"Kolokol"
Father Alexey Masiuk discusses the New World Order and the coming Kingdom of the Antichrist
Translated from the Russian
Russian Orthodox Priest Alexey Masiuk, on his weekly St. Petersburg television broadcast, "Kolokol". |
Editor's note:St. Petersburg now boasts its very own Russian Orthodox weekly television broadcast, "Kolokol" (The Bell) hosted by a real Russian priest, discussing the questions which concern believers. This honest program is a major departure from the usual watered-down fare purveyed by the liberal, ecumenical clergy who dominate the religious discussion on Russian TV. In this broadcast, Father Alexey Masiuk discusses the following topics: the War in Iraq, the hidden aims of globalization, the question of ID and barcode technology and how it relates to the end of the world and the "mark of the beast" mentioned in the Book of Revelations, the question of Jews in the Orthodox clergy (an already serious problem in Russia), the "Judaizing Heresy" which occurred in 15th Century Russia, which was something akin to Western Protestantism, and the question of religion and nationality.
FR. ALEXEY: Hello, dear viewers. We're on the air once again and I remind you that our last broadcast was pre-recorded. We requested your questions on the topics raised in that broadcast and we received quite a few. They're right in front of me on a piece of paper, so I'll begin right away by answering those questions and our viewers can call in during the course of the broadcast. The telephone numbers will be shown on the screen. Of course, our last broadcast, which took place with the participation of Orthodox Christian writer Valery Pavlovich Filimonov, was about globalization. And the first question which I have here, by a viewer who wishes to remain anonymous, is on that topic:
"Globalization has nothing to do with the church. It's a political matter. The church decides problems of conscience and the spirit."
Well, that's true. Of course, church and politics are two phenomena of life which we must be very careful about mixing with each other. But having said that, we see that globalization is a question which unceremoniously and forcefully imposes itself in the spiritual realm.
Globalization, as the creators of the New World Order assert, rests on three pedestals: The first is financial-economic globalization. This is the most fundamental of the three, because profits from world trade, from the free flow of goods, capital, and labor from one continent to another is the ideological banner of globalization, in other words, the thing which is intended to attract the broad masses of humanity to this idea.
Then there's informational globalization. Here everything is clear. There's to be a single center which will provide information on various events going on in the world and form public opinion, and we see from the example of the Iraq war how this has now taken on global proportions. CNN, the largest western TV news company, determines the attitudes that all the remaining TV channels have to take, the stories to pick up on and develop, and all the others have to orient themselves toward CNN as a sort of beacon of truth. Thus we see how Orwell's "Ministry of Truth" is being formed on a global scale. Informational globalization quickly determines who the bad guy is (Saddam Hussein, for example) and who's the good guy (George Bush, the American President) who gives the bad guy a beating. With time it will become impossible to deviate from the approved line.
The third side of globalization may be less well-known to our viewers. It's called mental globalization. Mens, mentis: These are well-known Latin words denoting consciousness, perception of the world, ideology and manner of thinking. Of course the creators of the New World Order have to unify the consciousness of man, and we see that for the time being at least different peoples live according to different traditions, that they have different values which determine how they live their lives, and last but not least they profess different religious beliefs. That which is good and lawful for the Muslim, for example holy war against infidels, is not understandable to the Christian, whose church preaches love and tolerance to those of other faiths. And so on and so forth. So globalization won't be realizable until the human spirit is unified. As you can see, this is already the sphere of religion, not just politics. And this is what arouses concern among those believers, above all Orthodox Christians, who know from the prophecies passed down to us in Holy Scripture that at the end of the world there will be just such a worldwide dictatorship. First it will be hidden, anonymous, and then it will offer us a worldwide monarch, who will exert such power over all processes in the world, including religious ones, that he'll demand to be worshiped as God, as described in the Book of Revelations of John. So to separate the political and the spiritual when discussing globalization, to say that it's a purely political matter in which it's unseemly for the church to meddle, is impossible.
Here's the main thing: We've already arrived at the point where financial and economic control are not enough for the masters of the New World Order, the world government. They need the soul of man, and the human soul needs to be so predictable, so susceptible to manipulation, that humanity will have to be deprived of its spiritual individuality and its freedom of will.
We have a call. Go ahead, please:
CALLER: Hello Father Alexey. [Caller names his name and asks for Father's blessing.] What's a "Judaizing Jew?" What does this mean?
FR. ALEXEY: Well, "Judaization" was a heresy. This term comes from the 15th Century, when such a heresy penetrated into the Muscovite state, and it's clear why our ancestors gave it that name. The heretics denied all the tenets of the New Testament, that the Lord Jesus Christ is the true messiah who came to bring truth to the world and to save the human race, and that the purpose of salvation is by no means earthly prosperity, earthly power or success, nor is it the triumph of the chosen Jewish people: The purpose of salvation is union with the Lord and the liberation from sin, as the thing which separates man from God. In a word, the spiritual orientation of Christianity was weakened, canceled, while the Old Testament principle, which is marked above all by an earthly orientation, was emphasized. You see, the righteous of the Old Testament were rewarded above all with earthly blessings: Wealth, health, an abundance of offspring, military strength -- these were the fruits of righteousness. So the expression "Judaizer" denotes one who wants to resurrect the principles of the Old Testament and to weaken, cancel, or discredit the principles of the New Testament, which are purely spiritual and elevated, more idealistic than earthly and material.
We have another call. Go ahead.
CALLER: [Caller names his name and asks for a blessing.]
FR. ALEXEY: The Lord blesses you.
Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and Ladoga, Vladimir (Kotlyarov) |
CALLER: Here's my question. In your opinion, can a converted Jew be a parish priest, like the well-known priest Alexander Men who was killed ten years ago? And what's your opinion in general of the current fashion of the Moscow cultural and political elite to get baptized? For example, several Jewish political figures in the federal government were baptized, and Konstantin Raikin was baptized not long ago. Your opinion on that, please. [Konstantin Raikin is an actor, son of the Soviet comedian Arkady Raikin. Notorious "oligarch" Boris Abramovich Berezovsky also makes much of the fact that he's baptized. Jews are entering the clergy in huge numbers. The current Metropolitan (Bishop) of St. Petersburg, Vladimir (Kotlyarov), is a Jew, and naturally a proponent of the most liberal, "ecumenical" views. He began his tenure with an organized campaign of slander against his predecessor, Metropolitan Ioann, of blessed memory, even going so far as to try to forbid the sale of the priest/patriot's books on the grounds that they were "forgeries". He's worked tirelessly to remove those St. Petersburg priests who aren't sufficiently "ecumenical", replacing them for the most part with his "co-tribalists". As a result, the Orthodox Church in St. Petersburg is taking on an ever-more "semitic" appearance. -- Editor]
FR. ALEXEY: Well, it's clear what causes concern here in every Orthodox Christian: To what degree are such baptisms sincere? Of course, any Orthodox Christian should only welcome them, for the Lord desires that all be saved, and to "come to the reason of truth", as it's written in Holy Scripture. But the degree to which these people who get baptized or even enter the priesthood approach that goal, that truth, or whether they have maybe more earthly, immediate, or even political aims -- yes there's a danger here.
Even with the deceased Alexander Men we see when we examine his works that many of his positions, even his most fundamental ones, differ from the teachings of the church. There's even been research done which has discovered all the heresies in church history in the writings and opinions of Alexander Men. We can focus on those opinions which touch on today's broadcast, that is globalization as harbinger and omen of the end of the world. Having gotten carried away with the theories of Teilhard de Chardin, the modernist, liberal, Catholic theologian, he said that there will be no end of the world, no Last Judgement, that man possesses the ability to evolutionize all by himself so that gradually social relations will be perfected, technical progress will continue, and one day something like heaven on earth will dawn. And then heaven and earth will join together without any upheavals or cataclysms, and without the destruction of evil. But the source of evil is of course the fallen angel, satan.
These ideas are in the air today, for example among our intelligentsia, which is coming back to the church with difficulty and with many deviations, because what prevents a person from coming to God? Pride! And all a person's former knowledge, his scientific baggage, former success in the scientific field -- all of this is difficult to renounce, just as it's difficult to give up one's material wealth. It's difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore the situation is very difficult. That's why we ourselves have to carry on our Orthodox tradition in our souls, in our culture, to know it well, to feel it, and to understand where we deviated from it in the past, and how that deviation manifests itself, and it can be manifested not only in what is written and said, but also in behavior, in a person's relation to church tradition, in a priest's manner, for example. In one way or another, all of this wears away at tradition, and of course this arouses alarm.
And there happens to be a question on that theme from Larisa, who asked: "Religion and nationality. What relation do they have to each other?" Yes, this question is in fact very complex, because man is both a spiritual and fleshly being. Spirit and flesh in man are joined inextricably, on the one hand, yet remain absolutely separate, on the other. So on the one hand spirit and flesh are at war with one another, so to speak, and yet a person's "genetic memory" (and this term has become commonplace in science) also influences his soul. Of course, if our Russian forefathers served the Lord over the course of a thousand years, revered Him and honored Him, this genetic memory makes Russians, even today's completely secular ones, respect and honor the church, and this respect is often unconscious. Someone may know little about the church, never go to church, and if you ask them whether he believes in Jesus Christ he'll shrug his shoulders, but he knows that the church is what brings light, goodness and the positive to life.
The Jewish people are another matter, of course. Their ancestors, on the contrary, regarded Christianity negatively, with distrust, even with scorn, as a religion inimical to them and even their very existence. And this genetic memory also lives on in a person, and it's not at all easy to overcome. Such is our world. It's divided by sin, shattered by our fall from grace, and it's not so easy to put the shards back together, or even to locate the reason why a person can't put himself back together, restore himself to wholeness. So he suffers, abides in darkness, and even begins to make war against the light. We have another call. Go ahead please:
CALLER: Hello. My name is [caller names her name]. When you speak about those who get baptized, who convert to the Orthodox faith, why don't you say anything about Christ Himself, who also was baptized, who also took the faith? And he was a Jew.
FR. ALEXEY: Your impression is rather far from the mark. You see, we're not talking about those Jews who lived before Christ. This was a chosen people, called upon to preserve the truth, the revelation of God. That is, God revealed Himself to the Jewish people, and no other, as an all-powerful but merciful and all-giving Creator. We're talking about the period after Christ, after the Jewish people had renounced the Savior, even knowing that there before them stood the Messiah, the Son of God. But they didn't like what the Son of Man had brought to humanity: spiritual wealth, salvation, and a heavenly paradise, instead of an earthly one. They preferred to take their own path, that path which has become well-worn with time. The whole conflict between the Jews and Our Savior is described in the Gospels and it's unceasing there. They gave Our Savior Jesus Christ over to a fearful death on the cross. And He, as you truly noted, had to be born into the Jewish nation, from the pure Virgin Mary, who was descended from the Davidic line. But though He was a Jew in flesh, in His divinity he was the Son of God, equal in honor to God Himself. We shouldn't forget that. That means that He was without sin, and without any national limitations. There was only truth, light, and holiness in Him, as Holy Scripture tells us. We have yet another call. Go ahead please.
CALLER: [Caller introduces himself.] I have a question. According to my understanding, the Lord God is a non-national being. He's neither a Jew, a Tatar, nor a Russian. He's outside of nationality. He created the world. He created people of all nationalities. That's my first question. And here's the second one: Over the course of 400 years the worldwide backstage manipulators attacked Russia three times with the help of its forces of darkness, trying to conquer Russia. The first stage was in the 17th Century, when they sent over governors and governesses from Europe, who began to corrupt the children of the Russian nobility. After 50 years of this, they considered Russia was sufficiently softened up, and it was time to finish her off. So they sent Bonaparte to us. Bonaparte came, and got to Moscow, and then was forced to leave.
[Caller was cut off.]
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FR. ALEXEY: Yes. Thanks, [names caller's name], for such a historical excursion. It expanded our knowledge about what's happening. It's true that these governors and governesses had nothing to do with Russian tradition or Orthodoxy, having come from the West which had already been seduced from the faith and had ceased to defend Holy Orthodoxy.
Our viewers are asking a question about the subject of last week's recorded broadcast: "Why does Father interpret the words from Revelations about the mark of the beast on the forehead and the right hand the way he does? What do barcodes and plastic cards have in common with this mark?" Well, the question is best answered by starets of Trinity-Sergius Monastery, Archimandrite Kirill Pavlov. He says; "Today the number, tomorrow the card, and the day after tomorrow the mark of the beast." And we see that in fact the connection is obvious. (And those who are knowledgeable about modern technology can find all the information on the Internet.) They'll see that everything has been readied for the transition from the personal code -- let's say the Individual Tax Number (INN), or insurance number -- to a barcode, magnetic strip or a chip on a card, like the one which they're introducing for the subway system. [There's been a movement in Russia, led largely by Orthodox believers, to refuse the newly-introduced INN, which is something like the Social Security Number which has long existed in America. Those priests, monks and nuns who have refused the INN number were first persecuted and ridiculed by the church leadership, and then simply excommunicated. This shows where the sympathies of the church leadership really lie. Beginning in August, named access cards to the St. Petersburg subway become mandatory. This means that the authorities will be able to individually trace the movements, by name, of all those leaving and entering the subway. In Moscow an even more ambitious project, the "Moscow Card", which is a personal, banking, credit and public transport card, has been launched, with the participation of Oracle Corporation. Isn't it strange that in destitute Russia, with a national budget less than the State of New York, somehow money is found to implement these expensive programs for numbering and tracking citizens? -- Editor] That card is passive, for the time being, and contactless, which means that you don't have to insert it into a slot. It's enough to hold it near a little window and the little microchip will respond to the electric waves. But then there will be active cards, with active microchips. You won't even have to take them out of your pocket. You can just walk freely into the subway because the microchip will constantly emit impulses which can be picked up by special equipment. What's more, this equipment can even be installed on satellites. A whole system is already in place. It's called the Global Positioning System. Then each person with such a card in his pocket will be able to be traced no matter where he is on the planet.
Well, and you understand of course that a card can be lost. Someone could steal it, and all your bank transactions are going to be tied to that card. In other words, it's going to be of vital importance. So then the idea arises: How to permanently bond that microchip with the human body? And this leads us to that invention which John the Theologian shows us as one of the clear signs of the end of the world and the coming Kingdom of the Antichrist. That is, this active microchip will be implanted in some manner into the person's body, and the person and the whole cybernetic system, with its satellites and powerful computers which will keep track of everything, will be unsleeping, all-encompassing.
It's this very mark which will deprive the person of freedom, and not only by restricting his movements and actions, whatever they may be. It will influence his consciousness, of course, for we know that no system is going to simply passively observe its participants. It has to mold their behavior. It has to evaluate them: whether they're behaving correctly or incorrectly, going where they should be going, saying what they should be saying, and to raise an alarm when a "mistake" occurs, when the system is "dissatisfied" with the subject. And gradually the person will learn to act in the way which the system requires. We remember that from Stalinist times. Without even thinking about it, people said what they knew they were supposed to say. But they never gave away the secret when a thought came into their heads which was in one way or another outside the bounds of what was allowed.
Therefore, there will be a direct interference in the human soul. Life will be so false, so full of pretending and hypocrisy -- worse than one can imagine in one's worst nightmares. Our only hope is that we believe that the Lord is all-powerful and that if we have faith He'll help us (if He sees that there's still someone left to help) to destroy this diabolical trap, these technotronic, technological wiles of the devil. He'll destroy the new cybernetic Tower of Babel. We have another call. Go ahead please. We're listening.
CALLER: Father, please bless [caller names his name].
FR. ALEXEY: The Lord blesses you.
CALLER: Here's my question. I was offered to fill out a questionnaire from the Moscow Informational Analytical Center about my consumer preferences. There were a lot of questions, for example what kind of things I buy, what brand names I know, and even my religious preferences, and they offered to install a box on my TV set which registers which TV programs my family members and I watch and at what times. Naturally I refused. Tell me, please, was it a great sin for me, an Orthodox Christian, to have filled out that questionnaire?
FR. ALEXEY: Sin is only sin when it's intentional. What intention made you fill out that questionnaire? Was it simply your lack of knowledge or simply your well-intentioned desire to respond to an offer? Or were you seeking in some way to gain something? These are the things which an Orthodox Christian should ask himself every time he acts in one way or another. In your case I don't see sinful intention. We see here how the world government puts out its feelers everywhere, trying to get us used to the thought that everything will be controlled, every action, every so-called "preference", including those relating to the deepest and highest areas of the spirit. The information which a person accesses, the books that he reads -- this is all the life of the soul. And there, in the soul, is where the masters of the world government intend to intrude and interfere, where they want to rule unconditionally. So you've provided us with important information. This is a living example of how it's all going to happen. Another call. Go ahead, please:
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CALLER: [Caller names her name.] Your blessing, father.
FR. ALEXEY: The Lord will bless you, [repeats her name].
CALLER: I want to know what the Orthodox Church says about the new passports which we're forced to accept, where nationality isn't indicated. [The old Soviet passports, which are now being phased out, indicated the bearer's nationality, "Russian", "Jew", "Armenian", or "Ukrainian" for example. -- Editor] I'm neither a Tatar nor a Jewess; I'm Russian. And I want my nationality to be there in my passport. Can I do anything about this, and how can the Orthodox Church help?
FR. ALEXEY: It's going to be very difficult to do anything about this. The system is already in place. Though there is an organization, "For the Right to Live Without INN" [ http://infolab.spb.ru/anti-inn/index.htm -- Editor] which is doing battle in the legal area. Of course it's your right, and all of ours' right, to have passports with a nationality item. It's very significant, and ought to be honored by the government. But the government, and the worldwide master manipulators who influence the regime, know what they're doing. They know that if a society and government are organized in such a way that a person's human attributes don't even register, then he forfeits the rights which are connected with that attribute. Let's remember: Passports used to inform us of many attributes -- social estate, for example. [Pre-revolutionary passports indicated the bearer's religion and social class. -- Editor] They abolished that, and people lost the rights associated with social estate. If you were to say: "I'm a nobleman", or "I'm a merchant" or "I'm of Cossack descent", "and in that connection I should enjoy certain rights in this government," -- and let's remember that the Russian Federation is the legal successor not only to the Soviet Union but to the Russian Empire -- well, it's funny, isn't it? People would just laugh at you and think you were crazy.
There used to be a "religion" item in our passports. This is also very important, because people who possessed the attribute "Orthodox Christian" or "Muslim" could defend their rights as members of a group, a community. This defining attribute was impossible to ignore. It was not longer simply a private matter, but a public and governmental one. They took away the "religion" item, and now we can no longer demand anything from the government in the name of the Orthodox Community. We have no rights, far less respect than we should have as members of the Orthodox Community, which is the largest group in the country.
The same thing with nationality. They take away the attribute "Russian", and then Gaidar makes his appearance, saying that "Russia as a country of Russians has no future." [Yegor Gaidar was one of the co-authors of Russia's post-communist "economic reforms", along with Anatoly Chubais. Gaidar's prediction seems to be coming true: As the Russian ethnos continues its demographic free-fall, Russia is being inundated with "guest workers" and other immigrants from Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Far East. There are now more than a million Azerbaijanis in Moscow alone, for example. -- Editor] He made that statement. And then he'll say: "Well, what do all of you have to do with Russia?" "Where is it written that you're that national group whose ancestors created this country?" They were the state-creating nation, and Russia is called Russia because it's the country of Russians. So yes, we have to fight for that right, and we have to see into the future and understand why these changes are occurring, and for what purpose. It's all very dangerous for the survival of our nation, our culture, and the Russian state itself. We have another call. Go ahead.
CALLER: Hello, Father Alexey. My name is [caller names her name]. This is my question. A person goes to church hoping for help, and he's looking for holiness in the priest, for a person whom he can trust unconditionally and who can answer many questions, not just ones directly connected with religion, but life questions. And it often happens that the image and behavior of the priest don't live up to the idea that one expects of him. I once heard a story from an old woman, a native Petersburger and devout believer, who told me how she saw her priest at the bakery. His behavior was loud and rude, totally inappropriate for a priest, and she told me: "My God, and to think I kissed that person's hand!" So my question is this: Do priests receive any training in how to behave? After all, priests are people too, and they often come from average families, families with no religious background. Thank you.
FR. ALEXEY: I understand your question. You know, [this was a problem] even in the peaceful 19th Century, when the priesthood was hereditary. There was a priestly estate, by the way, and clerical families often went back tens of generations -- this was a common occurrence -- not to mention that the Russian people as a whole was Orthodox, whose actions, even on the unconscious and spontaneous level, were shaped by the teaching of the Gospels, which we can't say today. In order to become a Christian today one needs to make such an effort to remove the carcass of godlessness and materialism which entraps our souls. It's such tortuous and bloody work analyzing every word, action and hidden desire. That's why people are easily seduced by sects, because sects offer them an easy way out. With them all you do is just read the Bible a bit, listen to a sermon, enjoy a pleasant conversation and even be entertained. And they're so welcoming! Orthodoxy isn't like that.
Alas, even in an easy time for the church, the 19th Century, that light of Orthodoxy, Reverend John of Kronstadt said: "If every priest lived up to his calling the enemy of man, satan, and all his demons would have nothing to do here on earth." So you see, freedom of choice remains for all, for the monk, the bishop, the parish priest, the simple worshiper, no matter how educated or uneducated, and for the complete simpleton. Freedom of choice is the cross which each must bear. One person bears it with dignity, even with no schooling or training, with no governess there to help, for spiritual life is a constant battle with the passions and weaknesses. And there are those who abuse their freedom, employ it for the wrong ends. We shouldn't be confused by the fact that priests have weaknesses, just like ordinary people. And we kiss the priest's hand not because he's a saint, a wonder-worker, some being from another world, but because he serves holy liturgy. God permits his hands, fallible, sinful as they are, to hold the pure body of our Lord, Jesus Christ and the cup filled with the blood of Our Savior. That's why there's the tradition of kissing the hand of a priest, not because he's some angel in the flesh. Going to church would be both easy and difficult if priests were all angels instead of people with sins and weaknesses. They would be unapproachable for us in their perfection. There'd be an abyss between the pastor and his flock, which doesn't enter into God's plan. People learn from other people, both good and temptation. More calls are coming in. Go ahead please.
CALLER: Hello, Father.
FR. ALEXEY: Hello.
CALLER: This is my question. Who among the clergy possesses the gift of healing diseases like schizophrenia, for example, or any other disease? What church, and what priest, I'd like to know. There was the case in [caller names place in St. Petersburg], where a priest [caller names priest] cured [caller names a woman's name] from visions which were persecuting her. Be so kind as to answer, please.
FR. ALEXEY: Well, first of all I object to the word "cure". She wasn't "cured"; she was healed. What is healing? It's not merely bodily healing, like that performed by doctors or those black magic "healers" who publish their classified ads in the newspapers, many of them calling themselves "Orthodox Christian mages", which comes out sounding sort of like "white blackness". True healing can come only from divine power. God wants to restore the person, because diseases like schizophrenia, which are rarely curable by ordinary methods, are the result of sin. The Lord came to take the sins of man upon Himself, to liberate us from sin and the result of sin -- disease, in other words. But we have to know that only our faith is the only force, the only reservoir large enough to contain the miracle of healing.
Often we see how people come to church like consumers to a supermarket or a doctor. They show up with their fat wallets, asking: "Who do I need to pay to rid my son of his illness, to get him out of the psychiatric hospital," and so forth. And when you begin to explain that one needs to above all engage in spiritual labor, and not just open one's wallet, that one has to believe in the Lord, to be a real Christian, to do battle with one's passions, to repent of one's sins -- for sin is the source of our children's diseases; our sinful life is passed on to our offspring and they suffer because of our sins -- the person's eyes suddenly go cloudy and he walks out, indifferent and disappointed, saying "Once again it seems I've come to the wrong sort of priest. He started telling me all sorts of nonsense." And there are priests with whom all you have to do is pay some money and you're in business. And life is restored to the way it was: calm, spiritually dead. Is this what God wants? For a person to just pay his dollars or whatever and come away satisfied? No! He wants to arouse our souls to action. That's why He sends us suffering. One more call. Go ahead, please.
CALLER: Hello, Father. My name's [caller names her name]. I'm a believer, and I'd like to ask you. Why do Orthodox Christians refer to themselves "slaves of God"? God is Our Father, who loves us and awaits us. So why are we slaves then? Christ said: "Become free and be slaves of your sins no longer. Free yourself from them, and you'll be free. You'll be with the Lord." Then why are churchgoers called ... [Caller was cut off]
FR. ALEXEY: Your question is understandable. If we're to rely on Scripture, then Scripture prescribes us to call ourselves "slaves", and what's more, unworthy and lazy slaves, cunning and uncaring, always looking for a way to avoid fulfilling the will of our master. No, there's enormous spiritual truth in this word "slave". We have the choice of being just slaves or being worthy slaves, because without enslavement to Christ we'll become slaves of sin and the devil anyway. And that slavery will be much more violent and painful for us. Or we can be cunning, unworthy slaves, who wait for the moment when the master turns his back, when he won't see what we're up to or punish us, and then we can do what we please, to misuse those rights which the master granted us. So we shouldn't allow our pride to be offended by the word ["slave"]. It contains the greatest spiritual truth. Just think about it. Unfortunately modern man has been enchanted by that endlessly-repeated slogan: "freedom, equality and brotherhood". One would think that disappointment would have set in by now, but the slogan lives on in him, and he repeats to himself: "We're not slaves. Slaves are not us," as they used to repeat in anti-illiteracy circles. ["We're not slaves ..." was a Bolshevik slogan. -- Editor] We've got two more questions. Maybe we'll have time to answer them. Go ahead, please.
CALLER: Hello. I'd like to hear one more time about the mark of the beast on the forehead or the hand, as you were saying, namely the 18th Chapter [of the Book of Revelations] which you were quoting.
FR. ALEXEY: Uh-huh. We know. It's the 18th Chapter. Anyone can look it up.
CALLER: Well, I'd like to know in more detail. For example, if they begin handing out microchip cards at work or for the ATM machine and so forth. How does this relate to the mark of the beast?
FR. ALEXEY: We can't say exactly how it's related. But we believe our startsy, our contemporary spiritual leaders, Elder Paissios of Athos, now deceased, and the still-living Archimandrite Kirill Pavlov. They say that this will lead directly to what John the Theologian described. Or maybe it's just a dress-rehearsal. That could be the case too, because the Antichrist is constantly building up to his final enthronement. Without doubt, every Orthodox Christian needs to resist it, using all available means. Next Wednesday I won't be here, because it will be Holy Wednesday, and Orthodox writer Valery Pavlovich Filimonov will be here instead. And he'll be able to tell you in more detail and with more competence -- he's written a complete work on this topic -- just how the mark is connected with the numbering which is now taking place, and it's as if we aren't asking ourselves: "Why is it necessary? What is its significance, its meaning. Why are so many billions being spent to give every person a number? Why has this campaign received such powerful ideological support?"
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Added to Site: 20 Apr. 2003 - Last modified: 20 Apr. 2003
