"An evil faith and a false church is arising."
St. Theophan Commentary on St. Paul's 2nd Epistle to the Thessalonians
The Gospel will be known in the whole world. However, one part of humanity will remain unbelieving, while another, the makority, will persist in heresy, not following the teachings revealed by God, but instead through their own thinking establishing their own faith, though seemingly based on the words of Scripture. These self-invented faiths will be countless. The one who laid the groundwork for these heresies was the Pope, followed by Luther and Calvin, whose fundational principle of personal interpretation of the Scriptures giave a firm push to the invention of hew faiths. Even now, there is a great multitude of such faiths, but there will be even more. Every new kingdom will have its own new faith, and eventually every region, then every city, and in the end, maybe, there will be one's own confession in each and every hear.
Whenever they construe their own faith, rather than receive what was handed down by God, no other eventuality is possible. And many of these will assume for themselves the name of Christians. There will also be a minority that holds to the faithas it was handed down by the holy apostles and preserved in the Orthodox Church; however, many of these will be right-believing in name only, while their hearts will not have the foundation required by faith, for they will love this age more than Christ. This is how great will be the general apostasy. Though the name of Christians will be heard everywhere, and everywhere we will see churches and worship, all this will be merely an appearance, while inside there will be genuine apostasy. In this world the Antichrist will be born, and he will grow in the same apparent godliness, but actual inner apostasy. Then having given himself to Satan, he will openly lead away all those who do not hold to Christianity truly, and they will reject the Lord Christ. Eventually, the Antichrist will force everyone to worship him a god.
The chosen will not be led away, but he will seek to delude them as well, if he can. To prevent this from happening, the evil days will be cut off by God. The Lord will appear and will destroy the Antichrist and all his works by the revelation of His coming. This is what the apostle means by the "falling away."
Whenever they construe their own faith, rather than receive what was handed down by God, no other eventuality is possible. And many of these will assume for themselves the name of Christians. There will also be a minority that holds to the faithas it was handed down by the holy apostles and preserved in the Orthodox Church; however, many of these will be right-believing in name only, while their hearts will not have the foundation required by faith, for they will love this age more than Christ. This is how great will be the general apostasy. Though the name of Christians will be heard everywhere, and everywhere we will see churches and worship, all this will be merely an appearance, while inside there will be genuine apostasy. In this world the Antichrist will be born, and he will grow in the same apparent godliness, but actual inner apostasy. Then having given himself to Satan, he will openly lead away all those who do not hold to Christianity truly, and they will reject the Lord Christ. Eventually, the Antichrist will force everyone to worship him a god.
The chosen will not be led away, but he will seek to delude them as well, if he can. To prevent this from happening, the evil days will be cut off by God. The Lord will appear and will destroy the Antichrist and all his works by the revelation of His coming. This is what the apostle means by the "falling away."
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