Get ready for Antichrist

Excerpt from ROCOR Encyclical Letter 1983
Orthodox Life magazine #33 1983 (6)
published also in St. Philaret of New York – His Collected Works 
orthodoxtraditionalist.com

...we have entered a period of history when the relatively imminent appearance of the Antichrist is very probable.  And this means that we must be spiritually prepared for it.

     What does such readiness mean?  It means working to strengthen one's spiritual powers so as to develop the capability of resisting the Antichrist's temptations.  Many of these  temptations — in the sense of a weakening of faith, divinization of mankind, betrayal of faith in the one, true Church for the sake of a humanistic religious unity in a pseudo-church — are already before us, preparing even Orthodox Christians for a readiness to follow the ways of the Antichrist.  But what can we do besides just observing the signs of the times?  We must develop in ourselves, in our flocks, in all Orthodox families a firm faith in the fact that the Lord has given us the good fortune to belong to the one, true Church, which, as at the very beginning of its existence is not defined by being a minority of the believers on earth, but which, although a minority is made up only of people who are faithful and devoted to this true Church.  This is not an easy task, and it demands firm faith, spiritual strength, and devotion to the truth in the midst of a surrounding world which is alien to Christ...

The temptations:
1. weakening of faith
2. divinization of mankind
3. betrayal by ecumenism

The remedy:
1. a clear concept of the One True Church
2. gratitude for being in the One True Church
3. firm devotion to the One True Church