Saint John of Shanghai is known for his clairvoyance, miraculous visions and foresight abilities. He was a deeply spiritual man, compassionate, ascetic and very wise. For many years he studied the Revelations of John the Theologian, which describes the coming of the Antichrist and the signs of the last times. And this interest was not accidental. Why are the words of the wise old man interesting? I'm telling you.
Difficult fate
Mikhail Borisovich Maksimovich was born into a noble Orthodox family in 1896. His father, the leader of the nobility of the Kharkov province, financially supported the Svyatogorsk Monastery for many years, so the boy was instilled with love for the Lord from early childhood. Little Misha's favorite book was the lives of saints.
But, despite his deep religiosity, Mikhail chose a military career, entering first the cadet corps and then the law faculty of Kharkov University. True, after graduating from the cadet corps, the young man expressed a desire to study at the theological academy, but his parents opposed.
In 1920, together with his parents and two brothers, he left first for Crimea, and then for Constantinople, from where the family moved to Yugoslavia. In Belgrade, Mikhail finally fulfilled his dream by entering the Faculty of Theology at the University of Belgrade.
A few years later, Mikhail became a reader in the Russian Trinity Church, and after graduating from university he began teaching the law of God in a Serbian gymnasium. In 1926, he took monastic vows with the name John, became a deacon, and a little later a priest.
In 1934, the Synod of Bishops of the ROCOR sent John to China, where he became the Bishop of Shanghai. At that time, more than fifty thousand Russian refugees lived in Shanghai, for whom John became a spiritual father.
Sixteen years later he was transferred to Paris, where he became Archbishop of Western Europe. A little later he received the title of Administrator of the Russian Orthodox Churches in China and the Philippines. Despite such high titles, he was a modest and ascetic person.
Since 1962, Father John lived in the USA, where he headed the Diocese of San Francisco. And four years later he died. The body was discovered in his cell, in front of the icon of the Mother of God - Father John died during prayer.
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Signs of foolishness
For Saint John, prayer was like a living connection with the Lord. He prayed, and God heard him. He received letters from all over the world in which people asked him to pray for them.
After he became a bishop, people began to notice signs of foolishness in Father John. He did not behave as befits a high-ranking clergyman - he walked barefoot and in wrinkled clothes, did not sleep in bed, but only sat and for only a few hours, mixed all the dishes so that earthly dishes did not seem like a pleasure.
Second Coming of Christ
The Greek name for the Second Coming is parousia; the corresponding Latin name is "adventus". The second coming of the Savior, unlike His First Coming to Earth, will be with glory and greatness - “... the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father...” (Matthew 16:27). The expression “in glory” in this case should be understood as “surrounded by a special radiance.” And “...he will not sit on the throne of His glory” (Matthew 25:31).
On that day, that is, on the day of the Second Coming, the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven (Matthew 24:30). Holy Scripture does not specify what kind of sign this is, but, according to Tradition, this sign will be the Cross . The appearance of the Savior will be sensual, in human flesh . The angels say to the apostles after the Ascension of Christ: “...This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him going into heaven” (Acts 1:11). The Lord will come surrounded by angels (Matthew 16:27; Jude 14).
The Apostle Paul compares the coming of Christ with the convening of an army with a trumpet or the announcement of the year of jubilee: “... The Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel and the trumpet of God...” (1 Thess. 4:16). The appearance of the Savior will be universal and obvious to everyone - “...as lightning comes from the east and is visible even to the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (Matthew 24:27).
About the Antichrist and the last times
Very soon the Last Judgment and the end of the world will come, but only the Lord knows when this will happen. The count has begun for decades, because the signs of the last times, noted in the Gospel and Revelations of John the Theologian, are already evident. Before the end of earthly life occurs, people will experience terrible wars, famines, floods and earthquakes.
Father John said more than once that the time would come when the Antichrist would reign. He will allow a lot of things to his minions, who recognize his authority. He will reign in Jerusalem, and will favor the modern church, allowing worship, and in return he will demand only one thing - to recognize him as a god. And many confessors will be deceived, betray their faith, and bow before the Antichrist.
According to John of Shanghai, the Antichrist will not be a thing, not a concept, not an abstract being, but a living person. A charismatic man who pretends to be a true Christian, ready to build and open new churches, organize and sponsor spiritual events.
But in his soul this person is not who he claims to be. He hates God and sees only himself as God. This will be evil incarnate, which is very difficult to recognize, because at first it will hide behind the mask of spirituality. Therefore, many people will become servants of the Antichrist.
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When will the Antichrist come? Archbishop Averky (Taushev)
The day and hour of his arrival is unknown, just as the day and hour of the Second Coming of Christ is unknown. But Holy Scripture shows us signs that will precede his arrival. The coming of the Antichrist will be gradually prepared over a very long time. This is because the Antichrist will appear from the sea, or from the abyss of human sins - in him, as it were, all the evil that has accumulated over the centuries in the human race will be concentrated and will reach the maximum strength of its tension. This is the gradual preparation of St. The Apostle Paul calls “the mystery of iniquity,” already at work, and “apostasy” (from the Greek “apostasia”; 2 Thess. 2:7-3).
By this “apostasy,” as can be seen from the last speeches of the Lord (Matthew 24, etc.) and from the epistles of the Apostles (2 Peter 3:1, Jude 18-19, etc.), we must understand a retreat from the true faith in God, the impoverishment of love, the multiplication of vices, the decline of morality, which, intensifying more and more, by the time of the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world, will bring humanity to the extreme degree of godlessness and wickedness. In particular, the preparers for the coming of the Antichrist will be his predecessors - people who are especially wicked and anti-God. These are precisely the “antichrists” in the broad sense of the word that St. speaks about in his conciliar letter. John the Theologian (1 John 2:18).
An important sign of the imminence of the coming of the Antichrist will be, according to St. Apostle Paul, taking from the environment “the one who holds back” and “the one who holds” (2 Thess. 2:6-7). The Holy Fathers understood the Roman Empire by “holding”, and the Roman emperors by “holding”; in the broad sense of the word, these expressions were understood as the legitimate state legal order on earth and its representatives - legitimate sovereigns, as curbing the manifestations of evil on earth. The great fathers and saints of God of our Russian Church understood by this the Russian State and the Russian Sovereigns as the legal successors of the Roman and then the Byzantine Empire. If we take into account that after the fall of Byzantium Russia remained on earth the only powerful state that was the true stronghold of the one true Orthodox faith on earth, and the Russian Sovereigns were the patrons and defenders of the Orthodox Church throughout the world, then such an interpretation seems quite reasonable and natural.
This is exactly what the great righteous man, prayer book and miracle worker of our time, St. John of Kronstadt. Many of his inspired, fiery sermons, especially in the last years of his life, are devoted to the theme of the “retreat,” which was so clearly taking place before the eyes of the righteous here in Russia, which was rapidly sliding into the abyss of godlessness and wickedness. He did not say that “nothing special is happening,” that “this is how it has always been before,” as some say even now, after all the horrors that befell our Motherland, but he warmly warned the Russian people, warning about the inevitable impending him of God's punishment for apostasy and predicting the coming of the Antichrist that would soon follow. Now, when the whole world is faced with the fact, unheard of in history, of the existence of a huge multimillion-dollar state, which has set itself the task of an open struggle with God and the destruction of Christianity - a state armed with terrible, also never heard of before, destructive weapons and projectiles, such as atomic and hydrogen bombs , it is timely to bring to mind the authentic words of our great righteous man and seer.
“We are going through terrible times, apparently the last ones,” he said in a sermon on February 13, 1907, “and although the day and hour of the future Last Judgment are unknown to any people, however, there are already signs of its approach indicated in the Gospel. Therefore, everyone must be prepared for universal judgment and live in repentance, love and good deeds”... “Strive earnestly, brothers, for your salvation, so that the last day does not find you sleeping!”
But here is how clearly he speaks about the Antichrist and about the one who must be meant by “restraining”:
“Through the medium of sovereign persons, the Lord guards the good of the kingdoms of the earth and especially the good of the world of His Church, not allowing godless teachings, heresies and schisms to overwhelm it, and the greatest villain of the world who will appear in the last times - the Antichrist cannot appear among us, due to autocratic power , restraining the disorderly vacillation and absurd teaching of the atheists. The Apostle says that the Antichrist will not appear on earth as long as autocratic power continues to exist. “For the mystery of iniquity is already done,” but it will not be completed until the one who restrains us is taken from us: until the one who now restrains is taken out of the way, and then the wicked one will appear, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of His mouth” (2 Thess. 2:7-8 ). ("New Words Spoken in 1902, 1903 ed., p. 47). And in another sermon delivered the same year, Fr. John decisively says: “When the one who holds back (the autocrat) is taken from the earth, then the Antichrist will come..”
What else can you add to this?
“He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
Let us be clear about the terrible times we live in. And let us not madly indulge in frivolity, closing our eyes to the obvious signs that are multiplying every day and vividly testify that we are on the threshold of eternity opening up before us.
Unforgivable frivolity - or..?
Be prepared, for at an hour you do not think, the Son of Man will come... But if that servant, being angry, says in his heart: “My master will not come soon,” and begins to beat his comrades and eat and drink with drunkards, then he will come The master of that servant will cut him in pieces on a day when he does not expect, and at an hour when he does not think, and will subject him to the same fate as the hypocrites: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 24:42-51).
It has long been known that a book published back in 1912 on Athos, translated into Russian, entitled “The Posthumous Broadcasts of the Venerable Nile the Myrrh-Streaming Athos,” which contains, in addition to spiritual instructions and warnings to monastics, the predictions of this great ascetic about the last times, about the universal accession the Antichrist and about the disasters that will befall the world after the reign of the Antichrist. Now we have received a translation into Russian of the predictions of this wondrous Athonite hermit, specifically relating to the twentieth century, which until now remained untranslated from the Greek language, and therefore unknown to us. These predictions are amazing, which, in essence, only complement and clarify those previously known to us. Here is their verbatim text:
“Around 1900, towards the middle of the twentieth century, the people of that time will begin to become unrecognizable. When the time approaches the coming of the Antichrist, the minds of people will be darkened by carnal passions, and wickedness and lawlessness will increase more and more. The world will then become unrecognizable, the appearance of people will change, and it will be impossible to clearly distinguish men from women, thanks to the shamelessness in clothing and the shape of the hair. These people will become wild and cruel, like beasts, because of the temptations of the Antichrist. There will be no respect for parents and elders, love will disappear. Christian shepherds, bishops and priests will become vain men, completely unable to distinguish between the right path and the left. Then the morals and traditions of Christians and the Church will change. Modesty and chastity will disappear from people, and fornication and licentiousness will reign. Lies and love of money will reach their highest limit, and woe to those who hoard treasures. Fornication, adultery, sodomy, secret affairs, theft and murder will dominate society.
At that time, thanks to the power of the greatest crime and debauchery, people will be deprived of the grace of the Holy Spirit, which they received in holy Baptism, and will also lose remorse.
The Churches of God will be deprived of God-fearing and pious shepherds, and then the trouble will be for the Christians remaining in the world, who will completely lose faith, because they will be deprived of the opportunity to see the light of knowledge from anyone. Then they will withdraw from the world to holy refuges in search of relief from mental suffering, but everywhere they will encounter obstacles and constraints. And all this will be a consequence of the fact that the Antichrist will want to dominate everything and become the ruler of the entire universe and will perform miracles and fantastic signs. He will also give wicked wisdom to the unfortunate man, so that he will make such discoveries that one person to another can carry on a conversation from one end of the earth to the other. Also then they will fly through the air like birds and cut through the bottom of the sea like fish. And having achieved all this, unfortunate people will spend their lives in comfort, not knowing, poor things, that this is a deception of the Antichrist. And, the wicked one, he will improve science with vanity in such a way that it will lead people astray to disbelief in the existence of the Trinitarian God.
Then the All-Good God, seeing the death of the human race, will shorten the days for the sake of those few who are being saved, because he wanted to lead into temptation, if possible, even the elect... Then the punishing sword will suddenly appear and kill the seducer and his servants.”
Is it really still unclear to anyone that what we have in front of us in this amazing prophecy is a vivid, living picture of everything that is happening in the world today?
It is completely in vain and not at all reasonable that some try to assure us that “it has always been like this” and that “there is nothing new now.” Of course, sin and iniquity have always existed, but never before in the history of Christian humanity has all this taken on such truly monstrous proportions as in the times we are experiencing - people have always sinned, but never before have they sinned so brazenly, so clearly, openly and boldly, without any shadow of repentance, as in our days.
It is also significant that everything that is spoken of in this prophecy has assumed such unusually grand proportions all over the world only over the last half century - just from the time when our Orthodox Russia collapsed with that “Holder” at its head, who according to in the words of our spirit-bearing lamps St. Theophan of Vyshensky and St. Righteous John of Kronstadt, “restrained the disorderly vacillation and absurd teaching of the atheists” and did not allow the Antichrist to appear.
Now there is no one else to counteract the appearance of the Antichrist, and therefore it is quite natural to expect his coming and reign in a world completely mired in all kinds of sins and iniquities. And not only is no one now opposing the coming of the Antichrist, but on the contrary - many have already joined in the most intense work to prepare for his speedy accession, not excluding - it’s scary to say! - and some Christian clergy, right up to the highest hierarchs of the Church, collaborating with atheists and open and secret enemies of our Lord and Savior, conducting all sorts of negotiations with them, entering into various compromises and concluding all kinds of agreements, often bordering on betrayal of our holy faith and the Church .
“Apostasy,” or “apostasy,” which was predicted by the Word of God in the person of St. The Apostle Paul (see 2 Thess. 2 ch.), is now in full swing, and woe to those who do not see this, or, more accurately, do not want to see, through unforgivable frivolity, closing their eyes to everything that happens in the world and calming yourself and others, that “there is nothing special,” that “all this is normal and natural.” But is this just unforgivable frivolity? Isn’t there something else hidden behind this, the thought of which suggests itself when you hear such naive assurances? After all, the Antichrist and his servants are not at all interested in having too much talked about and openly disclosed about his coming and accession to the throne: after all, he will come as the greatest benefactor of humanity, a benefactor and even patron of the faith and the Church, and will expect universal recognition and popular worship for himself. And from the patristic predictions we know that the Antichrist will be accepted and worshiped not only by completely unbelievers, but also by people seduced by him, as if they were believers, and even Christian clergy, even those of the highest rank.
So has the time for the appearance of the Antichrist really already arrived?
We do not claim this. We are only saying that the breath of the spirit of Antichrist in the world is now so clearly felt, as if his appearance was already “near the door,” in the words of Christ the Savior, who gave us many signs that the end is near.
And besides, and most importantly, we want to warn everyone against being deceived by this spirit of the Antichrist. After all, he is already now, in the person of his servants preparing his coming, very cunningly and skillfully recruiting supporters and followers, attracting them to himself with various tempting slogans, seductive promises and simple handouts. And many, many are already falling for his bait and into his cunningly placed nets...
To drive away the thought of the coming of the Antichrist is precisely in his interests, and it is very dangerous. This one is already half in his hands, and, of course, will bow to him when he comes, finding himself among his faithful servants.
But what about the predictions about the coming resurrection of Russia and the triumph of Orthodoxy in it and supposedly even throughout the world?
We would all, of course, really like to see our unfortunate Motherland Russia resurrected to a new life and participate in the worldwide triumph of our holy faith - needless to say! But such unspeakable mercy of God must be earned. So, it won’t happen either way, and hoping for it without any sufficient grounds is an idle dream.
In addition, you need to know that all predictions are always relative, and not at all unconditional. After all, the prophet Jonah, at the command of God Himself, predicted the death and destruction of the great city of Nineveh, but this prophecy was not fulfilled: Nineveh was not destroyed - God spared it for the popular repentance of its inhabitants, starting with the king himself.
This is how we need to look at the current state of the world: the punishing sword of God has already been raised over the world, but it can also be withdrawn by the gracious right hand of God if there is in the world “that universal moral cleansing, nationwide deep repentance and a change in pagan morals to Christian ones,” to which - alas! - our wondrous shepherd-miracle worker St. in his time called in vain on the Russian people. Righteous John of Kronstadt.
“There is no salvation without repentance” is a well-known holy truth for every genuine Christian, and therefore to hope for some kind of “delay” for the salvation of the world without repentance is more than naive, completely fantastic and unreasonable, for it cannot be justified by anything.
St. Righteous John of Kronstadt, in his words in 1906/1907, literally said this: “Apparently, the day of the Second Coming of Christ will soon come, for the apostasy from faith predicted in Scripture has come... What to expect ahead if such unbelief continues, such corruption of morals, such lack of leadership? Will Christ come to earth again? Shall we die for us again? No! It is complete to mock God, complete to trample His holy laws. He will come soon, but he will come to judge the world and reward everyone according to their deeds... Perhaps we will soon hear the terrible news: “Behold, the Bridegroom is coming at midnight, and blessed is the servant, for he will be found watching”... “If there is no repentance among the Russian people, - the end of the world will be near.”
That is why we all must now think first of all about repentance, putting everything else far aside - all our vain worries, plans and considerations.
Is there, however, in the modern world such repentance, such a universal turning to God, which alone is able to divert the punishing right hand of God from the sinking deeper into the abyss of the moral decline of humanity?
This is not yet visible, and therefore there is no need to talk about it.
Under the circumstances of modern life we are experiencing, the above-mentioned prophecy of St. Nile the Myrrh-Streaming remains in full force with all the consequences that flow from it, and in particular, of course, for all of us the equally obligatory warnings and warnings of Christ about His Second Coming and about the unconditional necessity of constantly prepare yourself for it.
“Watch out! - Christ the Savior commanded us, “for at an hour you do not think, the Son of Man will come” (Matthew 24:44).
It is precisely this attitude that is the law for us, unless we are truly Christians and have not sold ourselves to the servants of the coming Antichrist.
Purification by fire
It would seem that the coming of the Antichrist is the end of all life, but no. Father John of Shanghai was convinced that after his death the cleansing of the earth from defilement would begin. But it will not be a flood, as in ancient times, but fire that fell from the sky.
The fire element will cleanse the past for the sake of the future, but not everyone will suffer from it. Believers will be able to survive all hardships - God will not let them die.
“Man was created for immortality. And life on Earth is a preparation, so there is no need to worry about temporary things. It is much more important to take care of the soul,” wrote John of Shanghai.
The saint described in detail the course of future events. According to his prophecies, which echo the predictions of Vanga, Saint Matrona of Moscow and the Athonite elders, you should always have a supply of clean water in your house. There will come a time when fresh water will be very difficult to find, because there will be fire in the sky and under our feet.
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