Many Evangelical Protestants in the United States believe that the States of the union have always been Christian and that the current apostasy is an aberration. It would more truthful to say that the US have been living in a delusional dream world for many years. Their religious life resembles the story of a demoniac related by an Orthodox priest named Fr. Evgeny:
<<<Fr. Evgeny started asking the man about his life. As it turns out, he had searched long and stubbornly for himself in the spiritual sense. But instead of going to church he had gone, now to various old ladies, now to sorcerers, now to various “spiritual” movements—of which there were many in his town. You could find any occult movement according to taste.
Finally he chose the least radical one, which was very popular in the region, a kind of Billy Graham. But not exactly him.
“In general, it’s of course amazing how ordinary, practical rural Ukrainians were so “taken” by all sorts of American religious figures,” Fr. Evgeny said to me, “but what happened, happened…”
Their talks were constantly being broadcast on Ukrainian television, with a return address: “Join us, and we’ll send you a Bible.”
“The man watched a program, wrote a letter, received a Bible, and started studying it,” Fr. Evgeny went on. “With time he drew his acquaintances, friends, and family into this process, and a Bible study group formed around him. In the end, these people said to him, “Listen! You know the Bible better than all of us, you cite it and sort it all out. Why not become our pastor?” So they chose him as their pastor.”
This man started leading their “services.” And the further it went, the more amazed everyone was at how well he understood God’s word, how many citations he had in his head, how much he knew and how well he explained it all…
“That’s how they praised him: ‘You’re great! What a smart guy!’ until this problem arose,” said Fr. Evgeny.
That day the man was at home, studying the Bible as usual. Then suddenly Christ appeared to him, in radiant light, shining garments, etc., just like in the Lives of the Saints.
“You are one of my best disciples!” a voice sounded. “You have learned the word of God better than anyone I know. But that’s not enough. In order to have the fullness, you need to unite with me. Do you agree to have me enter into you?”
“I agree,” the man joyfully replied. “Of course I agree!”
After these words it was as if he were struck by lightning. His body shook, the picture of the good-natured, shining Christ shattered before his eyes, and he heard terrifying laughter:
“Ha-ha-ha, I’m satan!”
And immediately the two invisible devils appeared on his shoulders and started talking with each other.
Batiushka didn’t make any of this up. This is what the man told him.
His sister and mother said that he began to smash the furniture in the room and shatter the windows. They had to call the ambulance and the police. That is, the militia—that’s what they were still called then.
They put him into a straitjacket, injected him with tranquilizers, and treated them however they could. But in the end they couldn’t do anything with the “comrades” who had appeared on the man’s shoulders, and so they sent him to church.
“But the whole problem is that they came to me for a ‘pill’,” Fr. Evgeny told me. “At the hospital they told them what to do, and they obeyed. ‘Batiushka, do something, quickly!’ But when I started telling them about repentance, about entering into the life of the Church, they waved me aside. ‘No-no-no, not that. He knows the Bible well enough as it is. He himself is a pastor! We just need these two to leave his shoulders and so that he would get physically better. That’s all!’ But that this was prelest [spiritual delusion] (for that is what it was), they simply didn’t want to know. The devil had deluded him, telling him about his supposed spiritual gifts. And in fact, he had almost told him the truth—that he needs to unite with Christ. But the lie was that this was how to do it. This is done in the Church, in the Sacraments. There is no salvation outside the Church! And the gates of hell will not prevail over it! But this man had started thinking of himself as a “church”. He himself studied, himself wrote this or that, and himself distributed his books. He had organized a sect and become its head. And then ‘christ’ tells him, ‘You’re the best. You’re super!’ And so he entered into him. Only it wasn’t Christ, but the evil one. And he even put two demons on his shoulders. It was these demons that this man and his family wanted to rid themselves. But not of his ‘chosenness’—no! Thus they left and never returned. Well, it was just as it’s written by the holy fathers… I had read it and doubted, but here I saw it with my own eyes. The Lord showed me…”>>>
So many things from this story parallel the general history of religion in the US: the free practice of all kinds of religions, including the occult; the self-interpretation of the Bible; the forming of a new ‘church’. Very many people in every State pride themselves on such behavior, thinking that the ‘free exercise of religion’ is a great virtue and will lead to good things for society. But the story of Fr. Evgeny proves just the opposite is true: This kind of Christianity cut off from the true Tradition found in the Orthodox Church – the Ecumenical Councils, the teachings of Holy Fathers and Mothers, the lives of the Saints, the hymns, etc. – turns one into a dupe of the devil. This is where the US are now: The devil has appeared to them in the guise of Christ saying, ‘You are a mighty federation; but if you unite with me, I will make you exceptional and indispensable.’ The ‘church’ in the US accepted the devil as Christ and has gone mad from the subsequent possession by evil spirits. They have gone the whole world over smashing to pieces one country after another. They could be healed, but they fail to renounce their ‘chosenness’.
And yet, while the States have fomented many revolutions abroad, they have not experienced the full depths of that terror for themselves. They have had brief encounters with it, as in the War for Independence from the British Empire and in the War of Northern Aggression (often falsely called the Civil War), but they have refrained from full initiation into that evil world. But they are getting ever closer to doing so. Some words of St. Theophan the Recluse (+1894) show just how close:
<<<How did the French Revolution happen? First, materialistic views were spread. They shook people’s Christianity and general religious convictions. Then came rampant unbelief. “There is no God; man is just a glob of mud; there’s nothing to expect beyond the grave.” Regardless of the fact that a glob of mud can be trampled down by all, they spouted off, “Don’t silence us!” “Don’t touch us!” “Give us freedom!” And they gave it to them! Demands ensued — somewhat reasonable, then half-crazy, and then insane. And everything got turned upside-down. What about us? Materialistic views here are becoming more and more predominant and mainstream. They haven’t yet taken power, but they are taking it. Unbelief and immorality are also spreading. Demands for freedom and criminality are being freely expressed. This would mean that we are on the path to revolution.>>>
St. Theophan was speaking about Russia a generation before her Revolution occurred, but all of this now applies just as much to the US, where godless, materialistic evolution is taught in most schools, demands for more and more bizarre ‘freedoms’ are made, and criminality, immorality, and insanity increase day by day. It certainly appears that the US are approaching the catastrophe of Revolution in its completed form.
If the peoples of the States want to stop the progress of the Revolution and to reverse it, there is only one option: Repent and be united to the Holy Orthodox Church, the one true Body of Christ. Both Papism (Roman Catholicism) and Protestantism are carriers of the seed of Revolution – the rebellion of the individual against history, tradition, community, law, etc.; rebellion against even God Himself. There are many good people amongst those groups, but that does not invalidate the truth of the statement.
Over the centuries, there have been numerous (non-Orthodox) charismatic preachers who have appeared in the States, from George Whitfield to Billy Graham, who have stirred up regret over sin and pious feelings toward God in many people, but the effects have been short lived, for the aforementioned reasons. The ethnoi of the US have never encountered a true Orthodox preacher of repentance like St. Nikon the Metanoeite (+998), or a true Orthodox leader of spiritual revival like St. Paisius Velichkovsky (+1794). But they certainly need them, as the world suffers still from the rampaging of a demon-possessed US.
The South may be more fertile ground for the appearance and acceptance of Orthodox revival and its associated figures than the other cultural regions of the US, for the great Southern writer Flannery O’Connor, in a well-known observation of hers, once noted,
<<<Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one. To be able to recognize a freak, you have to have some conception of the whole man, and in the South the general conception of man is still, in the main, theological. . . . I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted. The Southerner, who isn’t convinced of it, is very much afraid that he may have been formed in the image and likeness of God. Ghosts can be very fierce and instructive. They cast strange shadows, particularly in our literature. In any case, it is when the freak can be sensed as a figure for our essential displacement that he attains some depth in literature.>>>
Some of the Orthodox saints certainly do appear in unusual shapes, startling us, rather like the ‘freaks’ and ‘ghosts’ of Southern fiction. In them, however, one does not see a representation of man’s displacement but rather of his reintegration as a whole man, a new man, in Christ. We would not be greatly surprised to see one day a figure like St. Alypios the Stylite (+640) appear somewhere in the South, preaching repentance to Dixie on top of a high pillar where the statue of a Southern hero or the roof of a plantation house once rested before its violent removal by a woke mob. His behavior is similar enough to some of Miss Flannery’s own more outrageous characters. For example,
<<<Undaunted, the Saint fixed on a demon-haunted spot, full of old tombs and pagan sanctuaries that everyone kept well away from. His relatives tried in vain to dissuade him from climbing up one of the derelict monuments on which was a pillar surmounted by the statue of a fabulous animal, half bull, half lion. ‘Here is my resting place!’ he exclaimed, and went back to the town to fetch a Cross and a crowbar. He dislodged the statue and threw it to the ground, setting up the life-giving Cross in its place, determined henceforth to rout the demons in their own lair.>>>
However that may be, the options for sincere Christians in the US are shrinking rather drastically – the Popes are razing the Roman Catholic edifice with their globalism, ecumenism, idolatry, and approval of sexual immorality; the Protestants are driving people away by their uncritical acceptance of the genocidal violence conducted by the state of Israel. Perhaps the time will come soon when most Christians in the States will realize their error and join the Orthodox Church, not because she is not beset with problems of her own (for she is; e.g., traitor bishops like Patriarchs Bartholomew and Theodoros, renovationists like the Fordhamites, etc.), but because she is the true catholic Church of the Apostles, lacking nothing, full of the riches of the Grace of God.
The world would surely experience more peaceful times if Babylon America embraced the Orthodox Faith. But where are the zealous Isaiahs who will spread the Good News to the inhabitants of the 50 States?
<<<And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me” (Isaiah 6:8).>>>
May the All-Holy Trinity raise up many of them soon!
By Walt Garlington