The Church in the Last Years

Hieromonk Theodoretos (Mavros) the Hagiorite (+2007)

 

 

All the faithful must understand that the Church is not where it appears to be. Liturgies will continue to be celebrated and the churches will be filled with the faithful, yet the Church will have no connection with those churches, nor with those rassas, nor with those faithful. The Church is there where the truth exists. The faithful are those who continue the uninterrupted tradition of Orthodoxy, this work of the Holy Spirit. Priests are those who think, live, and teach as the Fathers and Saints of the Church did, or at least those who do not deny them by their teaching. Where this continuity of thought and life does not exist, it is delusion to speak of the Church, even if all the external appearances speak of it. There will always be found a canonical priest, ordained by a canonical Bishop, who follows the Tradition. Around such priests the small groups of the faithful who will remain at the end of the times will gather together. Each of these small groups will itself be a local “Catholic” Church of God.

The faithful will find within them the whole fullness of the Grace of God. They will have no need of administrative or other bonds, because the communion that will exist among them will be the most perfect that can exist. It will be the communion in the Body and Blood of Christ, the Communion in the Holy Spirit. The golden links of the unaltered Orthodox Tradition will connect these Churches with one another, as well as with the Churches of the past, with the triumphant Church of the heavens. Within these small groups the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church will be preserved intact. Of course, it is wonderful when order and coordination can exist in the external manifestations of the various Churches, and when the less important Churches receive direction and guidance from the more important ones, as happens now among the Bishoprics, the Metropolises, the Archdioceses, and the Patriarchates. Yet at the end of the times such external relations and contacts will most often be impossible.

There will be such confusion in the world that one Church will not be able to be so certain of the Orthodoxy of another, because of the multitude of false prophets who will have filled the world and will say, “Here is Christ,” and “There is Christ.” Only within small groups will certainty of right faith and life be preserved. There may also be misunderstandings among truly Orthodox Churches because of the “confusion of tongues” that exists in the modern Babylon. Yet none of these things will break the essential unity of the Church. At the end of the times everyone will claim to be Orthodox Christians and that Orthodoxy is as they understand it. Nevertheless, those who have a pure heart and a mind illumined by divine Grace will recognize the Orthodox Church despite all the apparent divisions and the complete lack of external splendor. They will gather around the true priests and will become the pillars of the Church. Let the people of the world do whatever they want. Let ecumenical conferences take place, let the “Churches” unite, let Christianity be adulterated, let tradition and life be altered, let the religions unite.

The Church of Christ will remain unchanged, because, as Chrysostom says, even if one of her pillars remains standing, the Church will not fall. “Nothing is stronger than the Church. She is higher than heaven; she is broader than the earth. She never grows old, but always flourishes.” A pillar of the Church is every true faithful person who remains attached to the Tradition of the Fathers, despite all the terrible currents of the world that try to sweep him away. Such pillars will exist until the end of the world, whatever may happen. Moreover, when these things come to pass, the coming of the Lord will not be far off. This condition will be the most dreadful sign that His coming is drawing near. Then precisely “the end will come.” The mawkish and sentimental Christians regard the above as excessive and repulsive pessimism. As allies of the world, they cannot see the seal of the devil in what they themselves approve. Nor can they measure the immense chasm that separates the world from God, because then they would be forced to admit that the same chasm separates them also from God.

They therefore cannot tolerate anyone being pessimistic about the modern Babylon. They are so satisfied with their age. They see the future as so bright. Christianity for them is so compatible with the world, and they are so pleased about this, that they will not forgive you if you show them that they are deluded. They envision in the future a worldwide united Church, with all people united by the bond of love. Heretics of various shades are, for them, “their Christian brothers,” from whom they were separated by the egotisms and narrow-mindedness of bygone ages... For the people of the world, this prospect of a world state and a world religion is something very pleasant. The same is true for those who today long for the union of the “Churches” and pay no attention to the truth. For these latter people, dogmatic issues are hateful Byzantine quibblings. But, “For this reason God will send them a working of delusion, that they should believe the lie, so that all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in unrighteousness.”

Within this society of the Antichrist, the few who will remain genuine Orthodox Christians will constitute the stone of stumbling, the only discordant note amid so much diabolical harmony.

For them those days will be days of great tribulation.

“And ye shall be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.”

It will be a new period of martyrdom, a martyrdom more spiritual than bodily.

Orthodox Christians will be the outcasts of society within the immense world state.

“And he causeth that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark on their right hand, or on their foreheads, and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” (Rev. 13:15).

History presents to us twice the local Church of Constantinople without an Orthodox bishop. First, when it was under Arian domination, Gregory the Theologian, having gone there to strengthen the Orthodox flock, found it “also without a bishop” (MANSI 3, 532). Second, under the heterodox Nestorius, when the faithful, clergy and people, having repudiated him, gathered without him (MANSI 4, 1096). Consequently, the organic bond between bishop and truth constitutes a conditio sine qua non for the Orthodoxy of the local church over which he presides. For this reason St. Gregory Palamas also emphasized to his opponents: “Those who are of the Church of Christ are of the truth.”

And those who are not of the truth are not of the Church of Christ either.” (Writings, vol. II, 627). Therefore, those who hold false doctrines are not of the Church, nor are they shepherds, but “wolves” in sheep’s clothing, working the destruction of the sheep, even if they are styled archpastors, All-Holinesses, and ecumenical. “And all the more so if they also falsely represent themselves,” the great Father continues, “calling themselves sacred shepherds and archshepherds, and being so called by one another. For we have been taught that Christianity is characterized not by persons, but by truth and exactness of faith.” (Ibid.) For this reason Professor Fr. G. Florovsky was right when he wrote: “Very often the measure of truth is the witness of the minority. It is possible for the ‘little flock’ to be the Catholic Church.”

Perhaps there are more heterodox than Orthodox. It is possible for the heretics to spread everywhere and for the Church to end up on the margins of History, or to withdraw into the desert. This has happened repeatedly in History, and it is very likely to happen again...” “The duty of obedience ceases when the bishop deviates from the catholic norm, and the People have the right to accuse him, and even to depose him.” (Holy Scripture, Church, Tradition, Thessaloniki, 1977, pp. 71, 75. Cf. I. Kotsonis, Problems of Ecclesiastical Economy, p. 113). “But why do Christians feel so very strongly the need to take refuge, at all costs, in an administratively organized Church?”

This happens because history has great power over our soul. Because, throughout the centuries, we came to know the Church organized into Patriarchates and Synods, we identified her with this organization, forgetting that during the periods of heresies this organization was lost for the Orthodox and became the weapon of false doctrine against them. Yet in the apocalyptic times in which we live, we have now left History behind and have entered into Eschatology. Our spiritual survival depends on becoming conscious of this fact. All our historical supports have now fallen. Apostasy has changed the shepherds into wolves, and the organized Church that we knew is now today a pack of wolves and the death of sheep. The devil is now loosed.

In order to survive, we must see the Church in her mystical and sacramental essence, stripped of the administrative organization by which we came to know her in History. In the arena, the martyrs faced the beasts naked. Naked also, the militant Church of the last times will struggle against them, without Synods, without Patriarchates, without any bond among the local small Churches other than Christ and their communion with the triumphant Church. Therefore the usual question, “Very well, let us leave Ecumenism, but to which Church should we go?” has no place today. For it is not a matter of going anywhere, but of remaining in the Church of Christ, in the Church of the Fathers. We must reject the falsifications and remain in the truth which we have known from our earliest childhood, but which we now find it difficult to recognize in what they tell us is supposedly the Church. This rejection of falsehood and falsifications we shall carry out where we are, simply by cutting off every communication with it.

And then, when we have taken the first step that God expects from us, He Himself will come to meet us and will open our eyes, which until then had the name of seeing, but were incapable of seeing the true Christ. And when we see Him, we shall run to our dearest friend, as Philip ran to Nathanael, and we shall call him to come and see also, however much he may doubt that anything good can come from Nazareth.

Thus the “little flock,” the small local church, is formed. The true Israelites find one another and come together to Christ: laypeople, Priests, and Bishops.

- Elder Theodoretos Mavros (+2007)

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[Commentary by Protopresbyter Dimitrios Athanasious:]

Through the Encyclical of the Pseudo-Synod of Crete, Ecumenism was also established “synodically” as a declared pan-heresy within the bosom of the official Church; the ontological existence of other Churches possessing saving mysteries was officially recognized; and the unhindered course toward the union of all was legislated “pan-Orthodoxly.”

The silencing, censorship, and prohibition of everyone not conforming to the ecumenistic directives was secured “synodically”; the W.C.C. was legitimized, acquiring and securing an ecumenical character; and Orthodoxy was officially “identified” with Ecumenism!

The decisions of this Robber Pseudo-Synod have an ecumenical character. They now constitute internal law for the local churches and touch not only the clergy, but also the entire flock, which communes through its priests and bishops with those of the Ecumenical Throne who are outside communion.

Finally, the “Prayer for the union of all” from the Great Litany, which was recently interpreted so arrogantly, blasphemously, and irresponsibly by the Pontiff of the Phanar as the union of all churches of different dogmas, means this and only this: namely, the union of all people in the truth of the Orthodox faith, and their return to the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, as manifestly repentant and regenerated through Orthodox Baptism, blessed Christians.

Pray and make supplication!

 

Greek source: https://fdathanasiou-parakatathiki.blogspot.com/2026/04/blog-post_27.html