Nowdays, there is a lot of talk and discussions about the end of the world.
The fear of the End of the World in year 2012 is highly proclaimed, ancient mayan false “prophecies” are highly buzzed about.
Many people are more interested into the of the world, as many of the signs of the end times has been fulfilled.
Many people are turning back into occult and pagan beliefs to look up for prophecies to backup their thesis of the mayan prophecies.
A mess of false prophecies from different religions are usually mixed in order to proof to ourselves that the end of the world is at hand.
A number of apocalyptic movies has been produced until in the making industries as the more the time is close to year to 2012 the more sci-fi and all kind of movies on the apocalyptic theme are being produced.
Many people live in a constant fear that they’re gonna die in 2012 and start living even more irresponsible than before, asserting that there is no reason to do anything valuable now as the world’s end is near.
I myself some few years ago have been among this blind “false prophets” and has confessed the same destructive philosophy.
Yes it’s true that the Apocalypsis is approaching and has been approaching since the last 2011 years that passed since our Lord Jesus Christ’s birth on earth.
What is erronemous is the mistake that, we should live in fear about the end and we should do belief like the pagans in their shaky wrong beliefs based more on superstitiousness than on prophetic facts or signs of the time.
Even a plenty of music bands Protestant Christian bands like Saviour Machine are writting lyrics on the topic of the End Times, spreading fear unto some degree even among Christian Metal heads.
The situation outside the realm of the Christian secularity is even worser, I’ve heard a whole bunch of people especially in (USA) are preparing food and provisions to survive great cataclysm that they say is expected to come over the earth.
You can judge how insane is that! The end of the world as my spiritual father has told me some long time ago could be individually for us in every further minute.
If I as an individual die then I will experience the end of the world and when I will die is in God’s hands, so there is no point to worry about where the all world will end, if there is a high probability that my personal end could occur every single minute.
It’s sad that the consequences of such an panical beliefs about “the evils that are about to come on the world” are being falsely interpreted among Christians, this kind of tendency is also spread this days even among some practicing Orthodox Christians.
At many times studying of the Holy Bible “Book of the Apolapysis” are soul and mind destructive.
It’s a well known fact that in the past the book of Apocalypsis has been officially included in the Holy Bible, somewhere nearby the 5th century.
The reasons the holy church fathers decided to place the book of revelation in the bible so late is that, many of the things written are hard to understand and can lead novice Christian astray from the true essence of our faith which is love for God and love for the neighbor
Very pitily even I as an Orthodox Christians have suffered the great consequences of attempting to interpret the prophecies among the end of the world.
Therefore I found interesting that I share in this article what is the position of the Orthodox Church on the Apocalypsis or the so called End Times
First it should be said that Orthodox Christians positions is mostly based on factological information and prophetic saying by the Holy Fatherswhich by itself require a spiritual father to interpret them properly.
In the Orthodox Church we’re expecting the End Times, since the beginning of the one Holy and Apostolic Church. However the Apocalypsis is never being perceived as something that we should concentrate about but as an information that it’s good to have a general awareness of in order to have understanding in the spiritual times we’re living and how close we’re to the Second coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
The Orthodox Christian belief on Apocalypsis is completely opposite to the worldly belief which plants panic and fear in people’s mind and souls.
We belief that drawing near to the End Times, we’re drawing near to our second coming of our Lord and hence near to our eternal Salvation therefore the end days to come are not to be a concern of fear but on a contrary, they should accepted with humility and joy that we’re drawing near to our eternal salvation.
As a part of the topic of the End of the World, it’s very common nowdays in Christian and Non-Christian (heretical) groups (Mormons, Jehova’s Witnesses) to talk about the expected AntiChrist and to propagate fear in their deceived deciples.
These heretical groups has the wrong idea that starts with the definition of AntiChrist in that groups they belief AntiChrist means Against Christ, which is not very proper definition of the word.
The Orthodox Christian understanding about the AntiChrist word is Instead of Christ
Therefore the true meaning of AntiChrist in the original church was always perceived as Instead of Christ and not literally Against Christ.
Instead of Christ means, a substitute for Christ. Now if we think deeply in the modern world we have a bunch of substitute of Christ in the form of passions we have, disbelief inattendance of the Holy Liturgy – the Ancient Church service in our Orthodox Church.
In the number of Instead of Christ are a false belief to all kind of transcendental philosophies buddhism, reincarnation, hinduism, muslim beliefs, cult to public perons like let’s say Madonna or Marilyn Manson etc. etc.
If we as Christians have an example person for our life instead of having our saviour Jesus Christ for an example to follow, then we are definitely following an AntiChrist.
Don’t get me wrong I don’t say that Madonna or Michael Jackson or whoever is an AntiChrist. They’re definitely not, even though very often their behaviour and public performance becomes the reason for many people to be falsely leaded to false beliefs and false teachings different from the teachings of Our Holy Orthodox Church.
In that sense the danger of the mani AntiChrists is rooted in following anything different from the real Lord Jesus Christ who leads our Orthodox Church and who gives us grace by the 7 Church established mysteries.
Now as I said a few words about the general perception of Apocalypsis, the End of the World and the AntiChrist. Let me answer the question is there a date when the world will end up?
The Church is definitive about that and the answer is NO! NO! and NO!
It’s even written in the Holy Bible, here is the exact quote that clearly states, that we’re not given to know the exact time and date but only some general signs:
Mark 13:32:
"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
Having said that for us Christians it’s more than clear that it’s almost impossible that the end of the world is in 2012, especially if that kind of false belief is taken from a pagan religion like the mayans.
Throughout the years before this year 2011, there were plenty of so called “prophecies”, each of which has claimed the end of the world will be soon, some of the “new days end time prophets” even has gave a specific date and time for the global cataclism expected to occur..
For instance followers of William Miller (the founder of the deadly end-times movement) has predicted the exact day on which the world will end according to their calculations this was Oct 22, 1844.
You can see by your own that this kind of deliberate fear creation and massive panic is not something new and has been known to exist for several decades.
Concerning the fear of the end of the world, I remember that one of our Holy Fathers said I quote by memory: “Even if the World falls apart and the sky falls over, I would not be afraid for I believe in God”.
Our Orthodox Christian perspective is not to focus on external cataclysms and calamities but to focus on our internal spiritual life.
Knowing when the world will come doesnt’ worth a cent for us the Christians, as it is not a goal of our living. Our Goal is to gain an eternal salvation by faith in Christ and repentance for our bad sinful lives.
Today many of the panical false beliefs and “warnings” from Jehovah’s witnesses and other sects a like are absolutely deliberate, they use this as a tool to set fear and then gain followers of their soul destructive satanic teachings.
We the Orthodox Christians, should not be afraid of the end but be joyful as it’s said in Thessalonians: “..Always be joyful..”
I personally belief that the end times fear that is being planted nowdays from all medias and the internet is at many times done on purpose, to even try to deceive us the Orthdox Christians.
This kind of end times and mystical interest into prophecies and future things to come very often could mislead us and make us belief many of the false beliefs the fortune-tellers has and preach.
Unlimited interest into spirituality, definitely ends up in spiritual blindness and spiritual disored, even often to a mind inconsistencies.
The recent raise of Neuro Lenguistic Programming is nothing different, it’s just another way to blind up and deceive people and mislead them from the way of thuth that our Saviour Jesus Christ has shown us..
Interest into broken-mysticism is very natural for our fallen sinful state, but we should not let this to lead our lives, we should not live in fear Christ has never given us a spirit of fear right on the contrary.
Note that the above reasonings include a lot of my personal reasonings and it might be that I’m wrong somewhere as I’m not a father and I’m not 100% aware of all Church beliefs.
However I’m pretty sure that most that I said so far is truthful and does correspondent to our Orthodox Church understanding about Apocalypsis and End times.
There is much to be said on the topic of End of the World and our Orthodox position about it, but as my goal was simply to answer the Will the world over in 2012 and I believe I answered thoroughfully enough it will most probably not!Now to close up this article, I do pray that God (The Holy Trinity) save us and protect us from all evil and show us the true way in the Orthodox Church and deliver us from false doctrines, false beliefs and end times paranoias.
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