Turkey assigns permanent imam to Hagia Sophia to lead daily prayers...

...Turns clock back to 1453 in second conquest of Constantinople. This is effectively a re-conversion of Hagia Sophia back into a functioning mosque after over 80 years.

"Observers are warning about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s increasingly neo-Ottoman stance..." 

This new move by emboldened Islamic supremacist Erdogan will certainly have an impact on Turkey's relations with Russia, as Russia recently urged Turkey to return Hagia Sophia to the Orthodox Church.

Might this be an unfolding of Elder Paisios' prophecy of a war between Russia and Turkey?

Hagia Sophia gets permanent imam as tensions rise in Aegean
Ekathimerini, October 22, 2016:

Dark clouds over Hagia Sophia...

A few months after a controversial decision by Turkish authorities to allow readings from the Quran to be broadcast from Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, reports on Friday said Turkey had decided to appoint a permanent imam for the venue.

According to the Anadolu state news agency, the country’s religious affairs directorate and the mufti of the Fatih district have agreed to assign a permanent imam who will lead five daily prayers, instead of the current two.

Russian New Martyr's Prophecies offer Warnings, Consolations, for our Darkening Times

The saints always call us to repentance, call us to a deeper, more authentic life in Christ, without guile. They may rebuke us for our sins, our laziness, our erratic and inconsistent following of the Lord, but at the same time, they offer great consolations and comfort for those who do struggle, who do labor in repentance, who do persevere to the end.

The persecutions facing us today are subtle (for the most part), cultural pressures, but with increased legalized marginalization of traditional Christian life and morality. Now Christians are being prosecuted for saying no to sin, and for not saying yes to the demands of the lost, who want the entire world to affirm their sins and lifestyle. This will likely metastasize into open persecution in the months and years ahead.

Our brothers and sisters in the Middle East, Africa, Central and South Asia, and around the world are suffering horrific open persecution from Muslims energized by their excitement over Islam's global resurgence. A new, "great cloud of witnesses" for Christ, New Martyrs of the 21st Century under the Sword of Islam, is being raised up. You can learn about some of them through the links on the left-hand column of this blog.

Truly, we live in a new age of martyrdom, in which we must be prepared to be faithful to Jesus Christ and confess Him to the end. The martyrs who lived through earlier persecutions can help us, by their examples, by their words, and by their intercessions.

Holy Hieromartyr Seraphim (Chichagov) of Petrograd warned of the trials to come upon the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian people as early as 1910, and before he was killed by the Soviets in 1937, sought to encourage his scattered flock with these words:

“The Orthodox Church is undergoing serious trials. Whoever remains faithful will be saved. Because of the persecutions many are leaving the Church, others are even betraying it. There have been other periods of persecution in history, but they all ended in the triumph of Christianity. That is how it will be with these persecutions. They will end, and Orthodoxy will triumph once again. Now many are suffering for the faith, but they are the gold that is purified in the furnace of persecution. There will be more new martyrs suffering for the Christian Faith than there ever has been throughout the history of Christianity.”

Bishop Tikhon Shevkunov has presented us here with a powerful icon of a prophetic witness for Christ, and urges us to seek the intercessions of Hieromartyr Seraphim and all the new martyrs:

"We need to pray [to the holy new martyrs, and] especially to Holy Hieromartyr Seraphim (Chichagov) that he would enlighten our minds; that we would see life as it really is before God and not before people; that we would understand the signs of the times, and be able to make sense of the complicated, contradictory world in which we live, in which God has judged that we must live."

A Prophetic New Martyr: St. Seraphim (Chichagov)

by Bishop Tikhon (Shevkunov) of Egorievsk, Pravoslavie, December 11, 2015

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Today we commemorate a nearly unknown yet great saint, Holy Hieromartyr Seraphim (Chichagov) of Petrograd. This was a man born in the second half of the nineteenth century, to an aristocratic family. He received a brilliant education, graduated from the Page Corps, became a well-known scholar, received a humanitarian as well as a natural sciences education, and was part of the upper echelons of society. He had a brilliant military career, having fought in several wars, but he left all this and became a priest. He did more than anyone else for the canonization of St. Seraphim of Sarov. (1)  This was his particular service.

Holy Hieromartyr Seraphim was not only a priest (later a bishop)—he was a true prophet. 

If we turn to the new martyrs with prayers for help—prayers to those who live in the kingdom of heaven for those who live here on earth—they can provide that help, because they once lived as we do, here on earth. Thus, Holy Hieromartyr Seraphim possessed a remarkable gift—the ability to recognize the signs of the times.

St. Barsanuphius of Optina: On Attacks Against the Church

I have to listen to complaints about the fact that we are now going through difficult times, that now free rein is given to all kinds of heretical and godless teachings, that the Church is being subjected to the attacks of enemies from all sides and that it will become terrible for Her, that these murky waves of unbelief and heresy are overcoming Her. 

I always answer, “Don’t worry! Don’t be afraid for the Church! She will not perish: the gates of hell will not prevail against Her, right to the Dread Judgment itself. Do not fear for Her but for yourself—that’s what you have to fear for, and it’s true that our times are very difficult. Why? Because now it is especially easy to fall away from Christ, and then—perish.” 

— St Barsanuphius of Optina (†1913)

via Pravoslavie

Under the Protection of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God

On June 23 each year, the Orthodox Church commemorates Moscow’s deliverance from the hordes of Khan Ahmet in 1480 through the intercessions of the Most Holy Theotokos (Greek: 'Mother of God') and Ever-Virgin Mary:

In 1480 Khan Ahmet advanced upon Moscow and arrived at the Ugra River in Kaluga region, while John III, Grand Duke of Moscow, was waiting on the other side. Suddenly a strong and unreasonable fear came upon the Tartars; Ahmet did not dare to fight the Russians and retreated to the steppe. In honor of this event, an annual Cross procession was instituted, from the Dormition Cathedral to Sretensky monastery. To this day, the Ugra River is called the “Cincture of Theotokos.”

In commemoration this week of this beloved feast of the Protection of the Vladimir Icon, I thought it meet and right to re-post this special article. I hope it blesses and inspires you.

_______

Originally posted June 3, 2013 —

In my book, Facing Islam: What the Ancient Church has to say about the Religion of Muhammad, I devote a special frontispiece to the Meeting of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God (celebrated August 26), which commemorates the retreat from Moscow and Russia of the fierce Muslim warlord Timur (Tamerlane) and his armies on August 26, 1395, after he had a powerful dream and vision of "saintly hierarchs with golden staffs descending from a high mountain, and a radiant Lady in the air above them, surrounded by unspeakable rays of purest light. A countless multitude of Angels with fiery swords encircled Her."

As the below article describes, there have been many instances where the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God (Greek: Theotokos) has protected the Russian Orthodox people. Indeed, Her protection of the Byzantine faithful is also well attested.

Significantly, the Muslim Tartars never permanently conquered the Russian land, in spite of centuries of repeated assaults and brief occupations. Now, after withstanding and being pruned by seven decades of merciless persecution by the militant atheists, the Holy Russian Orthodox Church has been resurrected, and is once again preaching traditional, Orthodox Christianity throughout the world. This renewed flowering of the Russian Orthodox Church is a dramatic historical event, prophesied by saints from St. Seraphim of Sarov (†1833) to St. John of San Francisco & Shanghai (†1966).

Such intercessions and interventions as described below are a mystery of the Orthodox Christian Church, and should encourage and inspire Christians to greater faith, repentance, prayer, and hope in the ultimate victory of Christ our True God, which will be accomplished and fully revealed at His awesome Second Coming.

For my non-Orthodox readers and visitors, please don't be scandalized by these forms of piety which perhaps seem very foreign to you. For us, the heavenly realm is quite close, and the saints, those who have led God-pleasing lives and have been recognized by the Church as being true and reliable witnesses of the Life in Christ, live with Christ, and never cease to intercede for us who are still struggling through our earthly journey. Just as you would ask your family or friends, or members of your church, to pray for you, so we unhesitatingly ask the prayers of those who "have fought the good fight, have finished the race, and have kept the faith" (2 Tim. 4:7). The Virgin Mary, we believe, is unique among the saints, as she said "Yes" to God and bore the Son of God, Jesus, in her womb. We do not think of her as an intermediary between us and Christ (see 1 Tim. 2:5), but as a powerful intercessor, and as Mother of all the Faithful, whom Jesus mystically instructs us to take into the abode of our hearts (see Jn. 19:26-27). Here is a good article on the Orthodox understanding of the Virgin Mary.

THE VLADIMIR ICON OF THE MOTHER OF GOD

The Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God

Rejoice, our beloved Orthodox Russia;  Rejoice, for the true Faith is strengthened in thee... Rejoice, thou who prayest for us; Rejoice, our fervent Intercessor! Rejoice, O Most Pure, for from Thy icon mercy pours forth upon us. From the Akathist to the Most Holy Mother of God in honor of Her Vladimir Icon The histories of Moscow and of the icon of Vladimir Mother of God are eternally inseparable. How many times did the Mother of God save the capital city from enemies through the grace of her holy icon? This icon has linked Apostolic times to Byzantium, Kievan Rus’ to Vladimir Rus’, and later to Muscovy, the Third Rome; as it is said, “there will be no Fourth.” The kingdom of Moscow was formed by divine providence and embraced the mystical ties of ancient empires, historical experience and traditions of other Orthodox peoples. The miracle working Vladimir icon became a symbol of unity and succession.

Russian people, like Noah, urged not to let the world finally sink in sin, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin believes

Fr Vsevolod is one of the more rare prophetic voices in the Orthodox world today, articulating a robust Christian-spiritual view of world events and history. 

Pravmir — April 17, 2014

Moscow, April 16, Interfax – Humanity deserves the new “Flood,” but Russia is called to be the Noah’s Ark, head of the Department for Church and Society Relations Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin believes.

“If suddenly something like the Flood happens, it will be justified. If the Lord with human hands punishes big cities it will even more justified. But we still believe and hope that time for repentance will be prolonged and an example of spiritual resurrection and renovation of the whole nation will be shown in the history before the end of times, and thus sin will be condemned and people will be shown the way to another holy life,” the priest writes in his article published in Rus Derzhavnaya paper.

He believes that today Russian people has such a possibility.

Apocalyptic prophecies drive both sides to Syrian battle for end of time

Dr. Timothy Furnish (MahdiWatch.org) sent this message today to his list:

Reuters has a piece today on the Islamic apocalyptic content of the Syrian civil war.Not bad, Reuters--but I blogged at length on the same topic SEVEN MONTHS AGO (Sep. 6, 2013): "Intervening in Syria Like It's the End of the World."

The Reuters article relates anecdotal evidence along with historical perspective:

"If you think all these mujahideen came from across the world to fight Assad, you're mistaken," said a Sunni Muslim jihadi who uses the name Abu Omar and fights in one of the many anti-Assad Islamist brigades in Aleppo. 

"They are all here as promised by the Prophet. This is the war he promised - it is the Grand Battle," he told Reuters, using a word which can also be translated as slaughter. 

On the other side, many Shi'ites from Lebanon, Iraq and Iran are drawn to the war because they believe it paves the way for the return of Imam Mahdi - a descendent of the Prophet who vanished 1,000 years ago and who will re-emerge at a time of war to establish global Islamic rule before the end of the world. (Much more in the full article.)

Prophecy — both Islamic and Christian — is a critical aspect which I haven't touched on here since about the same time as Tim Furnish's article (which I somehow missed the first time), when I reposted an Orthodox Christian prophecy concerning Syria, as well as an article by Protestant writer Joel Richardson on the subject.

Watch and pray.

Here is Tim Furnish's piece in its entirety:

Intervening (in Syria) Like It's The End of the World?

by Timothy R. Furnish, PhD — Mahdi Watch — September 6, 2013

Syria no doubt appears to many Americans as simply yet another foreign, Islamic land which the POTUS (this time Democrat, for a change) wants to bomb and/or invade despite (or even perhaps because of) the natives’ penchant for scimitar-wielding, jihad-waging and mass killing—like Afghanistan, Libya or Iraq.   While perhaps necessary, this view is woefully insufficient to do justice to the importance of Syria in Islamic history and eschatology.   And any understanding of apocalyptic Islam in the modern Syrian fitnah, or “civil strife,” is impossible without, first, a basic grasp of the historical and eschatological background to that crucial region. So put away your video poker games and pay attention!  

Afghanistan, with apologies to our (shrinking list of) Muslim allies there, has always been a backwards periphery of the Islamic world vis-à-vis the Arab Middle Eastern heartland.  It did have some eschatological resonance, however, stemming from the ancient traditions—enshrined in hadith, alleged sayings of Islam’s founder, Muhammad—that “black banners from the East” would come to Syria and Iraq and (re)establish true Islamic rule after a period of Islamic devolution.  This trope was, indeed, exploited early on in Islamic history when the fomenters of the Abbasid revolution (and eventual caliphate) invaded from Khurasan (eastern Iran/western Afghanistan) and overthrew the extant Umayyad Caliphate, centered in Damascus.   But Afghanistan has never been a major locus of Islamic learning or power since then, and its eschatological utility has been as a mere staging area, not a center of action.  

As for Libya, after the Islamic conquest it was little more than a barely-Islamized Berber frontier between Egypt and the more powerful and sophisticated polities to its west, and even after the Ottomans came “Cyrenaica” was of little import in any Islamic equations before the Sanusi Sufi jihad against the occupying Italians in the 20th century.  In terms of eschatological significance, Libya had and has none. 

Iraq has always been more more critical to Islamic history than far-eastern Afghanistan or thinly-populated North African Libya—albeit less so than Syria.  Iraq was on the fault-line between Western and “Eastern” civilizations, going back to Roman and Byzantine times, when it was a contested buffer zone between those empires and the various Persian ones.  The region of Iraq itself was divided, after the coming of Islam, into Sunni and Shi`i sections—the former often under Ottoman Turkish rule, the latter in the orbit of (or at least doctrinally sympathetic to) the Safavid , and subsequent other Shi`i, Iranian states.   To this day, especially post-American occupation (which empowered the Twelver Shi`i Iraqi majority to take power), Iraq is religiously and even eschatologically important for the Twelvers of the world primarily because six of the twelve Imams’ tombs are there and, after his reappearance, the returned 12th Imam al-Mahdi will rule from Kufa, Iraq.  

However, despite Baghdad’s undeniable importance as a political and intellectual center from its founding in 750 AD to its demise at the hands of the Mongols in 1258,  Iraq pales in importance next to Syria for the majority Sunni Muslims, particularly Arab ones.  Syria was the first area outside the Arabian peninsula to be conquered, and not only was it wrenched away from the superpower al-Rum (the Byzantine Christian Empire), but al-Sham, “Greater Syria” centered on Damascus included Jerusalem, the capture of which “proved” Islamic superiority to the other, corrupted monotheistic religions: Judaism and Christianity.  

This fervent triumphalism only intensified after the hated Crusaders were expelled from their 88-year occupation by the Syrian Kurd Salah al-Din in 1187,  and the “Zionist occupation” of al-Quds  (“The Holy” [city], Jerusalem) since 1948 is seen by many Arab (and other) Muslims are merely a temporary setback, which the Mahdi and Jesus will rectify—perhaps soon.

Robert Spencer: Now the Twelfth Imam Can Come

A short lesson in Shia Islam eschatology, and how it may impact Middle East power dynamics.

JihadWatch — 11/26/2013

In FrontPage today I discuss the eschatological dimension of the capitulation to Iran:

Among the many who decried the Obama Administration’s catastrophic capitulation to the nuclear ambitions of the Islamic Republic of Iran, none spelled out its potential consequences as trenchantly as Israel’s Economy Minister Naftali Bennett: “We awoke this morning to a new reality,” he said Sunday. “A reality in which a bad deal was signed with Iran. A very bad deal. If a nuclear suitcase blows up five years from now in New York or Madrid, it will be because of the deal that was signed this morning.”

If that happens, it will also be because of the Shi’ite belief in the return of the Twelfth Imam. 

A Prophetic Minority: What American Christians Can Learn from Jeremiah

This is a stirring article, which should resonate strongly for us Orthodox Christians. We have always been a minority in North America, and until recently, tens of millions of our brothers and sisters were under extreme persecution under the Soviet regime. According to our finest theologians and pastors, our Divine Liturgy is the perfect embodiment of the Kingdom of God on Earth, as well as being an Eschatological Sign of the End of the World.

If anyone has a prophetic word to offer, if anyone is equipped to speak truth to power, it is the living and vital Orthodox Church! But are we living and vital, or are we merely trying to 'fit in', make a living, not rock the boat, and get on with day to day life?

This is, by the way, why I have been posting so much material related to Father Seraphim Rose this week following the anniversary of his repose on September 2. If there was ever a prophetic voice in the contemporary Orthodox Church, it was his. Here is an appropriate 'word' from Father Seraphim to introduce this article:

Christian compromise in thought and word and negligence in deed have opened the way to the triumph of the forces of the absurd, of Satan, of Antichrist. The present age of absurdity is the just reward of Christians who have failed to be Christians.

It is futile, in fact it is precisely absurd, to speak of reforming society, of changing the path of history, of emerging into an age beyond ab- surdity, if we have not Christ in our hearts; and if we do have Christ in our hearts, nothing else matters.

Now one cannot be a half-hearted Christian, but only entirely or not at all.

~ Hieromonk Seraphim Rose (†1982)

A PROPHETIC MINORITY: WHAT AMERICAN CHRISTIANS CAN LEARN FROM JEREMIAH

By: Tom Gilson — Breakpoint via Pravoslavie.ru — 9/5/2013

Prophet Jeremiah

Russell Moore, incoming president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, says that Christians’ place in America is no longer about a being moral majority but a prophetic minority. He’s right. Not long ago I wrote about three reasons religious freedom matters: freedom of conscience, dethroning the state, and at the point where these two intersect, speaking truth to power. This voice of truth is the Church’s prophetic ministry.

We have been accustomed to being something like a moral majority; we must discover now what it means to be a prophetic minority. There may be no better teacher for us than Jeremiah. I’ve been spending much time with Jeremiah lately, though I must admit I’ve had difficulty getting past the first several chapters. They sound too familiar; too much like the world we live in; and therefore too troubling to hurry through.

Solzhenitsyn's 1978 Harvard Address: VIDEO and TEXT

Here is the original broadcast video, with English translation, and the complete text to follow along. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a prophetic voice, and nowhere is that more evident than in this rightly famous address. Fr Seraphim Rose focused on many of Solzhenitsyn's observations, of course from an Orthodox Christian viewpoint, therefore they may be considered together.

I assure you, you will be stunned at what he says about the loss of courage in the West, about the Press, about every aspect of his analysis.

If you have the means to watch this on a large screen TV (through an AppleTV or other set-top box with YouTube), I would urge you to make it an event for your family and friends, or for your parish. Pop some popcorn, hand out notepads, even pause every so often to discuss some radical point or another. This is not a past event for us to venerate, but a call to prayer, to repentance, to action, and to witness (martyria).

A World Split Apart

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 1978 Harvard Commencement Address

PRAVMIR — Posted June 8, 2013

Thirty-five years ago today – on June 8, 1978 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who had arrived in the United States three years earlier, delivered the commencement address at Harvard University. The “Harvard Address,” as it has popularly come to be known, is most likely Solzhenitsyn’s most famous work of non-fiction. Famous, that is, but little read. On its thirty-fifth anniversary, we offer this prophetic work for our readers’ reconsideration.

I am sincerely happy to be here with you on this occasion and to become personally acquainted with this old and most prestigious University. My congratulations and very best wishes to all of today’s graduates.

Harvard’s motto is “Veritas.” Many of you have already found out and others will find out in the course of their lives that truth eludes us if we do not concentrate with total attention on its pursuit. And even while it eludes us, the illusion still lingers of knowing it and leads to many misunderstandings. Also, truth is seldom pleasant; it is almost invariably bitter. There is some bitterness in my speech today, too. But I want to stress that it comes not from an adversary but from a friend.

Three years ago in the United States I said certain things which at that time appeared unacceptable. Today, however, many people agree with what I then said…

The split in today’s world is perceptible even to a hasty glance. Any of our contemporaries readily identifies two world powers, each of them already capable of entirely destroying the other. However, understanding of the split often is limited to this political conception, to the illusion that danger may be abolished through successful diplomatic negotiations or by achieving a balance of armed forces. The truth is that the split is a much profounder and a more alienating one, that the rifts are more than one can see at first glance. This deep manifold split bears the danger of manifold disaster for all of us, in accordance with the ancient truth that a Kingdom – in this case, our Earth – divided against itself cannot stand.

'When the evil starts from Syria, start praying!'

by Matushka Constantina — Lessons from a Monastery — 8/28/2013

Below is a translation of a recent prophecy concerning the difficulties that await us.

The ever-memorable Bishop of Sisanion and Siatisti (right)

and Fr. John Kalaidis (left).

I just returned from my spiritual father, [himself] a spiritual child of the late [Bishop] Anthony of Sisanion and Siatisti [2005], who many venerate as a modern saint. [My spiritual] father is solely committed to the salvation of souls, he avoids statements about future events, but in speaking about the ever-memorable Bishop, he revealed some things which he himself was witness to and which demonstrate that the ever-memorable [Bishop], with all the gifts he had, received great revelations from God.

[In the words of the Bishop's spiritual child]:

“He often told us, and many times with sorrow, that  in a time of prosperity, ‘Great famine will come to Greece, my child, great famine…’ and we found it difficult to believe him.

“The last time he was in the hospital after his final surgery, as soon as they brought him in the room he looked across at the icon of the Crucified Lord and cried like a little child, saying in his well-known humble [manner]: ‘Why, my Christ made me worthy and revealed all these things to me!’, it was clear that he had seen something about the future…

“When we asked him: ‘What did you see, Despota?’ he answered us with difficultly because he had a problem with his voice: ‘When the evil starts from Syria, start praying!’ And he repeated it, ‘There, when it starts from Syria…’ signifying that afterward the storm will hit us… We asked him again: ‘What else  did you see, Despota?’ and he told us: ‘I will tell you later…’ but afterward he fell asleep [in the Lord]…”

This was obviously the will of God.

Source (Greek)

_______

There is much talk of war and famine these days, many warnings are being passed around that the prophecies about the last, great war are about to be fulfilled. These prophecies (such as ones by St. Cosmas the Aitolos – you have to scroll down the page to see his prophecies, Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain, and Elder Joseph of Vatopedi) may or may not be on the brink of becoming reality. In any case, I think that if we haven’t started already, we need to start praying for God’s mercy – no matter what awaits us.

Prophesies by St. Kosmas Aitolos

Pemptousia — 11/24/2012

Father Kosmas Aitolos was born in 1714 in the Greek village Megalo Dendro (Big Tree) in the region of Aitolia. He studied in Mount Athos, in “Athonias School”, and later he became a monk in Philotheou Monastery.  Because of the lack of education in most of the population, especially in the remote areas of Greece, Father Kosmas was “forced” to live Athos and begin missionary tours in the villages with the aim of educating the poor people. This way he would also be able to help people understand the Scriptures better. In a period of six years he managed to establish 250 schools as well as charities and rural churches.

On August 24, 1779 he was executed at Kolkondas, Fier District, near the mouth of the Seman river (in present day Albania) by the Ottoman authorities. There were no formal charges against him.

He was recognized as a saint by the Patriarchate of Constantinople Athenagoras in 1961.

St. Kosmas received from God the gift of prophecy. He seems to have foreseen everything. He predicted the future of the world, he warned of the great cataclysms which await us in our Apocalyptic times but also he foretold the new technological developments.

Some of them became reality and others are about to be fulfilled. In the following quotes several of his prophecies are presented.

The Time to 'Walk the Walk' is Upon Us

This brief essay is a wake up call to faithful Orthodox Christians. Worthy of sharing widely. As another Orthodox writer said some few decades ago:

"Now one cannot be a half-hearted Christian, but only entirely or not at all." — Hieromonk Seraphim Rose (†1982)

Archangel Michael defeats Antichrist
at the End of the Age

Talk the Talk, Walk the Walk
by Archpriest John Moses - Pravmir

I knew that my question would cause some anxiety and concern, but by the look on the faces of the study group, I knew that I had hit a nerve. 

We were in a Bible study on the book of Revelation. I pointed out that one of the things that we learn is that evil imitates the Good. Christ is the light of the world, and so the devil is an angel of light. Since Christ was incarnate in the world, taking on the reality of our physical existence, evil also seeks to make itself real and tangible.

So, Revelation shows us that one of the ways evil likes to incarnate is in governments and political systems. The Bible teaches that just as the Holy Spirit is in the world, the spirit of anti-Christ is also in the world. This spirit had incarnated itself many times in the governments of the world. Each time, God brought these systems to an end.

Then I asked the question: “Many of you lived through the Great Depression. Many of you fought in World War II and the Korean and Vietnamese Wars. You have been good citizens and patriots. You have raised your children, paid your taxes, and attended church faithfully for many years. You say the Pledge of Allegiance with true pride and affection. Despite all of this, do you think that our country is becoming anti-Christ?”

The answer surprised me. “No, but we can begin to see signs of it.”  I responded, “And if the time comes when it is clear to you that this has happened, that the United States has become completely anti-Christ, what will you do? Can you still pledge allegiance to such a government?

This is when the room was filled with puzzled and anxious faces. The year was 1992.

Islam or Death - Egypt's Christians targeted

The new Islamist group reported in this story, Jihad al-Kufr, is doing nothing new. They are merely following the example of Muhammad, the dictates of the Qur'an, and the example of jihadis from the seventh century in continuity to our own day. What is interesting about this story is its disturbing eschatological undertone, which is not reported by Lisa Daftari.

According to Islamic doctrine and teaching on jihad and the dhimma contract, non-Muslims (and supposedly, especially, the 'Peoples of the Book', Christians and Jews) are to be offered a 'third choice'. If they refuse to convert to Islam, they may preserve their lives if they submit to Muslim rule over them, pay the jizya tax, and accept the humiliating conditions of the dhimma contract. However, once the Muslim Prophet Isa (i.e., Jesus) returns to destroy Christianity, the 'third choice' will no longer be available. Islam will rule the world, and conversion or death will be the only options available for non-Muslims. Perhaps this new group, Jihad al-Kufr, anticipates the end times in its manifesto. Their threats against the Copts certainly echoes the evil wave against non-Muslims boiling up all throughout the Islamic world.

Islam or death? Egypt's Christians targeted by new terror group

By Lisa Daftari

February 21, 2013

FoxNews.com

A group of Christian priests from a local Coptic church in Egypt were told to convert to Islam or face death, according to an Arabic news site.

The incident, which comes in the midst of continued persecution and pressure on Egypt’s Christian community, took place this week in the town of Safaga, near the Red Sea, the El Balad site reported.

According to El Balad, the threats are from a new group in Egypt, Jihad al-Kufr, whose name translates to Jihad against non-believers or non-Muslims. The group targets non-Muslims, and reportedly pressures them to convert to Islam.

“It’s not the first time. This is happening every day,” said Adel Guindy, president of Coptic Solidarity and a member of Egypt’s Coptic community who travels between Paris and Cairo. “This one incident caught the attention of the news agencies, but there are worse things happening to the Christians every day in Egypt,” he said.

Christians have felt increasingly at risk since the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, which resulted in the rise of President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood movement.

“It has definitely worsened under the revolution. Once the worst part of the society surfaced -- the Islamists -- the Copts are paying a heavy price. The West doesn’t really feel our pain. It’s a war of attrition,” Guindy said.

Copts are the largest Christian community in the Middle East, and the most prominent religious minority in the region. Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s 85 million people.

Egypt’s new constitution has come under scrutiny by many for including elements of Sharia, or Islamic law, while simultaneously legitimizing the marginalization of the country’s religious minorities by denying them legal protection. It also granted increased powers to Morsi, who self-declared sweeping powers in a Nov. 22 power grab that prompted heavy international criticism.

The new constitution was ratified after its second referendum in late December, winning more than 70 percent of the vote. Moderate Egyptians took to the streets to protest the rushed ratification, but the demonstrations were quickly quashed.

Some believe members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic extremists, emboldened by the constitution’s passage, have stepped up attacks against Egyptian Christians.

“There was a relative amount of freedom (for Christians) before Egypt’s revolution, and many were hoping for more freedoms, and now things are unfortunately much worse and much more difficult,” said Jason DeMars, founder of Present Truth Ministries, a Christian advocacy group that tracks religious persecution around the world.

“It’s what they’ve always wanted to do, but Mubarak held some of that back because of the support he got from the United States and other Western countries,” DeMars said. “People were paying attention, but now the extremists are seeing this as an opportunity to crack down on the community there.”

Extremists over the weekend set fire to a Christian Church in the Province of Fayoum, the second such assault against the town’s Coptic population in a month. The attackers ripped down the church’s cross and hurled rocks at church members, injuring four people including the priest, according to a report by Morning Star News.\

There have also been several reported cases of rape and harassment of Coptic women. Two women in traditional Islamic headdress cut off the hair of two Christian women on the subway in Cairo in December, the Egypt Independent reported. It was the third such incident in two months.

And last week, an Egyptian court forced two Coptic Christian boys, ages 10 and 9, to face trial for “insulting the Koran,” according to reports. The boys were arrested after playing in a pile of trash, which authorities claimed included pages of the Koran.

Egypt's Coptic Christian leader, Pope Tawadros II, spoke openly this month when he dismissed the new constitution as discriminatory.

"We are a part of the soil of this nation and an extension of the pharaohs and their age before Christ,” he told the Associated Press. “Yes, we are a minority in the numerical sense, but we are not a minority when it comes to value, history, interaction and love for our nation."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/02/21/islam-or-death-egypt-christians-targeted-by-new-terror-group/print#ixzz2Lda3cejc

Fr Seraphim Rose on Islam

Today (September 2, 2012) marks the thirtieth anniversary of the repose of Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose) of Platina. While many articles have been written to mark this significant anniversary (see here and here) it seemed appropriate for this blog to look at what Fr Seraphim had to say about Islam.

Actually, Father Seraphim wrote very little on the subject of Islam. His book, Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, treats Islam along with Judaism in the chapter on The Monotheistic Religions. Fr. Seraphim is clear in his position that the "god" of Islam is not the True God, and in citing the essay by Fr. Basile Stakkas, implicitly refutes Islam's doctrine of tawhid (the oneness of Allah), in large measure by explicitly refuting its claim to be an Abrahamic faith. Abraham worshipped the One God in Trinity, as is clear from the Old Testament account (And the LORD appeared unto him at the Oaks of Mamre... Three men were standing by him, and he bowed himself toward the ground... Gen. 18:1-2), as is seen in the icon called The Hospitality of Abraham, the quintessential depiction of the Holy Trinity in the Old Testament.

In my correspondence with two of Fr Seraphim's spiritual children, we have wrestled with the question of "why" Fr Seraphim did not write more about Islam, and why he did not expend more energy and ink refuting Islam's theological jihad against Orthodox Christianity. After all, Fr Seraphim is certainly something of a prophetic figure in modern Orthodoxy; how could he not see the ascendency of Islam?

Simply put, perhaps that was not the message or vision granted to him. Fr Seraphim came of age in a vastly different time. Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, Meditation techniques, the New Age movement, Eastern mystical traditions and other occult phenomena were very much in the air, and had been gathering momentum for quite some time, waging a serious assault against Christianity since the late 19th century. Those were some of the signs of his time of the Age of Apostasy into which we were then entering.

By contrast, the Muslim world was highly westernized in the 1950s through 1979 (the year of the Islamic revolution in Iran). The Ottoman Empire had been dismantled after World War I; Kemal Ataturk reestablished Turkey as a modern, secular republic, and abolished the Islamic caliphate in 1924, effectively neutering the pan-Muslim movement for nearly the next eighty years. Although the Muslim Brotherhood was born in the 1920s as a response to the apostasy of secularism, Western culture and mores were widespread throughout Egypt, Lebanon, and the Middle East in general, and the Muslim Brotherhood itself was outlawed. To take but one example, one cannot find a woman wearing a hijab in college class photos from Cairo in the 1950s and 1960s.

As a result, Islam was not especially on Fr Seraphim's radar screen. Or rather, it was eclipsed by the Eastern religious movements.

So then, what might Fr Seraphim have to say about Islam now, as we approach the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11/01 attacks?

Without presuming too much, I think it's safe to say Fr Seraphim would have urged us to see the 9/11 attacks as a sign, and a call to repentance for Orthodox Christians. Are we not all guilty of living an easy life in this modern world, a world Fr Seraphim characterized as a "fool's paradise," marked by convenience, entertainment, unseriousness, and a "Disneyland" approach to life? Might not Fr Seraphim have seen 9/11 as yet further confirmation of the forces of evil being unleashed upon a world that has rejected God? He certainly would have seen the spirit of antichrist active in the sad trend of Christians committing apostasy and converting to Islam since 9/11.

But what about Islam specifically? Mother Abbess Theadelphi of the Entrance of the Theotokos Skete has astutely observed, "Fr Seraphim gave us all the best tools to be able to figure these things out ourselves."

Indeed he has. And those tools include being in step with the fathers of the Church, and the continuity of their teaching and witness, right up to our own day. Fr Seraphim would have recapitulated the writings of St John of Damascus on Islam, likely using that as a foundation for an expanded critique of his own. He would have employed the Orthodox patristic writings on the spiritual life, and on Moses and the other Old Testament Prophets, contrasting those with the example of Muhammad, to show how the latter was a false prophet and a willing victim of satanic delusion. Stemming from these sources, and from the divine services of the Church, Fr Seraphim would certainly also have strongly refuted Orthodox academic theologians, hierarchs and clergy who teach that Muslims and Christians worship the same God.

In looking at the spread of Islam in our contemporary world, and how it impacts Christianity, Fr Seraphim would have been in correspondence with recent and current fathers such as New Priest-Martyr Fr Daniil Sysoev of Moscow (†2009), who was a powerful missionary to Muslims. Fr Seraphim would have rejoiced in the Indonesian Orthodox Mission and Fr Daniel Byantoro, as well as in Coptic priest Fr Zakaria Botros, and held these brave strugglers up as examples of fervent and authentic Orthodox witness. He would have lamented the horrendous and bloody Muslim persecutions of Christians in Nigeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and elsewhere, urging us to pray for our harassed and threatened brethren in these lands. He would have extolled the heroic faith of Iranian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani (imprisoned under a death sentence for over a thousand days for refusing to renounce his faith in Christ and convert to Islam). Fr Seraphim would also have been in contact with Dcn George Maximov, friend and co-laborer of Fr Daniil Sysoev, and a highly regarded Russian Orthodox theologian who has been writing on Islam for a decade now. Fr Seraphim would have affirmed the work of Anglican pastor and author Dr Mark Durie, and the prodigious resources unearthed by historians Bat Ye'or and Andrew Bostom in documenting Islamic jihad and treatment of non-Muslims over the past fourteen centuries. And Fr Seraphim would have held up as examples for us the Holy Neomartyrs under the Ottoman Muslim yoke and the Orthodox Genocide, just as forty years ago he held up the New Martyrs and Catacomb Saints under the Soviet Atheists.

I think it safe to say that Hieromonk Seraphim would have warned and exhorted us, urging us to live our Orthodox Faith to the fullest, with warm and fervent hearts, and not merely correct head-knowledge. Fr Seraphim would have continued to preach the Gospel to this weary world, reminding us of the Lord's words, "By your patience possess ye your souls," for the gates of hell shall not prevail against His Church.  He would have exhorted us to "Lift up our heads, for our redemption draws nigh!"

May we have his blessing and his intercessions!

O Holy Father Seraphim, pray to God for us!