The Christian observer has long ago noticed in the course of historic events a certain strangeness, unexplainable at first glance. Wars, invasions, uprisings and revolutions, dynastic coups and the toppling of thrones, economic crises and political intrigues -- all these externally unrelated and chaotic phenomena share one common feature: their end result is invariably the destruction or weakening of national statehood and the desecration of Christian shrines. [Three perfect examples from the past decade: Bosnia, Kosovo and Chechnya. -- Editor] We are forced to ask the question: Is this mere coincidence or the "objective law" so dear to the heart of materialist historians? In this connection the many Christian prophecies foretelling just such a turn of events acquire especial urgency.
"Now we beseech you, brethren," says Paul, addressing believers at the dawn of the Christian era. "Let no man deceive you by any means ... For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so, until he is taken out of the way." (2 Thessalonians 2: 1,3,7). The Apostle's appeal contains a key to help us dispel our modern confusion about many of the enigmas of history.
The source of the "mystery of lawlessness" lies in the mists of antiquity and can be traced to an event of seemingly small importance: In the years 727 B.C. and 606 B.C., respectively, two small Middle Eastern kingdoms, Israel and Judea, were conquered by their enemies Assyria and Babylon.
Deprived of their independence, a portion of the religious sects of Israel and Judea began, through a distorted interpretation of Scripture, to link their hopes for the rebirth of their kingdom with the coming of a Messiah, the King of Israel, who would make them lords of the Earth. Considering themselves to be a people chosen by God for domination, they jealously guarded their national-religious exclusivity. Fixated on the notion of the Messiah as a political and military leader, these people rejected the true Messiah, Jesus Christ, who came into the world with a message of repentance and love.
What aroused their especial ire was the fact that Christ, by unmasking the hypocrisy of the Judaic Scribes and Pharisees, destroyed their myth of "chosenness by God.” What's more, He began to reach out to surrounding peoples with His saving message. Having laid bare the satanic roots of the limitless pride of these self-appointed rulers of the Earth, "Jesus said unto them ... Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do." (John 8: 42,44).
For this the "Elders of Zion" would never forgive Him. Christ was slandered and then condemned to death on the basis of false witness. But the crucified Christ turned out to be even more fearful for the enemies of God. Christianity quickly began to win new adherents, pushing them farther and farther from their goal of world domination. At this point war was declared against the Christian Church. To wage such a war openly was not in their power. Instead, they turned to warfare through secret societies and organizations which hid behind benign exteriors their true intent: to overthrow Christianity and destroy national statehood, preparing in this manner for the "voluntary" unification of humanity within the framework of a single international political structure under the control of a single world government. Its leader, according to the plans of the "architects" of this "one world community", will bring to fruition their dream of lordship over the Earth. Christians call this future world dictator the "Antichrist.”
Throughout history a myriad of guises were assumed by the "forerunners of the Antichrist"; they came as builders of a "one world community", founders of ecumenical movements, adherents of "world religions,” and so forth. Everything was turned to purpose; heretical sects of the Middle Ages, pseudo-monastic orders during the Crusades, literary and philosophical schools of the Enlightenment period and scientific associations and masonic lodges of our space age with surprising oneness of mind set to the painstaking work of destroying the Christian world-view and the idea of national self-determination.
The Catholic West, having fallen into apostasy, was first to feel the full force of the enemy's advance. "Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni", wrote Pope Leo XIII in his 1884 encyclical, warning the Western world of the coming danger. Now before our eyes one of the last acts of the grandiose drama of history is being played out. The Western world, boastfully calling itself "civilized", and pluming itself on its centuries-old Christian civilization, presents in reality a sorry picture of dull, animal complacency in matters of spiritual life.
All it took was the lifting of the "iron curtain" for Russian man to get a taste of the "fruits of civilization"; the limitless cynicism and shamelessness of the much-praised "free world" are now evident to anyone with even a shred of moral sense. On the ruins of once-Christian nations the hideous Tower of Babel of the "New World Order" is being erected, with the help of innumerable transnational banks, funds, committees, summit meetings and organizations.
Russia has long been a thorn in the side of its builders. For centuries namely the Russian state fulfilled the role of "he who restrains,” preventing the "mystery of lawlessness" from completing its designs. The strong faith of Russia's people and its powerful Orthodox institutions prevented destructive social and religious movements from attaining their fearful ends. By the 19th Century, however, the influence of secret international atheistic organizations grew so strong that the question of Russia's destruction could now be placed on their agenda.
"When autocratic Russia will remain as the last citadel of Christianity, we'll let our revolutionary nihilists and atheists loose from their chains and bring about a crushing social cataclysm which will show the whole world absolute atheism in all its horror, as the moving force behind chaos and bloody terror... Then all the innumerable masses disenchanted by Christianity, thirsting in their souls for a divine ideal, will be ready to accept openly the enlightenment of our purely Luciferian teaching." It seems that that time is already upon us; waves of Satanism, at times poorly masked, at times brazen in its openness, are overcoming Russia, crippling and damning human souls. And we continue to sleep?
Can it be that the lessons of the past have taught us nothing? The document containing the above-quoted lines was signed on August 15th 1871 by Albert Pike, the spiritual leader of international freemasonry at the time. Surfacing in France long before the revolution of 1917, the document was soon translated and published in Russia, where it went largely unnoticed. Confident in the unshakeable might of the Russian state, society carelessly gazed upon the process of "dechurchification" of the public consciousness.
In vain saints and zealots of the Orthodox Church called out: "The Lord has punished us with the West and continues to punish us with the West, but we still refuse to see the light. We're up to our ears in Western filth, and as pleased as can be! We have eyes, but we don't see. We have ears, but we don't hear and we refuse to reason with our hearts. Dear Lord, have mercy on us!... Having breathed in the hellish fumes, we spin dizzily, like madmen, forgetting ourselves..." These words belong to Bishop Theophanes, hermit of Vishensk. Isn't it a bitter irony that they speak to us today like the words of a contemporary?
Alongside pastors of the Church, patriotic public servants began to join the chorus of alarmed voices. In a Tsarist Police report dated February 10, 1895 we read the following: "The fighting apparatus of freemasonry has achieved perfection and the outlines of the coming assault are taking shape. The well-tested weapon of freemasonry is economic -- capitalism. To whip up unconscious hatred of all institutions: such is the goal of the present crusade organized by freemasonry in Russia. Riding this muddy wave, they intend to sweep away the Tsar, our divinely-anointed autocrat, and then befoul the last bastion of the collective soul: our Orthodox Christian God. Ten, twenty years will pass, and the conspirators may stumble, but it will be too late; by that time everything will have been touched by revolutionary rot. The very roots of our centuries-old way of life will have been undermined."
The catastrophe of 1917 and the fratricidal bloodbath which followed illustrate better than any words can the above-cited lines. The religious significance of these historical events leaves no room for doubt. What they were striving for was to destroy Russia as the throne of God, and Russians as a God-bearing people. The symbolic meaning of certain actions of the "architects of the glorious future" are simply too glaring to ignore.
In 1918 members of the Imperial Family and their immediate servants are brutally murdered among mysterious circumstances. Why? By that time the former Tsar and his family presented no political danger [to the Bolsheviks]. This is clear to any unbiased investigator. The killing of the Russian Tsar was the symbolic murder of the old lawful, Christian, national order. By killing the heir to the throne as well they killed Russia's future. And the murder of the August Family's loyal servants was the symbolic destruction of the unity between classes upon which traditional Russian life was founded.
In 1921 Russian clergymen issued the following appeal: "People of Europe! Peoples of the world! Have mercy on our kind, generous and noblehearted Russian people who've fallen into the hands of international villains! Give them no support; don't help them in their war against our children and grandchildren! Help us to drive the cult of murder, theft and blasphemy out of Russia and out of the world." The appeal was in vain; the "civilized world" continued to gaze disinterestedly on Russia's torments.
But the Orthodox Church didn't surrender. In Russia she blessed the faithful on their mission of witness and martyrdom in the face of triumphant evil. From abroad sounded the voices of her pastors among the millions-strong Russian emigration.
"Our chaotic times are poor in prophets but abounding in false prophets,” warned the Orthodox Congress of Bishops, meeting in 1932 in Serbia. "The spirit of God is weak in the world while the spirit of error is strong.
"One of the most dangerous and truly satanic false teachings in the world is freemasonry. Freemasonry is a secret international revolutionary organization engaged in the struggle against God, the Church and national self-determination, especially in regard to Christian nations.
"The dark forces now at work destroying Christian nationhood all work under the masonic star. The masons had a hand in the destruction of Russia as well. [We might mention here that nearly all of the authors of the February Revolution of 1917 and leaders of the Provisional Government, including Kerensky, were freemasons, connected primarily with the "Grand Orient" lodge of Paris. -- Editor] The principles and methods employed by the Bolsheviks for Russia's destruction were drawn from freemasonry. [Leading Bolshevik Leib Davidovich Bronstein (Leon Trotsky) writes in his diaries of his fascination with masonic symbolism. Well before the revolution he chose the five-pointed masonic star as the symbol of the future revolutionary state. The question of whether Trotsky himself was a mason is still hotly debated. -- Editor] 15 years of observing the ruination of our motherland have shown the whole world just how faithful the enslavers of the Russian people have been to the program of masonic lodges for the struggle against God, the Church, Christian morality, the family and Christian culture, in short, against everything which created and elevated our nation." In 1891 Dostoyevsky warned that if atheistic revolution were to come to pass in Russia, it would cost the country "100 million heads". In 1990 the weekly newspaper Argumenty i Fakty published statistics which showed the net loss of population in Russia from 1917 to 1959 to be 110.7 million persons. Thus the "mystery of lawlessness" revealed its horrible and diabolical face to the whole world.