What People Have Become in the Present Time
March 13
(Instruction of Saint Symeon the Wonderworker, who dwelt on the Wondrous Mountain.)
By Archpriest Victor Guryev
March 13
(Instruction of Saint Symeon the Wonderworker, who dwelt on the Wondrous Mountain.)
By Archpriest Victor Guryev
The Venerable Symeon of the Wondrous Mountain says concerning the people of his time:
“Few now are the people who deliver their souls into the hands of the Angels. Lawlessness and unrighteousness have multiplied, love has withered, and the souls of sinners fall into the hands of demons. And the demons torment them, especially at the separation of their souls from their bodies. Thus it has been said by the Holy Spirit: ‘In these present times scarcely one soul out of ten thousand is received by the Angels!’”
Such, brethren, were things in the time of Symeon of the Wondrous Mountain. Let us see: have the people of the present time become better?
One of the shepherds of our Russian Church (Anthony, Archbishop of Volhynia, 1911) says:
“If you ask yourselves what difference there is between the disposition and the social life of people now, compared with what it was ten years ago, before the revolution, a striking and sorrowful change will be revealed. Ten or twenty years ago ordinary people did not know what weapons were; in the villages even landowners did not lock their houses at night; in the deep of night peasants, priests, and landowners traveled twenty versts to the railway station; churches stood almost without protection; the village lived a patriarchal life; the appearance of an illegitimate child aroused universal indignation; cases of parishioners avoiding confession were almost nonexistent; priests did not hear a rude word from them, and parents were accustomed to the complete obedience of their children.
And now? Now, instead of the flock of God, the shepherd often sees himself among a band of insolent men, drunkards, blasphemers, and robbers... Now truthfulness ceases to be our possession.
...Now such people are considered quite respectable members of society — people from whom ten years ago all neighbors would have recoiled with disgust, as from traitors, deceivers, apostates, and dishonorable flatterers who sell now their bodies, now their souls. If our fathers and grandfathers — nay, even our older brothers who died only ten years ago — were to rise from their graves, they would not recognize their friends and relatives in their shameful unbelief; and having recognized them, they would shudder with horror and indignation and would hasten back more quickly to their cemeteries and graves.” (Kormchiy, No. 30, 1911, pp. 118–119).
Thus, brethren, the people of the present time have not become better than the people of former times, and, as we see, everything with us goes from bad to worse, and evil continually grows and increases.
What then? Will the Lord not punish the unrepentant? And will there truly be no end to what is now happening among us? No — the Lord will punish the unrepentant, and there will also be an end to all the evil that comes from them.
“Then shall the King say to those on His left hand: Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41).
"And these shall go away into eternal punishment. And then they will be cast into the unquenchable fire, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Mark 9:44; Matt. 25:30).
Yes, just as everything in this world comes to an end, so there will also be an end to the lawless deeds of the unrepentant. Then they will repent — but it will already be too late. Amen.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
