them. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church adjures all her faithful children not to enter into any communion with these outcasts. For their satanic deeds they are cursed in this life and in the life to come. Orthodox! His Holiness the Patriarch has been given the right to bind and to loose according to the word of the Saviour… Do not destroy your souls, cease communion with the servants of Satan – the Bolsheviks. Parents, if your children are Bolsheviks, demand authoritatively that they renounce their errors, that they bring forth repentance for their eternal sin, and if they do not obey you, renounce them. Wives, if your husbands are Bolsheviks and stubbornly continue to serve Satan, leave your husbands, save yourselves and your children from the soul-destroying infection. An Orthodox Christian cannot have communion with the servants of the devil… Repent, and with burning prayer call for help from the Lord of Hosts and thrust away from yourselves ‘the hand of strangers’ – the age-old enemies of the Christian faith, who have declared themselves in self-appointed fashion ‘the people’s power’… If you do not obey the Church, you will not be her sons, but participants in the cruel and satanic deeds wrought by the open and secret enemies of Christian truth… Dare! Do not delay! Do not destroy your soul and hand it over to the devil and his stooges.”

This first instinct of the Russian Church in the face of Soviet power has never been extinguished among Russian Christians. It continued to manifest itself both at home and abroad - for example, in the First All-Emigration Council of the Russian Church Abroad in 1921, and both in the early and the later decades of Soviet power - for example, among the "passportless" Christians of the Catacomb Church in the 1960s and 70s. However, it was very soon tempered by the realisation that such outright rejection of Soviet power on a large scale could be sustained only by war - and after the defeat of the White Armies in the Civil War there were no armies left to carry on the fight against the Bolsheviks. Therefore from the early 1920s a new attitude towards Soviet power began to evolve among the Tikhonite Christians: loyalty towards it as a political institution ("for all power is from God"), and acceptance of such of its laws as could be interpreted in favour of the Church (for example, the law on the separation of Church and State), combined with rejection of its atheistic world-view (large parts of which the renovationists, by contrast, accepted). In essence, this new attitude involved accepting that the Soviet State was not the Antichrist, as the Local Council of 1917-18 and the Russian Church Abroad had in effect declared, but Caesar, no worse in principle than the Caesars of Ancient Rome, to whom the things belonging to Caesar were due.

This attitude presupposed that it was possible, in the Soviet Union as in Ancient Rome, to draw a clear line between politics and religion. But in practice, even more than in theory, this line proved very hard to draw. For the early Bolsheviks, at any rate, there was no such dividing line; for them, everything was ideological, everything had to be in accordance with their ideology, there could be no room for disagreement, no private spheres into which the state and its ideology did not pry. Unlike most of the Roman emperors, who allowed the Christians to order their own lives in their own way so long as they showed loyalty to the state (which, as we have seen, the Christians were very eager to do), the Bolsheviks insisted in imposing their own ways upon the Christians in every sphere: in family life (civil marriage only, divorce on demand, children spying on parents), in education (compulsory Marxism), in economics (dekulakization, collectivization), in military service (the oath of allegiance to Lenin), in science (Darwinism, Lysenkoism), in art (socialist realism), and in religion (the requisitioning of valuables, registration, commemoration of the authorities at the Liturgy, reporting of confessions by the priests). Resistance to any one of these demands was counted as "anti-Soviet behaviour", i.e. political disloyalty. Therefore it was no use protesting one's political loyalty to the regime if one refused to accept just one of these demands. According to the Soviet interpretation of the word: "Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one has become guilty of all of it" (James 2.10), such a person was an enemy of the people.

In view of this, it is not surprising that many Christians came to the conclusion that it was less morally debilitating to reject the whole regime that made such impossible demands, since the penalty would be the same whether one asserted one's loyalty to it or not. And if this meant living as an outlaw, so be it. Such a rejection of, or flight from the state had precedents in Russian history; and we find some priests, such as Hieromartyr Timothy Strelkov of Mikhailovka (+1930) and even some bishops, such as Hieroconfessor Amphilochius of Yeniseisk (+1946), adopting this course.

Nevertheless, the path of total rejection of the Soviet state required enormous courage, strength and self-sacrifice, not only for oneself but also (which was more difficult) for one's family or flock. It is therefore not surprising that, already during the Civil War, the Church began to soften her anti-Soviet rhetoric and try once more to draw the line between politics and religion. This is what Patriarch Tikhon tried to do in the later years of his patriarchate – with the best of motives (to save Christian lives), but, it must be said, only mixed results. Thus his decision to allow some, but not all of the Church's valuables to be requisitioned by the Bolsheviks in 1922 not only did not bring help to the starving of the Volga, as was the intention, but led to many clashes between believers and the authorities and many deaths of believers. For, as the holy Elder Nectarius of Optina said: "You see now, the patriarch gave the order to give up all valuables from the churches, but they belonged to the Church!"

The decision to negotiate and compromise with the Bolsheviks - in transgression of the decrees of the 1917-18 Council - only brought confusion and division to the Church. Thus on the right wing of the Church there were those who thought that the patriarch had already gone too far; while on the left wing there were those who wanted to go further. However, neither Patriarch Tikhon nor his successor, Metropolitan Peter, crossed the line which would have involved surrendering the spiritual freedom of the Church into the hands of the authorities.

That line was crossed only with the coming to power, in 1927, of Metropolitan Peter’s deputy, Metropolitan Sergius. He sought and obtained legalization for his church organization, the present-day Moscow Patriarchate. And then introduced the commemoration of the God-hating anti-authorities at the Divine Liturgy.

This was a fateful step, because to seek legalisation from a state inescapably implies recognition of that state to a greater or lesser degree; at a minimum, it implies recognition of that state as God-established and the majority of its laws as binding on Christians. But how can a state that openly and systematically wars against God be God-established? And how can a state that legalizes all manner of crimes be considered to be legal in itself and the fount of legality?! Rather, such a state is not an authority at all, but the beast of the Apocalypse, of whom it is written that it receives its authority, not from God, but from the devil (Revelation 13.2).

Moreover, by declaring, in his famous “Declaration”, that the Soviet regime's joys were the Church's joys, and its sorrows the Church's sorrows, Sergius in effect declared an identity of aims between the Church and the State. And this was not just a lie, but a lie against the faith, a concession to the communist ideology. For it implied that communism as such was good, and its victory to be welcomed. Thus Sergius Nilus quoted Izvestia, which said that Metropolitan Sergius’ “Declaration” was an attempt “to construct a cross in such a way that it would look like a hammer to a worker, and like a sickle to a peasant”. “In other words,” said Nilus, “to exchange the cross for the Soviet seal, the seal of the beast (Rev. 13.16).”

In order to protect the flock of Christ from Sergius' apostasy, the leaders of the True Church had to draw once more the line between politics and religion. One approach was to distinguish between physical opposition to the regime and spiritual opposition to it. Thus Hieromartyr Archbishop Barlaam of Perm wrote that physical opposition was not permitted, but spiritual opposition was obligatory. Again, Hieromartyr Bishop Mark (Novoselov) wrote: “I am an enemy of Soviet power – and what is more, by dint of my religious convictions, insofar as Soviet power is an atheist power and even anti-theist. I believe that as a true Christian I cannot strengthen this power by any means… [There is] a petition which the Church has commanded to be used everyday in certain well-known conditions… The purpose of this formula is to request the overthrow of the infidel power by God… But this formula does not amount to a summons to believers to take active measures, but only calls them to pray for the overthrow of the power that has fallen away from God.” This criterion allowed Christians quite sincerely to reject the charge of "counter-revolution" - if "counter-revolution" were understood to mean physical rebellion. The problem was, as we have seen, that the Bolsheviks understood "counter-revolution" in a much wider sense…

Another, still more basic problem was that it still left the question whether Soviet power was from God or not unresolved. If Soviet power was from God, it should be counted as Caesar and should be given what was Caesar's. But bitter experience had shown that this "Caesar" wanted to seat himself in the temple as if he were God (II Thessalonians 2.4). So was he not in fact Antichrist, whose power is not from God, but from Satan (Revelation 13.2), being allowed by God for the punishment of sinners, but by no means established by Him? If so, then there was no alternative but to flee into the catacombs, rejecting totally the government of Satan on earth.

In the early years after Metropolitan Sergius' declaration, many Catacomb Christians, while in practice not surrendering what was God's to the Soviets, in theory could not make up their minds whether the Soviet regime was Caesar or Antichrist. Thus Hieromartyr Joseph (Gavrilov), superior of Raithu Desert (+1930), confessed at his interrogation: "I have never, and do not now, belong to any political parties. I consider Soviet power to be given from God, but a power that is from God must fulfill the will of God, and Soviet power does not fulfill the will of God. Therefore it is not from God, but from Satan. It closes churches, mocks the holy icons, teaches children atheism, etc. That is, it fulfills the will of Satan... It is better to die with faith than without faith. I am a real believer, faith has saved me in battles, and I hope that in the future faith will save me from death. I firmly believe in the Resurrection of Christ and His Second Coming. I have not gone against the taxes, since it says in Scripture: 'To Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's.'" From this confession, impressive though it is, it is not clear whether Hieromartyr Joseph recognised the Soviet regime as Caesar, and therefore from God, or as Antichrist, and therefore from Satan. In the end the Bolsheviks resolved his dilemma for him. They shot him, and therefore showed that they were - Antichrist.

In the Russian Church in Exile, meanwhile, a consensus had emerged that the Soviet regime was not Caesar, but Antichrist. This was the position of, for example, Archbishop Theophanes of Poltava, Metropolitan Innocent of Peking and Archbishop Averky of Jordanville. As Bishop Gregory (Grabbe), the foremost canonist of the Russian Church Abroad, wrote: “With regard to the question of the commemoration of authorities, we must bear in mind that now we are having dealings not simply with a pagan government like Nero’s, but with the apostasy of the last times. Not with a so far unenlightened authority, but with apostasy. The Holy Fathers did not relate to Julian the Apostate in the same way as they did to the other pagan Emperors. And we cannot relate to the antichristian authorities in the same way as to any other, for its nature is purely satanic…”

If the Soviet state was the collective Antichrist, the beast of the Apocalypse, what was its seal? In the case of the Church, this question has already been answered: the seal was “legalisation” by “the mystery of lawlessness”, on the one hand, and the commemoration of the Antichrist by name at the liturgy, on the other. This was the “abomination of desolation” set up in the Holy of holies.

In the case of individual Christians, the answer is analogous: the seal of the Antichrist was any and every activity that sucked the Christian into participation in, and recognition of, the Soviet state. For the main lesson of the 1920s and 30s was that it is vain to see a modus vivendi with the Antichrist: he takes everything and gives nothing in return, as Metropolitan Peter once bitterly complained to the Soviet “over-procurator” Tuchkov. So the Christians began to avoid everything that tied them in any way to the state: Soviet passports (which, at least in some periods, involved definite obligations to the state); service in the Red Army (how can a Christian fight for “the conquests of October”?); Soviet educational institutions (which involved compulsory study of, and examinations in, Marxism-Leninism); and any and every kind of electoral or political activity (which was monopolised by the communist party).

There was no consensus among Catacomb Christians about what activities were to be considered as “Soviet” and therefore sinful; some groups and branches of the Church were stricter, others less strict. Thus some “non-commemorators” took jobs in Soviet institutions and restricted their abstinence from Soviet life to non-membership of the communist party and the Soviet church. Others, however, not only refused to work for the Antichrist in any way, but even refused to have electricity in their homes, since this, too, came to them from the Antichrist. As Soviet power weakened, some Catacomb Christians felt able to practise “economy” and temper the strictness of their rule, Thus the Catacomb hieromonk Gury (Pavlov) was a “passportless”, but took a Soviet passport in 1990 in order to receive consecration to the episcopate in the U.S.A.

The question of Soviet passports needs to be examined in a little more detail. Passportisation had been introduced into the Soviet Union only in 1932, and only for the most urbanized areas. Already then it was used as a means of winkling out Catacomb Christians. Thus M.V. Shkvarovsky writes: “Completing their liquidation of the Josephites, there was a meeting of regional inspectors for cultic matters on March 16, 1933, at a time when passportisation was being introduced. The meeting decided, on the orders of the OGPU, ‘not to give passports to servants of the cult of the Josephite confession of faith’, which meant automatic expulsion from Leningrad. Similar things happened in other major cities of the USSR.”

Catacomb hierarchs did not bless their spiritual children to take passports because in filling in the forms the social origins and record of Christians was revealed, making them liable to persecution. Also Catacomb Christians did not want to receive what they considered to be the seal of the Antichrist, or to declare themselves citizens of the antichristian kingdom.

In the 1930s the peasants had not been given passports but were chained to the land which they worked. They were herded into the collective farms and forced to do various things against their conscience, such as vote for the communist officials who had destroyed their way of life and their churches. Those who refused to do this – refusals were particularly common in the Lipetsk, Tambov and Voronezh areas – were rigorously persecuted, and often left to die of hunger.

On May 4, 1961, however, the Soviet government issued its decree on “parasitism” and introduced its campaign for general passportisation. In local papers throughout the country it was announced that, in order to receive a Soviet passport, a citizen of the USSR would have to recognize all the laws of Soviet power, past and present, beginning from Lenin’s decrees. Since this involved, in effect, a recognition of all the crimes of Soviet power, a movement arose to reject Soviet passports, a movement which was centred mainly in the country areas among those peasants and their families who had rejected collectivization in the 1930s.

E.A. Petrova writes: “Protests against general passportisation arose among Christians throughout the vast country. A huge number of secret Christians who had passports began to reject them, destroy them, burn them and loudly, for all to hear, renounce Soviet citizenship. Many Christians from the patriarchal church also gave in their passports. There were cases in which as many as 200 people at one time went up to the local soviet and gave in their passports. In one day the whole of a Christian community near Tashkent gave in 100 passports at once. Communities in Kemerovo and Novosibirsk provinces gave in their passports, and Christians in the Altai area burned their passports… Protests against general passportisation broke out in Belorussia, in the Ukraine, and in the Voronezh, Tambov and Ryazan provinces… Christians who renounced their Soviet passports began to be seized and, imprisoned and exiled. But in spite of these repressions the movement of the passportless Christians grew and became stronger. It was precisely in these years that the Catacomb Church received a major influx from Christians of the patriarchal church who renounced Soviet passports and returned into the bosom of the True Orthodox Church.”

In the 1970s the detailed questionnaires required in order to receive passports were abandoned, but in 1974 it was made obligatory for all Soviet citizens to have a passport, and a new, red passport differing quite significantly from the old, green one. However, it contained a cover with the words: “Passport of a citizen of the Soviet Socialist Republics” together with a hammer and sickle, which was still unacceptable to the Passportless, who therefore continued to be subject to prison, exile and hunger. Those who joined the Catacomb Church at this time often erased the word “citizen”, replacing it with the word “Christian”, so that they had a “Passport of a Christian of the Soviet Socialist Republics”.

In recent years the great podvig of the Passportless Catacomb Christians has been criticised by some, and not only, as we would expect, by members of the Soviet and other heterodox churches. Thus Metropolitan Vitaly, first-hierarch of the ROCA, in a dialogue with representatives of the Passportless, compared the Soviet Union to the Roman empire. St Paul had been proud of his Roman citizenship, he wrote, so what was wrong with having a Soviet passport and being called a Soviet citizen? Passportless Christians were appalled by the comparison – as if Rome, the state in which Christ Himself was born and was registered in a census, and which later grew into the great Orthodox Christian empires of Byzantium, the New Rome, and Russia, the Third Rome, could be compared to the anti-state, the collective Antichrist, that destroyed the Russian empire! Rome, even in its pagan phase, had protected the Christians from the fury of the Jews: the Soviet Union was, in its early phase, the instrument of the Jews against the Christians. Rome, even in its pagan phase, guaranteed a framework of law and order within which the apostles could rapidly spread the faith from one end of the world to the other: the Soviet Union forced a population that was already Orthodox in its great majority to renounce their faith or hide it “in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth” (Hebrews 11.38).

Still more recently, an anonymous publication has accused the Catacomb Christians of “premature flight” from the world, analogous to the flight of the Old Believers from Russian society. On this path of premature flight from the world, writes the anonymous author, “set out the schismatic Old Believers under Peter. In our century, the Catacomb Christians decisively refused to accept any state documents, seeing in them the seal of the Antichrist. Of course, in Peter’s reign, and still more in Stalin’s regime, elements of an antichristian kingdom were evident. But such terrible rebellions against the God-established order were not yet the end, ‘this is only the beginning of sorrows’, as the Gospel says (Luke 21.9).”

So what is the anonymous author asserting? That the Catacomb Christians are schismatics on a par with the Old Believers?! This not only constitutes a serious slander against the Catacomb Church, but also betrays a blindness with regard to the eschatological significance of the Russian-Jewish revolution, which, if only the “beginning” of sorrows, was nevertheless also the beginning of the reign of the Antichrist, when the relationship between the Church and the State changed from one of cooperation and mutual recognition to one of mutual non-recognition and the most fundamental incompatibility.

There can be no doubt that Peter the Great inflicted great damage on the Church (and thereby indirectly also on the State, for which it paid in 1917) through his westernizing reforms. However, the conscience of the Church, while rejecting his errors, has always recognized that he died as a Christian and God-anointed tsar (see the Life of St. Metrophanes of Voronezh, who appeared to one of his venerators after his death and told him: “If you want to be pleasing to me, pray for the repose of the soul of Emperor Peter the Great”). No saint of the Church ever counselled rebellion against Peter or his successors, as opposed to resistance to certain of their decrees.

As for the Old Believers, their rebellion was not in the first place against Peter and his reforms, but against Patriarch Nicon and his reforms, which was quickly followed by rebellion against Peter’s father, Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich also. Later, they seized on Peter’s reforms as an excuse for widening and deepening their rebellion against the God-established order, making them the forerunners, not of the True Orthodox Christians of the Soviet catacombs, who always recognized that which the Old Believers rejected, but of the revolutionaries of 1905 and 1917.

As Archbishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky) wrote in 1912,in his encyclical to the Old Believers: “The spirit of this world… winks at real revolutionaries and sent the money of your rich men to create the Moscow rebellion of 1905.”

Another, more moderate objection is sometimes raised: that the exploit (podvig) of the Catacomb Christians, while admirable and justified in view of the ferocity of the Soviet regime, was nevertheless not necessary, for one could be saved without resorting to such extreme measures.

The present writer is not aware of any decision by any competent Church authority that would clarify the question whether the rejection of Soviet passports was necessary for the salvation of Christians in the Soviet period. It may be that such a question cannot be answered in a clear and categorical manner in view of the great complexity and diversity of the relations between individual believers and the Soviet state. Only God knows whether any particular degree of involvement in Soviet life constituted apostasy or an acceptable level of accommodation to circumstances.

However, the question whether the podvig of the Catacomb Christians was “necessary” is much easier to answer. It is as easy to answer as the question: Is it necessary to keep as far away from sin as possible, or: Is it necessary to take every possible precaution against sin? The answer, of course, is: yes, it is absolutely necessary!

The English have a parable: when you have supper with the devil, take a very long spoon. The Catacomb Christians took not even very long spoons to the marriage feast of the devil and the citizens of the Soviet state. In their completely laudable zeal to keep their bridal garments spotless for the marriage feast of Christ and His Church, they chose not even to step over the threshold of the Soviet madhouse. They chose rather to go hungry than eat of the devil’s food, the communion of heretics and apostates.

And not only did they save their own souls thereby: they also provided an absolutely necessary warning to those Christians who, thinking that they could take coals into their breast and not be burned, were being tempted into closer relations with the Antichrist. For as the beast’s ferocity gradually lessened from the 1956 amnesty onwards, and the Soviet state began to acquire some (but never all) of the external characteristics of the “normal” state, it was indeed tempting to think that the leopard was changing its spots, that the lion was becoming a vegetarian, that Pharaoh was becoming Caesar – so that it was now time to give to Caesar what was Caesar’s…

Against this terribly dangerous temptation, the movement of the Passportless, which exploded at precisely this time, came as a powerful warning. “No,” they said, “the beast has not changed its nature. If its persecution is less widespread now than before, this is because the opposition to him has been largely destroyed. The persecution now is no less fierce than before, only it is more subtle, for it now mixes rewards – the comforts of the Soviet “paradise” – with punishments. But ‘here we have no continuing city’; and if this was true even under the God-loving tsars, how can it not be even more so now, under the God-hating Antichrist? If Christ suffered outside the walls of the city in order to sanctify us by His Blood, then we, too, must go out to Him outside the walls of the antichristian state (Hebrews 13.12-14).”

Now, having said all this, it must be admitted that the seal of the Antichrist in Soviet Russia could not have been the same seal that is mentioned in Revelation 13, if only because it was not a mark placed on the right hand and forehead. However, we are fully justified in calling it a seal (of the collective Antichrist), if not the seal (of the personal Antichrist); for its acceptance, at least in certain contexts (for example, the context of the 1961 law), entailed acceptance of the whole lawless legislation and ideology of the Soviet state. To that extent it was not just a neutral act of registration; it was an act of registration in Satan’s kingdom, the kingdom of the Antichrist, and as such was not only the forerunner of the seal, but in a sense the beginning of that seal, in that it had the same apocalyptic significance for the life of Christians.

If we do not understand the period of Church history immediately preceding our own, then we shall not be able to understand or perceive the signs of our own times. Thus a correct understanding of the seal of the Antichrist in the Soviet period is a necessary prerequisite to understanding the seal in the post-Soviet period.

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 posed a difficult problem of interpretation. Was the Antichrist really dead? If so, then had the end times, paradoxically, come to an end? Or was this only a temporary “breathing space” in which the Antichrist was preparing a new, more subtle, more universal and more deadly onslaught?

The signs were mixed. On the one hand, there can be no doubt that perestroika and the fall of communism came not a moment too soon for the beleaguered Catacomb Church, which was scattered and divided, and desperately short of bishops and priests of unquestioned Orthodoxy and apostolic succession. The fall of the iron curtain enabled the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad to enter Russia and regenerate the hierarchy of the True Church, while the introduction of freedom of speech and the press enabled millions of Soviet citizens to learn the truth about their state and church for the first time. On the basis of this knowledge, they could now seek entrance into the True Church without the fear of being sent to prison or the camps. In the wave of disillusion with post-Soviet democracy that followed in the mid-1990s, it was pointed out – rightly – that freedom is a two-edged weapon, which can destroy as well as give life, and that “freedom” had brought Russia poverty and crime as well as interesting newspapers. However, for the soul thirsting for truth there is no more precious gift than the freedom to seek and find; and that opportunity was now, at last, presented to the masses.

On the other hand, only a minority of Russians used this freedom to seek the truth that makes one truly, spiritually free. And so if the fall of communism in 1989-91 was a liberation, it was a liberation strangely lacking in joy. Orthodoxy was restored neither to the state nor to the official church, and the masses of the people remained unconverted. Ten years later, a priest of the Moscow Patriarchate could claim that “the regeneration of ecclesiastical life has become a clear manifestation of the miraculous transfiguration of Russia”. But behind the newly gilded cupolas reigned heresy and corruption on a frightening scale. It was as Bishop Theophan the Recluse had prophesied over a century before: “Although the Christian name will be heard everywhere, and everywhere will be visible churches and ecclesiastical ceremonies, all this will be just appearances, and within there will be true apostasy. On this soil the Antichrist will be born...”

None of the communist persecutors of the previous seventy years, throughout the whole vast territory of eastern Europe and Russia, was brought to trial for his crimes. The consequences have been all too evident. Thus one group of “repentant” communists, sensing the signs of the political times, seized power in 1991 in a “democratic” coup and immediately formed such close and dependent ties on its western allies that the formerly advanced (if inefficient) economy of Russia was transformed into a scrap-heap of obsolescent factories, on the one hand, and a source of cheap raw materials for the West, on the other. Another group, playing on the sense of betrayal felt by many, formed a nationalist opposition – but an opposition characterized by hatred, envy and negativism rather than a constructive understanding of the nation’s real spiritual needs and identity. Still others, using the contacts and dollars acquired in their communist days, went into “business” – that is, a mixture of crime, extortion and the worst practices of capitalism.

It is little wonder that in many churches the prayer to be delivered “from the bitter torment of atheist rule” continues to be chanted…

In the midst of this disorganized anarchy, many have begun to long nostalgically for the organized anarchy of the Soviet period, considering that the cheapness of Soviet sausages somehow outweighed the destruction of tens of millions of souls through Soviet violence and propaganda. Like the children of Israel who became disillusioned with the rigorous freedom of the desert, they have begun to long once more for the fleshpots of Egypt. But unlike the Israelites, the wanderers in the desert of post-Soviet Russia have had no Moses to urge them ever onwards to the Promised Land. True, they feel the need for such a leader; and if many still long for the return of a Stalin, there are many who prefer the image of Tsar Nicholas II, whose ever-increasing veneration must be considered one of the most encouraging phenomena of the 1990s. But veneration for the pre-revolutionary tsars will not bring forward the appearance of a post-revolutionary tsar unless that veneration is combined with repentance. Few understand that the people must become worthy of such a tsar by a return to the True Church and a life based on the commandments of God. Otherwise, if they continue to worship the golden calf, the new Moses, if such a one appears, will break the tablets of the new law before their eyes. And if they continue to follow the new Dathans and Abirams of the heretical Moscow Patriarchate, then under their feet, too, the earth will open – or they will be condemned to wander another forty years in the desert, dying before they reach the promised land of a cleansed and Holy Russia.

It is in the context of this general mood of confusion, disillusion and apocalyptic expectation that the new forms of identification and money exchange, containing, if the experts are to be believed, the number 666, have aroused such alarm in the Orthodox countries of Eastern Europe and Russia – and indeed, throughout the world. That these forms of identification came from the West rather than the East only increased the sense of apocalyptic foreboding; for in the view of many the capitalist West was no less antichristian than the post-communist East, having many of the same characteristics of lawlessness. Thus the American hieromonk Fr. Seraphim Rose wrote: “If we look around at our 20^th-century civilization, lawlessness or anarchy is perhaps the chief characteristic which identifies it… In the realm of moral teaching, it is quite noticeable, especially in the last twenty years or so, how lawlessness has become the norm, how even people in high positions and the clergy in liberal denominations are quite willing to justify all kinds of things which before were considered immoral… All this is a sign of what St. Paul calls ‘the mystery of lawlessness’.”

Some have mocked the idea that these new forms of identification could be the seal of the Antichrist. Thus the anonymous author cited above writes, quoting Luke 2.1-4: “The Most Pure Virgin Mary, and even the Saviour Himself borne in her cradle, took part in a census. And this took place during the reign of the pagan Emperor Augustus. This act – census-taking – is the essence of all contemporary registration cards, individual numbers, etc. In antiquity officials registered the names of people and gave them a number. The registration was undertaken with the aid of the technical means of that time: with a quill on parchment. Even the Mother of God, who was beyond all corruption and filled with the Holy Spirit, received some kind of number in these lists. Now officials make similar registers with the aid of other means. The essence remains the same: the state receives information on its citizens which is necessary for the execution of government.”

But is the essence really the same then and now? We have already seen that the pagan Roman empire can by no means be considered to be the same kind of state as the kingdom of the Antichrist. There is no evidence that the census information obtained by the Roman emperors was used for any evil purpose. But already in the Soviet period, as we have seen, registration (passportisation) was most definitely used for evil, antichristian purposes, and was therefore avoided by the Catacomb Christians. The question to be asked about the modern forms of identification is: are they now being used, or could they be used in the future, for antichristian purposes?

The anonymous author considers that the modern forms of identification could not be the seal of the Antichrist, in the first place because “they do not symbolize love for any particular person” – and the seal, according to St. Nilus the Myrrhgusher, contains an inscription expressing voluntary acceptance of, and love for, the Antichrist. According to this author, external imprinting, “pieces of paper and plastic and electronic gadgets”, divert the attention of believers from the real, internal imprinting with the seal – apostasy from Christ through participation in the heresy of ecumenism. Moreover, this internal imprinting with heresy has an external aspect in the form of external rituals and sacraments. “’Orthodox’ bishops together with representatives of every possible religion raised a pagan idol in Vancouver, passed through ‘purifying smoke’ in Canberra, etc. There are many examples… The essence of these abominations is renunciation of Christ the God-man. All these actions receive the approbation of the [Moscow Patriarchal] Synod. And not one of the bishops has declared his protest. This means that the whole fullness of the episcopate is ‘sealed’ - by direct participation or silent non-resistance – with the seal of apostasy from Christ. And this is the essence of the number of the beast…”

And yet where is the number here? As far as the present writer knows, the number 666 is not imprinted on any of the participants in ecumenical worship. Of course, we can completely agree with the anonymous author that participation in the ecumenical movement is indeed a sin unto death, and that receiving the “sacraments” of the ecumenists is analogous to imprinting with the seal of the Antichrist. But this is an analogy, a type – no more. It is obvious that the seal of the Antichrist, as described in the Apocalypse, is something different. It is a mark placed on the forehead and right hand without which people will not be able to buy or sell; and this it is difficult in this connection not to be struck by the fact that a very similar, electronic or bio-electronic implant under the skin of the forehead and right hand has been proposed as the basis for a worldwide food distribution system!

Thus P. Budzilovich writes: “In the U.S.A., which is the leader of the builders of the ‘New World Order’, all technical preparations have now been made for the attainment of global control. The National Security Agency already has a super-powerful computer created specially for this aim (Texe Marr ‘Project LUCID - the Beast Universal Human Control System’, Austin, TX, 1996). Work on the creation of this computer and the required mathematical software has been conducted as part of a project with the code-name ‘Project LUCID’ (the abbreviation LUCID means bright, radiant; whence ‘Lucifer’, Satan - light-bearing). They have also worked out means of ‘placing the seal’ of the beast - biological microcircuits, which are planned to be incorporated into the right hand or the head (at the moment, as reported in ‘Phoenix Letter’ for March, 1997, the governments of Denmark, the Philippines and Trinidad are taking steps to introduce such microcircuits to check the identities of their citizens, referring to the success of this programme in the U.S.A. Although this work is being carried out in secret in the U.S.A.). The microcircuits will contain all-encompassing information about their bearers, including photographs, fingerprints, feet, snaps of the irises, information about their financial situation, health, etc. It goes without saying that every individual in the whole world will be given a unique registration number. At the moment it is suggested that such a number should consist of 18 digits, in three groups, which means... six digits in each group, forming the image of the number 666.”

Now a number or equivalent mark imprinted in some such way into the body (and scanned, perhaps, by satellites in space) could indeed be interpreted as a mark given by the beast.

Again, Tim Willard, editor of the “Futurist” magazine, writes of the biochip: ‘The technology behind such a biochip implant is fairly uncomplicated and with a little refinement could be used in a variety of human applications. Conceivably a number could be assigned at birth and follow that person throughout life. Most likely it would be implanted on the back of the right or the left hand so that it would be easy to scan at stores. Then you would simply scan your hand to automatically debit your bank account’”

In this context, the following observation by George Spruksts is important: “Usually, when you want to contact someone on the internet, you type the three letters ‘www’ [for ‘worldwide web’]... It is fascinating that in the international alphabet, ‘w’.. is used to translate the Hebrew letter vav into the standard Roman alphabet. Vav, the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, represents the number 6. So, in a sense, when you type the three letters ‘www’, you are entering the Hebrew equivalent of ‘666’. We have all known for a long time that the Antichrist will need a global communications system to carry out his evil schemes. Now, we have one with his initials on it.”

It should be remembered that in technologically advanced countries the internet is already widely used for buying and selling various things…

Also important in this context is the observation by the confessor Sergius Nilus that the Star of David, the symbol of Jewish state power, has a structure which can be described in terms of six sixes.

"The symbol or seal of the mystery of iniquity - of the God-fighting devil, as well as its significance and power (albeit illusory), must be known to every Jew - to the whole of the Jewish people and through it to Masonry, as the ally of Jewry. Their seal will also be the seal of their king and antichrist-god, who is not yet, but who will be in the nearest future.

"But does such a symbol, such a seal, really exist among the Jews and Masons?...

"The six-pointed star, composed of two interlocking, equal-sided similar triangles... Each of the triangles has three sides, three corners and three apexes. Consequently, in the two triangles there will be 6 sides, 6 corners and 6 apexes...

"In the seal of the Antichrist, therefore, the number 6 is repeated three times, that is: 666, which for fear of the Jews (John 19.38), for the reader who understands (Matthew 24.15) the symbolism of the mystery, could also be represented by the seer of mysteries in writing, as six hundred and sixty-six...

"... This star is truly just as sacred a symbol for the Jew (and therefore for the Mason) as the sign of the life-giving Cross is for the Christian..

"This seal which is sacred for Jewry bears the name in the ritual of the Jewish services of 'Mochin-Dovid', which means 'Shield of David'. They put it into the grave of every right-believing Jews, as an earnest of his communion with his 'god' beyond the grave...

"The Masons and the offshoots of the Masonic tree - the theosophists, the occultists, the spiritualists, the gnostic, etc. - attach just as sacred a significance to this seal, but it has another name. It is called: "The Seal of Solomon" or the Cabbalistic "Tetragramma".

"And so the symbol or seal of Judaeo-Masonry, the "synagogue of Satan" of the apostates from Christ and Jewish kahal is the "tetragramma" of the Cabbala.

"If the seal of those who.. are preparing a kingdom for the antichrist is the "tetragramma of Solomon" or "Mochin Dovid", then is it not clear that it will also be the seal of the Antichrist himself?

"Will any of those who believe in Christ renounce the Cross of the Lord? Will he agree to replace it with another symbol?

"No way.

"Nor will the Jews and the Masons renounce their seal, until Israel is converted and they shall look on Him Whom they have pierced..."

So the combination of “666” on biochips inserted into our foreheads and right hands, with “666” (“www”) on the internet, with “666” as the symbol of Jewish political power (the Star of David), constitutes undoubtedly the closest apparent analogy – if it is only an analogy - to the seal of the Antichrist that has yet appeared in human history. Whether it is in fact the seal itself remains to be proved. But only a great insensitivity to “the signs of the times” would fail to be impressed – and alarmed – by this sign.

Now the anonymous author expresses the fear that a premature flight from the world containing these “playthings of civilization” will create schism in the Church, with those who reject them condemning those who do not reject them as schismatics and apostates. While this remains a possibility, we may note that in Greece, where alarm at the new identity cards has provoked mass demonstrations and protests in front of government offices, and some Synods have made an official decisions to reject the cards while others have not, no ecclesiastical schism on this soil has yet arisen. The experience of the Catacomb Church is relevant here again. Although some catacombniks accepted Soviet passports and others did not, no formal schism arose on this soil. The Passportless were (and are) to be found in several catacomb jurisdictions, and some Christians without passports did not refuse to be under the omophorion of bishops with passports. In any case, even if schisms do arise on this soil, that is no reason to sweep the question under the carpet. In this, as in all ecclesiastical controversies, the only rational option is to study the question carefully on the basis of Holy Tradition and come to a corresponding conclusion, whether that leaves one in the majority or in the minority, with the so-called “extremists” or with the “moderates”, with the “zealots” or with the “compromisers”.

Of course, it cannot be denied that it is possible to “jump the gun” and abandon the world too soon. St. Paul wrote to warn the Thessalonian Christians who had already abandoned their jobs in anticipation of the Second Coming of Christ that this would not happen before the removal of “him who restrains” (lawful monarchical power, according to the holy Fathers) and the great apostasy (II Thessalonians 2.1-7). Again, the 19^th century Romanian saint, Callinicus of Cernica, stopped building a church because he thought that the end of the world was near – until an angel appeared to him and told him that there was still time to build churches. Again, in 1962 St. John Maximovich is reported as having declared that the Antichrist had just been born…

These were mistakes, but they were mistakes engendered by highly sensitive consciences acutely aware of the increase of corruption in the world. Such a mistake is less dangerous than the opposite one of underestimating the growth of apocalyptic evil. Indeed, there are far more scriptural passages warning against false optimism in this respect than against excessive pessimism (cf. I Thessalonians 5.3-4). And it goes without saying that as time passes and we come closer to the end, the signs of the times come to match the signs given in the Scriptures more and more closely, making the possibility that such-and-such a phenomenon is in fact the seal of the Antichrist that much greater. As Fr. Seraphim Rose used to say: it is later than we think…

The Jordanville Monk Vsevolod, in an article quoted at length by our anonymous author, considers that while the new identity cards are probably not the seal of the Antichrist, they may well be a preparation for it. This conclusion is less comforting than it sounds; in fact, it implies that we have every reason to approach these identity cards and similar objects with great caution. For who knows at what time the preparation for the seal will turn into the seal itself, especially since the “trial” seal will be very close to the final, “real” seal in form?

The question is: how will we know when a certain technology has ceased to be a mere preparation for the seal, and is the seal itself? At this point it must be emphasized, as St. Gregory Palamas reminds us, that no number of itself is evil, for the whole creation, and therefore all numbers, were created good by God. An external mark or number only becomes evil – in this we can fully agree with our anonymous author - when its reception is bound up with inner apostasy from Christ. In other words, it is not the number 666 as such which destroys the soul, but the apostasy from Christ which is the condition of receiving the seal of that number and the material benefits that go with it. Thus, as Monk Sergius writes, “as long as we do not deny Christ with knowledge, we should not be afraid of various technologies, not even if they should inject ‘666’ into our blood system!”

At some point, therefore, the use of this technology will be bound up with certain conditions, conditions which it will be impossible for an Orthodox Christian to accept. As far as the present writer knows, no such conditions are attached – yet – to the use of any of the technologies in question; and it is idle to speculate precisely what these conditions will be. Of one thing, however, we can be certain in advance: that the revelation that the conditions attached to the use of this technology are unacceptable will be more likely to be given to those who have always treated it with the greatest suspicion and have kept away from it even when it was not strictly necessary (because no conditions were attached to its use) than to those who have looked down on their more cautious brothers with scarcely concealed disdain, and who may therefore have ceased to notice that, little by little and in the most clever and insidious way, an originally neutral, even beneficial technology has become the instrument of their damnation.

In 1917 the world entered the era of the Antichrist. “He who restrains”, Orthodox monarchical power, was removed, the great apostasy began and Jewish antichristian power emerged from the underground into the foreground of world history. Since then, the possibility has been ever present that, together with the Antichrist, his seal, too, would appear – not tomorrow, not in generations to come, but today. This fact does not exclude the further possibility that the onslaught of the Antichrist may be temporarily weakened, even turned back, for a period before the end, and that, as some prophecies indicate, there will be a resurrection of the Orthodox empire “for a short time”. But in general the spiritual condition of mankind in the era of the Antichrist will sharply deteriorate, according to the holy fathers, which must make us especially vigilant with regard to the fulfillment of the prophecies contained in the Apocalypse.

The Soviet era was the first era in history in which the majority of Orthodox Christians have had to live for an extended period in a state not established by God and not recognized, but rather anathematized, by the Church – that is, in a state of anarchy which the Apocalypse calls the beast. As such, it is called the era of the collective Antichrist, in contrast to the era of the personal Antichrist, which is yet to come and which will spread over the whole earth. Being the Antichrist, Soviet power had its seal – those forms of legalization and commemoration which entailed the individual Christian’s or church organization’s recognition of the state as God-established and lawful.

The decade since the fall of Soviet power has been an enigmatic period full of conflicting signs whose overall interpretation is not yet clear. On the one hand, an opportunity has been presented to the broad masses of the Russian people to learn the truth and join the True Church. On the other hand, this opportunity has been seized so far by only a small minority, there has been no return to Orthodox forms of official ecclesiastical and political life, and the indications are that the advent of the personal Antichrist, the false king of the Jews, is being prepared. These indications include: the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948; the spread of American-Western-Jewish civilization throughout the world; and the rise in influence of Talmudic Judaism and the bowing before it of most of the world’s religions. Now again, as in the generation before the First Coming of Christ, the land of Israel is at the centre of world history, and the world as a whole is filled with the tense expectation of a coming saviour – only that saviour will be the Antichrist rather than Christ.

In view of this, it is only natural that the appearance of the apocalyptic number 666 in a series of technologies spread and controlled by the dominant American-Western-Jewish civilization should have led many God-fearing Christians to conclude that “the end is near, even at the doors” (Matthew 24.23), and that “those who are in Judaea” – that is, within the sphere of influence of the New World Order and its “seals” – should “flee to the mountains” (Matthew 24.16) – that is, have nothing to do with these technologies or with the mysterious international powers that issue them.

Nevertheless, in the very tentative and humble opinion of the present writer, these technologies are not the seal of the Antichrist itself, but a preparation for it.

This conclusion is based on the following considerations (which it is beyond the scope of this article to argue for in detail): (1) so far no conditions unacceptable to the Christian conscience have been attached to the use of these technologies; (2) the American-Western-Jewish civilization that issues them is in fact much weaker than may appear and is on the point of collapse (cf. the prophecy of Elder Aristocles of Moscow and Mount Athos: “American will feed the world, but will finally collapse”); (3) in consequence, the possibility of a recovery of a truly Orthodox empire and civilization, as indicated by many prophecies, is in fact much stronger than may appear; which (4) accords with the possibility, indicated by certain other prophecies, that the Antichrist, though a Jew, will in fact come, not from a pagan, heretical or Jewish background, but from an Orthodox Christian environment and will imitate Orthodoxy in both his religion and his statehood.

However, in view of the uncertainty of the above conclusion, and of the terrible price to be paid if it is shown to be wrong, and of the abundant exhortations to caution and watchfulness contained in the writings of the holy apostles and fathers of the Church, it is safer to draw the following, somewhat different conclusion: that whether or not we believe that the modern forms of identification are the seal of the Antichrist, the opinion of those zealots of Orthodoxy who believe that they are should be respected and in no way rejected or ignored. After all, it was these same zealots who refused to take Soviet passports as being the seal of the collective Antichrist, who kept the flame of the true understanding of the Soviet beast alive in the last years of Soviet power, who were that “salt” which kept the last remnants of True Orthodoxy in Russia from being corrupted. And if their watchfulness was so vital in the past, it may well be so again in the future. For “blessed is the man that hath not walked in the counsel [Russian: soviet] of the ungodly” (Psalm 1.1). And thrice blessed is he “who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near…” (Revelation 1.3).