Now let us look for just a moment at some of the signs in
our times that the Second Coming of Christ, preceded by the coming of Antichrist,
is close. Concerning the prophecies set forth in the 24th chapter of St.
Matthew—first of all, the false christs who will come,
then the wars, famines, earthquakes, persecutions—it is difficult to judge,
because all these things have been happening for almost two thousand years
now. It's true that they are now an a bigger
scale than ever before, but it is also true that they can be much worse
yet. These signs are the beginning of signs, and are not yet so severe
that we can say we are right in the very last days.
One sign, however , is very
interesting and very indicative of our times, that that is that Christ is now
depicted on the stage. In previous times it was never allowed that Christ
should be depicted on the stage, because an actor gives his own human
interpretation, and Christ is God. In Orthodoxy there is perhaps no
particular canon about this, but the whole Orthodox Christian outlook is
against it; and nay Protestant or Catholic until t he last few years would have
been horrified at the idea of some actor playing the part of Christ. Now
this has become common, and not only in religious contexts, but in contexts
which are far from religious. Godspell, Jesus Christ Superstar,
and so forth: all these are actually blasphemous parodies which present Christ
in secular form for people to see.9
This is very symptomatic of our times because it presents even to unbelieving
people an image of Christ so that when Antichrist comes they will say,
"Aha, I saw on the stage something like that. Yes, that must be
it."
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