The End of the World and Renewal of Creation

Orthodox Outlet for Dogmatic Enquiries	Church Fathers

The End of the World and Renewal of Creation

(from a spiritual dialogue with Romanian Elder Kleopas Ilie .... 1912-1998 )

176. Why must the end of the world and the renewal of Creation take place?

The holy Fathers say that there are four reasons the End of the World and final Judgment must take place, specifically:

1) In order that God's justice be revealed.

2) In order that the injustice of men be revealed before God’s commandments.

3) In order that the sin and iniquity of the world be punished.

4) In order that the good works of the righteous be rewarded.

177. When will the End of the world take place according to the Holy Bible and the Holy Fathers?

When the disciples asked Christ when the End of the world would be taking place, He said to them: “About that day and hour, no-one knows, not even the angels of the heavens, except only my Father”. (Matth.24:36; Luke 17:20).

However, judging by the signs that the Saviour had disclosed to the Apostles and the Prophets, we can surmise that the End of the world is very near.

Someone had asked a major theologian and spiritual father: “When will the End of the world take place?”

He had replied: “When sin and evil works will have escalated; The horrific sins that will have dominated the earth will be the following: faithlessness; doubting the existence of God; denying God; humiliation and ridiculing of all that is holy and Christian; debauchery in both the young and the old; sodomy - that is, debauchery contrary to nature - will prevail; also, fornication between relatives and disgraceful orgies with defiled passions will abound – and all of these are according to the Holy Fathers.... and clearly becoming evident in our day and age.”

Listen carefully to what God says in Genesis: “The cries of Sodom and of Gomorrah have multiplied before Me, and their sins are grievous” (Chapter 18:20). And further along we read: “...for we (the angels) shall demolish this place, because their cry has reached up to the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to quash it.” (Chapter 19:13). In the End times, God's much-loathed sodomite sin will have multiplied, and a great fire will spread afterwards, at the End of the world, putting an end to that evil.

Other sins that will take hold of the world before the End of the world will be:

Hatred and meanness between people, between spouses, between parents and children (which at times will even end in murder), the hatred of parents towards children and the murder of infants still in their mother's womb (abortions); then there will be crimes and riots that will not go to trial, thus, people will be killed and will be causing damages to each other, guilt-free. Also the terrible passion of drunkenness, the pleasures of the world, the prodigality in the dissolution of families, the hatred between nations, rulers and kings, the infidelity between brothers, wives, families, governors and people - which will ignite the terrible apocalyptic war.

Then there is the peaked increase in the number of false prophets, heretics, 'mediums' etc., who are called “pseudo-Christs” by the Lord. (Matthew 24:24), who will deceive many Christians and also deceive people with signs, through the power of Satan. Then will follow major turmoils, famines, incurable diseases, horror and confusion throughout the world, because of which, people will die of fear.

Apocalyptic signs will then appear in the universe. The sun will be darkened, the moon likewise, stars will fall from the skies, the light will diminish (Matthew 24:29), the seas and the oceans will lift their waves to incredible heights, and the beasts of the earth will roar with hunger and fear.

All these apocalyptic End times signs are found in the prophet Isaiah (chapters 6, 10, 13), Zephaniah, David (especially in Psalms 13-16), the prophet Zechariah, Daniel (chapters 8-11), Hezekiah (chapters 37-38), the holy Evangelist Matthew (chapters 24, 25), Luke in chapter 21, the Apostle Paul in his Epistles 2Thessalonians and 2Timothy, Epistle 1Peter, the Apocalypse and elsewhere.

Saint Andrew of Caesarea says that in the translation of Revelation, the woman who is dressed in brightly shining garments symbolizes the Church.

The Sun is the torch of the Holy Spirit; the Moon symbolizes the present age (with its changes like the phases of the moon); the two wings of the woman are the two Testaments of the Church; the earth is humility, the beast that wages war with the saints is Satan with all his entourage, and the river that spews forth from the beast against the Church, symbolizes the innumerable temptations hurled by Satan and his servants against Christians in order to destroy them through sinning....

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Saint John's mysterious vision of the woman and the dragon – Rev.12

[...] And a wondrous sign appeared in the sky: a woman, enveloped by the Sun and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a garland of twelve stars. And, being with child, she was crying out with labour pains and struggling to give birth. And another sign was seen in the sky: behold, a huge, fiery-red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon its heads. And his tail dragged one third of the stars of the sky and tossed them down towards the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was to give birth, so that when she gave birth, it would devour her child. And She gave birth to a male child, who was to herd all the nations with a rod of iron. And her child was snatched up to God and to His throne. And the woman fled to the desert, where she has a place there prepared by God, where she would be nurtured for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

And then a war was happening in the sky: it was (Archangel) Michael and his angels, who were to fight with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for the dragon any longer in the sky. The great dragon was cast out - that serpent of old, called ‘Devil’ and ‘Satan’, who deceives the whole world; he was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him. And I heard a loud voice in the sky, saying: “Salvation has happened - and the power and the reign of our God and the authority of His Christ - for, the accuser of our brethren -who accused them before our God, day and night- has been cast out; and they overcame him, for the blood of the Lamb, and for the reason of their witness, for they did not love their lives, even to the death.

Therefore rejoice, o skies, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the seas! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath because he knows that he has but a short time. When the dragon saw that he had been cast down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who had given birth to the male child. But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly into the desert to her place, to be preserved for a time and times and half a time, away from the presence of the serpent. Then the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood towards the woman, so that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and proceeded to wage war with the rest of her offspring – the ones who keep the commandments of God and have the witness of Jesus Christ.

[...]

English text : A.N.