Dr. Jeannie Constantinou: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Illumine our hearts, O Master who loves mankind, with the pure light of thy divine knowledge, and open the eyes of our minds to understand thy gospel teachings. Implant in us also the fear of thy blessed commandments that, trampling down all carnal desires, we may enter upon a spiritual manner of living, both thinking and doing such things that are well-pleasing to thee. For thou art the illumination of our souls and bodies, O Christ our God, and to thee we ascribe glory, together with thy Father who is from everlasting, and thine all-holy and good and life-giving Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Welcome, dear brothers and sisters, to Search the Scriptures Live. I’m Dr. Jeannie Constantinou, and I’m so glad you could be with us this evening. It is October 11, 2021; we finished our study of Romans; and for the past couple of weeks we have been discussing random questions, and they’re from all kinds of different places. I asked you to send questions about the New Testament specifically. Tonight we’re continuing something we started last week. I kind of left you without— I didn’t want to continue past the end of the program. I left you without finishing my response to Basil’s question. Basil wrote to us from Newmarket, Virginia, and his question was whether or not the end times really started with Christ’s death and resurrection, and there have been deaths and diseases and wars and all sorts of things since that time. I mean, you can say that in a way, you could say that we’re in the last phase of mankind’s history—that’s what the Fathers said—but you can’t really say it’s in the end times. And I didn’t have time to finish by telling you how will we know when we are really in the end times.

So that has to do with Andrew of Caesarea and his interpretation of the Apocalypse, and actually the book of Revelation itself. So today what we’re going to do is address questions based on Revelation. I’m not sure how deeply we’re going to get into it—we might have to go over till next week also—and other questions concerning the end times, and questions about the vaccine, which I’m really not crazy about that subject, but there is a lot of concern out there. I have received several emails from people who are extremely concerned, and I think we have to really address this. So we’re going to get into a deep dive about this, whether or not what people are saying about the vaccine is supported, either in the tradition of the Church, Apocalypse interpretation, or the book of Revelation itself.

So I told you last time a little bit about Andrew of Caesarea. He wrote the first Greek patristic commentary, not the first Greek commentary. The very first one was written by a fellow… well, it’s credited to somebody called Oecumenius; the earliest manuscripts don’t even have his name. Now, we do have a Church Father called Oecumenius, but this is not him. This person is a philosopher. He wrote maybe around the year 590 or 580, and his interpretation of Revelation was not very good, but it is in some… It has been published. It was actually published by Catholic University of America Press. I don’t recommend it, because it’s not patristic, although it is Christian. He wasn’t capable of explaining the book of Revelation very well; he’s all over the place. He doesn’t really understand how to interpret it, because he’s a philosopher. He was a Christian philosopher, nonetheless, but he’s not a Father, and he had no experience interpreting the Bible. It’s really obvious. He makes some very, very big mistakes and gets quite confused in his interpretation. So his interpretation and that of the person who followed him immediately thereafter, Andrew of Caesarea, are quite different.

Now, Andrew of Caesarea is the subject of my doctoral dissertation, so when we’re talking about the interpretation of the book of Revelation in the ancient Church of the East and Andrew of Caesarea, this is my area of specialty, so I have a lot of confidence in it. I wrote my dissertation, and the book itself, the commentary translation, I was the first person to translate it, not just into English, but into modern language. It had not even been translated into modern Greek. It existed in Latin and Georgian and Old Slavonic and Russian and Armenian. Those translations had been done hundreds of years ago, but there was nothing of Andrew of Caesarea in a modern language. So I translated that into English and I studied it, and I understand it very well. Before, by the way, it’s not only that, but when you do a dissertation, you have to read everything that has been said about your subject before, and not much had been written about Andrew, but I had to read every single comment by every Father on the book of Revelation from the time that Revelation became known in the Church—so we’re talking about early second century, like Pope Pius from around the year 120, to about the year 600. So that formed my understanding of the patristic interpretation of this book. I just want you to know that I’m just not giving you my opinion. It’s an informed opinion based on what Andrew of Caesarea said.

So what happened was this fellow named Oecumenius, who was not a Father, wrote a very bad interpretation of Revelation, and then Andrew of Caesarea was asked— The Archbishop of Caesarea, Cappadocia, which is St. Basil’s see—and he was asked to write his own commentary. Being asked—this is a very difficult book to explain, so being asked to write this meant that he was very good at his interpretation of the Scriptures, and this is borne out by the commentary. It’s very solid, it’s extremely patristic, it’s, to me, amazing how spiritual it is. It gave me such a better—what can I say?—appreciation for the book of Revelation and its spiritual blessings and its spiritual benefit. And the book that I wrote about Andrew and about the book of Revelation in the ancient Church is called Guiding to a Blessed End, and that was also published by Catholic University of America Press. The commentary itself is separate; that’s called Commentary on the Apocalypse by Andrew of Caesarea and published by Catholic University of America Press in their Fathers of the Church series, volume 123.

Now the reason I’m telling you this is because what Andrew did—because no Greek Father had attempted to explain the book of Revelation, and partly because most of them did not consider it Scripture— That’s a whole ‘nother subject, and I do discuss that in the book, Guiding to a Blessed End: the acceptance and then the rejection and then the acceptance again of this book in the New Testament canon of Scripture. It’s a very interesting story, and it’s unique; no other book of Scripture has this kind of story, of its reception into the New Testament. But Andrew, because he didn’t have a lot to go on, he did gather all of the patristic sayings about Revelation in the East and a number of oral traditions that had been passed on—18, to be exact—and he also mentions some of the interpretations of Oecumenius, whom he sometimes agrees with and whom he sometimes disagrees with.

So what I’m going to tell you right now is if you read this commentary, Andrew of Caesarea on the Apocalypse, don’t get the one that’s translated by InterVarsity Press, by the way, because I don’t think it’s a very good translation; I don’t think it’s accurate. I’m not trying to steer you to mine to help the sales of my book—I hardly get anything from this book, I just want you to know—but the other one was done by—I don’t want to make this sound bad, but by Protestants. Now, why does that make a difference? Here’s why it makes a difference. When I was reading the commentary, I recognized, in so many of his phrases, not just verses from the Bible that I knew in Greek, but hymns, verses from hymns, liturgical prayers, and I understood exactly what he was referring to and exactly what he was doing. It’s not enough simply to know Greek. That’s why the Orthodox have got to start making more translations of patristic works, and that’s why I don’t always have confidence in the ones that are done—Catholics are not so bad; Catholic University of America Press is not so bad, but many of the ones that are being published now by Protestant publishers are skewed because they don’t know the mind of the Church; they don’t have the phronema of the Fathers. So how can they know what they’re referring to? You see what I’m trying to say? It made such a difference that he was speaking my language. It was so patristic; it was so Orthodox. And he wrote this commentary around the year 611.

So why is it that we are not living in the end times? I’m just telling you what he said. I reminded you about this last time, that in Andrew’s time—and he did not think he was living in the end times—bubonic plague in the decades before he became bishop had killed one-third of the population. Imagine that. You think COVID is bad? One-third of the population of the empire died; this is the Eastern Roman Empire. Some people call it the Byzantine Empire, but it was the Eastern Roman Empire. One-third of the population had died, so this caused this tremendous decline in population, led to a loss of revenue, and that meant that the empire didn’t have the manpower to continue to, we could say, secure its borders. Justinian, who had been the emperor in the decades previous, had reconquered a lot of the Latin West. You probably didn’t even know that, but he had recaptured Rome and parts of northern Italy and parts of north Africa. But without the population and the money, because the empire was decimated by bubonic plague—this was in the 500s, now, the 500s—they lost it again.

What else happened? There were serious earthquakes in Antioch and Constantinople that killed many people. There was famine, because of the loss of manpower, there weren’t as many people to work the fields and to make crops and gather crops and things like this. There was a bizarre climate change, and I mentioned this last time. One of the things—I think it’s Theophanes’—Chronography of Theophanes, in the year 602, the sea at Constantinople froze, the Mediterranean Sea. Then a tyrant killed the sitting emperor, Maurice; that was the very beginning—that was like 602—the very beginning of the seventh century—and seized the throne, and this unleashed a wave of terror and crime and violence in virtually every major city of the empire. And then there was a civil war, because Phocas, this army officer, had seized the throne, and then another army officer, Heraclius, came from Egypt and came and murdered him and took over, and there was a civil war.

Now, when this happened, the empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, was in such disarray that the Persian Empire took advantage of this and crossed the Euphrates with two huge armies, and they took and they conquered and destroyed virtually every city, every city in the East, in Asia Minor. And from Constantinople they could see Nicaea burning. Nicaea burnt, Ephesus, Smyrna, Edessa, Caesarea Cappadocia, Caesarea Palestine, Jerusalem, Alexandria. And this was really the end of an era, and there had not been war in Asia Minor for hundreds of years, and nor had an emperor been murdered for hundreds of years. So you talk about a change! And Andrew of Caesarea is living through this! And he said that he had seen so many people killed—armies in surrounding cities and so many people killed that there weren’t enough people to bury them. And yet, he did not say this was the end of the world.

And compare that to our times, dear people. You think COVID is so terrible that this is the end of the world? Really, get a grip! Especially for those of us living in the West, who have such an incredible standard of living. Just go back 50 years, go back a hundred years, when people were worried about nuclear war because of— because of some threats of terrorism, and there’s still an issue of China and nuclear weapons and Islamic terrorism. This is the terrible times? This is so bad that you think it might be the end times? Absolutely not! Absolutely not. We don’t have to worry whether or not we’re going to have to starve to death, whether armies are going to invade our cities and engage in mass slaughter. We haven’t witnessed huge numbers of people die from COVID in terms of a percentage of population. So let’s get a grip and recognize that this is not the end times.

Now, what signs are there? Well, the lack of piety; the fact that people are extremely immoral; there’s a lot of heresy, definitely; the fact that the government is trying to control us and insist that we do things against our will. Of course, these are signs, but they don’t necessarily mean that we’re in the end times; that we’re definitely not in the end times. But that these things have happened in the past and might happen in the future, because there have been antichrists and there will be antichrists, and the Lord himself told us that, that there will be many antichrists. There will be many people who claim to be the Messiah. But I think it’s very, very important that we look at our times soberly and not read our times into the Bible. This is a very bad thing to do. This is what a lot of Protestants are doing. They’re looking at the Bible and interpreting it according to their times. We’re not supposed to do that! We’re supposed to look at the Bible and then look at the signs and then see whether or not that’s true for our times—and it is not, okay?

So I’m telling you that if you— He did not; Andrew of Caesarea did not believe he was in the end times, and this really speaks to his level of skill as an interpreter of the Bible, his level of spirituality, and the fact that he was 100% Orthodox, and if you are Orthodox and you really say you’re following the Fathers when you’re interpreting the Bible, you should be reading him and not ignoring the Fathers when their teachings don’t conform to your opinion, because you are fanning the flames of hysteria by telling people—there are a lot of Orthodox people on the internet telling people that we are in the end times and the vaccine is part of that! Tell me: Where do you get that opinion from?

You who say you are Orthodox, as though proud to defend Orthodoxy: Where are you getting that opinion from? From your own head, or from the Fathers of the Church? It’s not coming from the Fathers of the Church, and if this is your opinion, that is not Orthodox, absolutely not! Are you Orthodox or are you now being a Protestant, because that’s Protestant. What matters is not what you say you are, but how you behave, and if you’re giving your own private interpretation rather than a patristic one, one that has been embraced by the Church for 1400 years, the patristic interpretation of Andrew of Caesarea for the Orthodox Church; if you are saying we are in the end times and clearly we are not, not according to that, then you are not Orthodox; you are a Protestant!

And for all you Protestants out there, I don’t mean that to be disrespectful to you, but I’m addressing this to people who claim to be Orthodox and yet are giving us their private opinion or the opinion of one or two people, people who have so-called visions and ideas and dreams and things like this—which we will get into.

We have a trustworthy guide in the Fathers of the Church, and all of these different patristic opinions have been gathered together and, thank God, preserved for us. I cannot imagine what we would be like, what the situation would be like if we did not have this commentary of Andrew of Caesarea. I cannot even begin to imagine, because at least we have this.

Now, we have disagreements with our government, yes. We have shutdowns and mandates, but what do we see in the book of Revelation. Forget about what you think is the mark of the beast—the vaccine or a precursor to the mark of the beast. Forget about what you think; put your ego aside and your personal opinion aside, because theology and biblical interpretation in the Orthodox Church is not a matter of private opinion! And, by the way, the Bible says that, too. 2 Peter: “No prophecy is of private interpretation.” That’s in the Bible! Not just the Orthodox Tradition; that is in the Bible. “No prophecy is of private interpretation.” Look it up. 2 Peter.

Looking at the book of Revelation itself, what are the signs of the end times? Cosmic signs: mass destruction of plant life, mass deaths of fish in the sea, devastating earthquakes around the world. The two witnesses: what about them? They’re supposed to come before the end times. Where are the two witnesses? Do you see what I’m trying to say? Before you go spouting your opinion, you better know what you’re talking about, because God will call you to account. It’s a very dangerous thing to theologize without knowledge and without the right phronema. So don’t tell me we’re in the end times, because there are really no signs of the end! There are certain things that are disturbing and distressing, yes. There are certain things we don’t like what we’re seeing in our culture, yes. But this does not mean we are in the end times. So when you are instilling fear and panic and hysteria in people, this is a sin, because it’s coming out of your own imagination, and Orthodox theologians do not use imagination and private opinion for theology.

Now, there have been many antichrists in the past, and, yes, we can deny Christ in many ways. I’m not telling you, “Just relax; there’s nothing to worry about,” because we must always remain vigilant. But don’t be frightened, my dear people. Don’t let people alarm you, frighten you, control you. This is one of the most common techniques of cults. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are many cults being formed right now and there are people arising who are themselves false prophets, who themselves are antichrists, and they’re using the book of Revelation in the same way that some Orthodox are using it now, interpreting it according to their own private opinion. This is why we don’t have private opinion of Scripture: so that people don’t fall prey to the interpretation of one person; they don’t fall prey to an interpretation that is contrary to the holy Tradition of the Church.

So what we should be doing right now is looking at these things and seeing how God is allowing these things to benefit us spiritually. How can we benefit from the times that we are in? Not by frightening other people, not by dividing the Church—how can we benefit? By being more faithful, by being more vigilant, being more prayerful. This is a good thing, either for the second coming, which we don’t know when it will happen, or for our own deaths. We have to realize that we have to become spiritually strong, like athletes, like the athletes of the early Church. We have to get into training mode. We have to be disciplined. We have to be focused and prepared.

It is a very good thing for us to read the accounts of martyrdom. If you have never read the story of the martyrdom of the martyrs—the account of the martyrs of Lyon and Vienne—not Vienna, Vienne: V-i-e-n-n-e; Lyon: L-y-o-n, Lyon like in France—this is a very interesting thing to read, about the account of these martyrs. Now, they were— This happened in the year 177 in the reign of Marcus Aurelius. And I’ve taught about this for many years, have my students read this. And it talks about how the persecution of Christians began in this particular region of Gaul during the Roman Empire in late antiquity. It’s very interesting.

Now, what’s also very interesting about it is the fact that some Christians denied Christ when they were subject to tortures. They didn’t want to deny Christ, but they couldn’t withstand the tortures. Now, the other Christians who did remain faithful to Christ, they didn’t just get tortured and die; they were tortured day after day after day; they were brought out to the arena and they were tortured in front of people and then sent back to jail. They were concerned about the ones who had denied Christ, and, by the way, when they denied Christ, they thought they would be let free, because that’s usually what happened in the Roman Empire: if somebody denied Christ, they were set free. But they were kept in jail, and the ones who confessed Christ, who did not deny the Lord, were concerned about the ones who denied, and they called them stillborn, because they weren’t going to enter the kingdom of heaven because they denied the Lord. And they said that the reason why this happened, the ones who confessed Christ… And the person who wrote the account of this, many people believe that was St. Irenaeus, by the way, because the bishop of Lyon died as a martyr. His name was Pothinos, and he died as a martyr in this series of martyrdoms that took place in 178, and then the person who became bishop of Lyon was Irenaeus. Some people think he might have written the account, he might have been an eyewitness to these things that were happening in the arena.

But these things took place in arenas where athletic competitions took place, and this is why we have this language in the Church, that the people who were victorious received crowns of martyrdom. It’s equivalent to a trophy or a medal for us today, like an Olympic gold medal. People received a crown, a laurel-leaf crown, and that was a symbol of victory. And they received crowns of martyrdom and they are athletes for Christ. There’s a lot of athletic imagery and metaphors used in this account.

The ones who denied Christ were called flabby. In other words, they weren’t hardened. They weren’t ready. They hadn’t exercised. This is why the Church has spiritual askesis—not ascesis; the word is askesis: struggle. We have spiritual disciplines like fasting and long services and long prayers and things like this. This is designed to strengthen us. This is our spiritual exercise, you see, so that when the temptation to sin comes or the temptation to deny the Lord, we will not deny him, because we won’t be flabby—we will be prepared.

So let us look at this time, regardless of the stance that you’re taking on the vaccine, let us look at this time as a time of testing and trial to make us stronger, a time of training for these spiritual athletic exercises; not a time to destroy others, not a time to criticize others. And, by the way, if you read this—please, do read it; it’s online, it was free, it was published so many times in many places—the martyrs of Lyon of Vienne, or the account of martyrdom of Lyon and Vienne—if you read this, the other thing I want you to notice is that the martyrs said that the enemy—they referred to the enemy, and the enemy is not the Romans, not the people who were torturing them; the enemy is not the Romans—there’s only one enemy of humankind. That’s the devil. This is why they forgave the people who were torturing them, and this is why it is such a sin that people in the Church today are turning against each other. The enemy is not other Christians, whether they’re Orthodox Christians or not. The enemy—there is one enemy: the devil. He is the enemy! He is the one who’s causing this dissension in the Church, and anybody who contributes to that is doing his work!

When we come back, I’ll read to you the first email that I received concerning the vaccine, so join me after the break.

Okay, so we’re going to read from some incredible Fathers and saints tonight, if I get to it, but if not we’re going to carry this over to next week, because this has become such an important discussion. You know, I’m not crazy about this topic, but so many people are concerned that I really don’t want to rush through it. So we’re going to take all the time we need, and I’m going to start by reading an email, and here’s how it goes. And it’s from somebody who disagrees with something I said last week.

Hello, Dr. Constantinou,

I just finished listening to your last podcast. You mention that the vaccine mandate is not right because of forcing people against their will. Public health and security is a mandate. It’s the law to wear a seatbelt. It’s a law for the kids to present the vaccine record to schools and colleges. It’s the law to stop at the red lights, and so forth. Public health and security is there to protect the public in totality and not just the individuals and their opinions about freedom. It’s really about the right for life for everyone, not just the freedom for one. I am a physician, and that’s what I try to communicate to my patients when I give them advice. Thank you so much for all you do, etc.

Dr. Maria, Chicago, Illinois

So, thank you, Dr. Maria. First of all, I appreciate and am honored that people who are so educated listen to this podcast and that you feel that you benefit from it. I understand what you’re saying, and this is the argument that is being made about the vaccine mandates. The reason why I’m opposed to the mandate is because I’m very concerned about our religious freedoms in this country. For those of you who are listening to this podcast in other parts of the world, when the United States became a nation and wrote a constitution, they did not include in that constitution certain guarantees for the public, and the states refused to ratify; they refused to accept this constitution. We’ve had the same constitution, by the way, since the beginning of our country; we don’t keep writing a new one, like some countries do.

And so they wrote the Bill of Rights, and the first right that is guaranteed to Americans—it’s called the First Amendment, the first set of rights—are things like freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, things like this. These are very, very important in American society, and they have lately been under attack. We’re not allowed— In my very county where I live, they passed—the county government passed a law that you’re not allowed to say things that are scientifically untrue. Okay, can you— This is a direct infringement of the freedom of speech. It’s an outrageous— People should be able to say whatever they want, unless— There are certain restrictions. You can’t— There are certain classic restrictions under the law. You can’t incite someone to violence or something like that; that’s not allowed, but you can express whatever opinion that you want, even if it’s unpopular.

But we have seen a lot of efforts to try to limit our religious freedoms, and this is why I’m opposed to it. We saw that, certainly, with the mandate during last year’s shutdowns, when liquor stores could be open but churches could not be open. Wal-Mart could be open, but churches could not be open. They were not considered essential. Or, where you had people who refused to bake a wedding cake for a homosexual couple, and they were sued over that. So this is a very deep concern of mine, and I think that preserving our religious freedoms is very, very essential, and I think we’re going to be facing a lot of persecution in the future. So that’s the reason, but I totally understand where you’re coming from, Dr. Maria, and I respect what you say. I understand it, but I am concerned about this and the fact that many people now have literally lost their jobs; they have lost their jobs because they don’t want to be vaccinated, and they have their doubts about the vaccine. It’s not all wacky. Some of them just don’t feel comfortable with it. Some of them believe that it hasn’t been tested long enough, so they have a genuine concern. Others have a religious objection to it, and they’re not— They’re paying a very heavy price for not being vaccinated, so I don’t think that that’s fair. That’s just my opinion.

Okay, now, this next email is about the vaccine and family conflict that this has created.

Hello, Dr. Jeannie,

Our family listens to your podcast every week and thoroughly enjoy your thoughts and wisdom on the Scriptures. My sister is an Orthodox Christian, but sadly she has fallen prey to the online postings of many whom our family think may be heretical or at least extremely misleading. She continues to send me these postings. I wanted to send the last one she sent, but it was taken down from the site. In addition to what this particular video says, the one taken down said that we also needed to find a priest that was not deluded and confess that we have taken the vaccine and that we need to ask for forgiveness. I thought we had agreed to disagree, but she keeps sending them, and I wish I knew how to respond. She told me to pass it on to others, so I would pass it on to you, to see how I should deal with this situation.

And that’s coming from anonymous, no city, no name, and I think this is happening in a lot of families. So this is the reason for my concern. There are a lot of people who are listening to internet sites, people who are saying they’re Orthodox—and I’m not saying that they’re not sincere; I think they are perfectly sincere, but they could also be absolutely wrong—but they are listening to these kinds of hysterical claims about the vaccine that are not rooted in Scripture, not rooted in the Tradition of the Church, but based on the opinion of a couple of people, or, what is even worse, rumors!

So here is another one, and this one is even more concerning, because somebody is suffering from extreme anxiety over these kinds of postings. I really think this is a great sin. So here’s the next email.

Hello, Presvytera,

I heard what you said regarding the vaccine on the program with the Louhs.

That’s a live program that is on Tuesday nights. Fr. Nicholas and Dr. Roxanne Louh, they have a live show called Live with the Louhs. So I was on about, I don’t know, three weeks with them, three weeks ago.

I thought it was great and very insightful. I know I already asked you about if the vaccine is the mark of the Antichrist or not, but I have some very well-meaning Orthodox friends who tell me some pretty frightening things they have heard from one source or another, usually supposedly from some monastic or holy elder of some sort, regarding those who take the vaccine or have taken it. Usually there’s a vision with it. I just don’t know. How can I not be worried? There’s also prophecy that’s attributed to St. Paisios about vaccines that could come in the future, and it seems to fit our current situation, about how a disease would come and mandatory vaccination would come to be the mark of the beast, and even if one received it out of ignorance, that’s no excuse.

How, as Orthodox, if we have taken the vaccine, know that we haven’t received the mark for sure, especially if these are coming from Mount Athos? Maybe—

For those of you who don’t know, that’s a monastic center in the Orthodox world.

Maybe I don’t understand how this works in the Church. Is there any way you could explain this to me, or maybe some sources I can read? I listened to what you said on the show a few times over, and I’d really like to understand, especially since I keep hearing things like: “Make sure you don’t receive any more vaccinations,” because I was listening to a monk from Mt. Athos, and he said, “A nun had a vision who said there will be seven vaccines and whoever receives them all won’t be able to buy or sell.” And we know what that means. But that’s just an example. I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of this stuff or things that people say elders are saying. How can I know who is right? How do I know? You’ve been very helpful to me and I appreciate it. Please forgive me if I am bothering you, but I live under the cloud of “I may have damned my soul.”

This is this person’s concern: I may have damned my soul.

It’s very frightening, especially if all someone wants to do is love Christ, not deny him. I was going to get a vaccination; if I thought that was ever going to be the slightest chance of betraying our Lord, I would never, never have gotten the vaccination. I wish I never did.

And this is anonymous. And then he added later:

I was corrected about something. Apparently, no elders said that this vaccine is the mark of the Antichrist, but they’re saying it’s the forerunner of the mark of the Antichrist, a dry one.

Okay, that’s anonymous. Oh my goodness. I’m going to start answering all of this, but I’m going to read one more. This is email number three.

Hi, Dr. Jeannie,

I hope you’re all well. A video was going around that someone saw St. Paisios in a dream. After praying to him fervently, this person had been told by their spiritual father to get the vaccine, but because some people said that St. Paisios is against it, this person wanted to ask the saint. So that night he appeared and said not to get it because it’s the mark of the beast. He then went on to tell the person to find another spiritual father and not go back to that one. This guy making the video is quoting Revelation 18:23, where in Greek it says, “Pharmakeia will be our destruction,” as it is clear in Revelation. And some priests are saying that you will go to hell if you get the vaccine.

And this comes from Emmy in Melbourne, Australia, where there’s been a lot of this and a lot of shutdowns, and it’s been very, very difficult for everybody in Australia and New Zealand.

Okay, so now this is what I’m receiving, dear people, and that’s why we’re talking about it, and we have spoken before about St. Paisios and this prophecy that he had made back in the ‘80s about the AIDS vaccine, dear people, not about this one. And there still to this day is no vaccine for AIDS, but people are trying to twist this, because he says it’s a vaccine for a disease that’s happening right then, okay? So people are trying to make this into something about anti-vaccine, but even if he did say this, let me just get this back on the table. And we’re going to hear from him tonight, by the way! We’re going to hear from St. Paisios tonight, if I get to all of this. I’ve got a pile of books in front of me.

You know, saints can be wrong. I started out by telling you that I read everything that was said about the book of Revelation from the year 120—that’s soon after it was written—to the year 600, and there were Fathers who talked about it and interpreted it and gave prophecies also about the end, that after their death it would be the end of the world. There have been a number of people who said this, including saints! And they were wrong. There is no perfect person; there is no perfect saint; there is no perfect elder. I don’t care how holy they are, what title they have. People are going chasing after these people like gurus! And they can be wrong! This is why in Orthodoxy we do not rely on the opinion of just one Father or just one person or just one writing. We don’t rely on that, so get over it and stop. Please, stop.

And if you’re watching these videos, stop watching them. Stay off the internet. If you know, especially if this is disturbing you, tell the people in your life who are sending you these things to stop sending them. People send them to me; I don’t watch them. I don’t need that. I know what is true and what is not true, and I’m not going to be disturbed by something that somebody says, because somebody said this, somebody said this, somebody said that somebody had a dream. Really? You’re going to allow this to disturb you? It’s time to get some spiritual backbone and maturity. This is what we should be doing: we should be turning to the Lord in prayer and trusting in him, not trusting in some anonymous person somebody said that a nun said… Come on already!

But I’m going to read to you some from the Fathers of the Church and from St. Paisios exactly about these things. This is not just my opinion, my dear people, not just my opinion. First I’m going to respond to the question of whether the vaccine itself is immoral, and then we’re going to go through these various issues, because here’s what we’re going to talk about tonight: Is the vaccine immoral? Number two, what does the Orthodox Church say about dreams and visions? Number three, I’m going to prove to you that all these things are from the devil. Number four, we’re going to interpret Revelation. And number five, I’m going to tell you why you should not be afraid. Okay, but we only have 45 minutes, so we might not get to all of that tonight, so you might have to wait until next week. I’m sorry about that, but this will be worth waiting for.

So the first thing is the question: Is the vaccine itself immoral? And by the way, what Emmy wrote from Melbourne, that there’s a priest who’s saying that if you get this vaccine you will go to hell, first of all, no one can say who is going to hell—I don’t care who they are—because no one knows the heart. This is a terrible thing to say, frankly. I’m not going to tell anybody what to do, but I find that reprehensible. No matter how sincere the priest is, no matter how well-meaning the priest is, even a person who actually performs an abortion themselves, who aborts their child, we can’t say that even that person who has actually performed an abortion is going to hell, because you don’t know if they might repent; you don’t know the circumstances; you don’t know anything.

No one has the right to say that! You should never, ever say that about anyone, and that, what I’m telling you, my friends, is patristic. This is the Tradition of the Orthodox Church: We never say that someone is going to hell, no matter what they have done, even if we’ve seen them fall. That’s straight from St. Symeon the New Theologian. You never say that someone is going to hell, even if you see them sin, because you don’t know how deeply that person repented; you don’t know how much they fought against a temptation before they committed that sin. We do not know the mind of God, nor do we know the love and mercy of God. How dare anyone say that! This is absolutely reprehensible. I can’t tell you how angry I am about this, because this is torturing people!

Now, just because we don’t say that something… someone is going to hell for doing this, that, or the other thing, this doesn’t mean that we can’t say that something is a sin. If you believe that taking the vaccine is a sin, you’re entitled to that belief—I don’t agree with it, and I’m about to explain why—but if you think it’s a sin, you say, “I think it’s a sin.” Don’t say someone’s going to hell. Who the heck do you think you are? I could have used the other word, too: Who the h-e-double-sticks do you think you are? [Laughter] We had a proistamenos once who never said the word “hell”; he always said, “H-e-double-sticks.” That’s our dear friend, Fr. John, who came once and was a guest on this program.

All right, now, you have to say that the vaccine, taking it is a sin: you have to establish that taking the vaccine is a sin. That has not been established, I don’t care who you are. Now, some people think— I understand why some people are reluctant to take it. They’re not sure it’s a sin; maybe they don’t know; they’re not sure. Here’s why I’m telling you it is not a sin. First of all, the Church has never been against medical treatment. The Church has never been against vaccines. The reason why some people today are saying that this is a sin is because the science behind the development of this vaccine have used, reportedly, aborted fetuses decades ago, from some sort of stem-cell research, back literally decades ago—not last year, not in the last decade, but many decades ago. And if it weren’t for this kind of research and the things that they learned from this researched, that the development of this vaccine would not have been possible; they couldn’t have developed the vaccine.

Now, why doesn’t this mean that taking the vaccine is morally wrong, because there’s some tie to this use of aborted fetuses many decades ago when they were first doing experiments with stem cells? Why isn’t this… Why doesn’t that disqualify us from taking the vaccine, because we’re participating, they’re saying, indirectly, in abortion, because this technology was developed using the aborted fetuses? Well, first of all, that is too remote.

Everything in life, my dear brothers and sisters, everything we do in society, if you were to use that measure, is tainted. We couldn’t do anything. We couldn’t send our children to school, because the teacher maybe is involved in an immoral relationship. There is nothing pure. I want to understand that we live in a fallen world. Everything—we don’t even have a single thought that isn’t tainted by sin. Every thought we have, everything is tainted. Everything is tainted by sin, because we live in a fallen world. I’m not advocating Calvinism: we are [totally depraved]. That’s not the same as saying that everything about our life is tainted by sin, and that includes science. There is no pure science; there is no pure medicine. Everything is tainted by sin.

For us, to be morally responsible for a sin, we have to be more directly participating in it, or condone it. Do you understand what I’m saying? This is the stance of the Orthodox Church. This is the ethical and moral stance of the Church. We can be guilty of participation in a sin if we are directly participating in it or condoning it, but eventually you get so far down the line that you’re not really participating in the sin. For example—I’m going to give you an example—if someone acquired a money through immoral means, and then created a company and, decades later, you’re employed by that company, are you morally responsible for the fact that that company was founded by a person who did an immoral act? Can you see my point? There is no such thing as a pure act in this world.

We are morally responsible if we condone something. If you give money for an abortion or you drive somebody to an abortion, or you say, “Hey, that’s okay, I totally understand. It doesn’t really matter. You need to get on with your life; you should go ahead and have…” Any of that, anything close to that, yeah, I can— Absolutely, you’re morally responsible. But here, I’m going to give you a scenario. Let’s just imagine this. Follow my little scenario; this is the kind of thing… I’m going to tell you a little story. Let’s say you have a company. This is you, now. You’re a devout Orthodox Christian. Your name is Anna, and one of your employees is Bob. Now Bob has a teenage son; his son is Carl, who got a girl pregnant. Her name is Donna. Are you following me? You’re a devout Orthodox Christian, your name is Anna. You have an employee, Bob, and of course he supports his family with the money that he gets from your company. And Bob’s teenage son, Carl, got a girl pregnant; her name is Donna. Carl lives with his father, so Bob supports his son, Carl, with the paycheck that comes from your company, Anna. Carl lives at home, and Bob purchased a car for his son, Carl, to get to class at university, to get to his university classes.

But Bob, the father, or Anna, the employer, they didn’t know this, but Carl used that car to drive Anna to a clinic to get an abortion. Who is morally culpable in that scenario? That’s only four steps. We’re talking about decades now of research using those original stem cells. But just look at this, listen to this scenario. Now if Bob knew that Carl was going to drive Donna to the abortion and Bob, the father, encouraged him to help his girlfriend, Carl’s girlfriend, get an abortion, or Bob gave him the car or Bob gave him the money for the abortion, then Bob is morally culpable. But if Bob doesn’t know that one day his car, the car that he bought for his son to get to his classes, would be used to drive the girlfriend to get an abortion, Bob’s not responsible for that. Can you see that that’s too what we call tangential in the law?

What about Anna? Anna employs Bob. She gives him a paycheck, and with this money he bought a car that his son used to drive the girlfriend to get an abortion. Is Anna responsible morally? She had no idea. But let’s say Bob says, “You know, Anna, I’ve got a little problem. My son got his girlfriend pregnant, and we need to get her an abortion, and I need an advance on my paycheck. Will you help me out?” If she does that, yes, because you can see that there’s a direct contribution. You see what I’m trying to say? So we have to distinguish here between things in which we are aware and which we have more directly condoning an act: then we can be held morally responsible; then we are culpable for the act. There has to be a closer connection to the act.

If you are not culpable, you’re not tainted because you got the vaccine. However, I’ll tell you this, you’re not morally pure if you chose not to get the vaccine, because, let me tell you something, there is nothing in medicine today that isn’t tainted by this type of research if you want to look at it as a moral taint. You should not say that other people are going to hell, because you may very well have taken some medication or been given some kind of therapy that used the very same research that you are now condemning other people for taking the vaccine. You better investigate every single medical treatment and medication. You might as well stop taking most medications and therapies, because many, many treatments today are based on the same or similar research. If you condemn other people to hell for taking this vaccine, are you going to stop taking your medication? If it was produced by Pfizer or Moderna or any of a number of hundreds of other companies that are making the vaccine, because you’re more directly involved, if you’re supporting that company that is making the vaccine. Are you going to stop seeing the doctor, your doctor who administers the vaccine? What about that? Do you see how complicated this is, my dear people? And just taking the vaccine, that’s much more removed from the actual act from the connection than anything else that we’re talking about.

By this rationale, if you condemn people for taking the vaccine, what if you need that medication to stay alive—it’s like a diabetes medication, or you’re receiving chemotherapy, and there are drugs that are made by those companies—are you going to stop your therapy and stop taking any medication, because that vaccine or those companies have contributed to research or they are involved somehow in research that builds upon the research that was done by those—done upon those… based on that stem-cell research decades ago? By that rationale, you are participating in that company, buying their products, using the discoveries, you are morally culpable, too. So all of you who are out there, sitting on your high horse, saying that everybody who took this vaccine is morally guilty of participation in abortion, chances are that you have also participated in something medical that also involved those companies or other research that was based on stem-cell research going back decades to that same type of research. You’re guilty, too.

So before you throw stones, as the Lord said, “He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.” You are not pure; you are not guiltless. If you want to say that the rest of us who took the vaccine are guilty, you are not pure; you’re equally culpable. And if not culpable for that, if you want to use that rationale, you’re guilty of associating with something else that you didn’t know about or maybe you did know about that was done by other people somehow related to you—what is that, the seven steps to Kevin Bacon or five steps to Kevin Bacon? This kind of a thing. We’re all connected to each other, my dear brothers and sisters. Can you see that? This is the truth of the Church. We are all—all human beings—are connected to each other. Whatever we do affects everyone else, and you cannot say that you’re somehow morally pure and not guilty of any kind of association with abortion, because you just chose not to take this one vaccine. Well, chances are, my dear friends, you’ve participated one way or another, in not just that sin, but in a lot of other sins, if that is your rationale.

This is why the Church does not hold us morally responsible for a sin unless we are aware of it or we condoned it or we participated in some more direct fashion. We don’t live in isolation. Everyone and everything is connected to everything else. That’s why to be morally responsible for a sin like abortion, there has to be a closer connection to the act than simply taking a vaccine that was developed by research that was done 40 years ago and has also contributed to many, many other therapies and medications.

So when we come back, we will discuss dreams and visions. Join me after the break.

Okay, so what is the Orthodox advice that has been consistent throughout the history of the Church, throughout the monastic tradition; what is the Orthodox rule about dreams and visions? It is not to listen to them, not to trust them! There are so many warnings against this, I don’t know where to begin. I can’t begin to read them all, and we’ve already spoken about St. Paisios, and I told you—I told you the story about how he was asked a question about a very difficult problem that they were having in Greece at the time. It was a theological question he really didn’t know how to answer, so he prayed a lot to St. Euphemia—Euphemia who was— well, I’m not going to get into who she was. But she came to him. She knocked, and he didn’t believe that it was really her. She knocked again, and he didn’t answer. She said who she was, and she literally then appeared inside his cell, and he did not believe that it was her. He didn’t trust himself. He didn’t trust—even though he had been praying to her.

And this is the mark of a truly holy person. So where are all the people who are passing on all the rumors of dreams and visions by monks and other people, and nuns and other people? Why aren’t they exemplifying the Orthodox Tradition? The Orthodox Tradition is not to pay attention to these things. He, St. Paisios, did not even trust his own eyes when St. Euphemia was in his cell, and he tested her. He tested her. He made her reverence the icons, and I can’t remember, say, “Holy God, Holy Mighty…” The kind of thing that demons will never do, this kind of a thing. “Have mercy on us.” She had to say the prayers; she had to say the trisagion prayers before he believed that it was her.

And yet you think that you can discern! You, just imagine you—you’re there in Australia or America or some other place—you think you know whether or not you should believe these people, because somebody said that somebody said that somebody said that somebody said that they had a vision or a dream? Are you out of your mind? Why do you listen to these people? It’s time to stop! You should rely on the consistent teaching of the Orthodox Church, and all of the Fathers of the Church and all of the spiritual writings, they say not to pay attention to dreams and visions. You listen to them, not like anonymous who said, “How do I know who was right?” You listen to the Church! That’s who’s right, not someone on the internet!

And stop going to the internet! Stop watching those videos, because these are demonic. Don’t you understand that that is designed to cause anxiety within you? This is demonic! If it was of God, it would give you peace, but it’s demonic! Yes, that is demonic. We’re not going to get to that tonight, I can already tell, but when these things cause agitation and tumult and confusion and anxiety, that is not of God. You can take that to the bank. That’s of the devil. All of this activity is sent by the devil, by people who think they are doing good, but they are deluded. Yes, they are. They are deluded, and there’s a lot of spiritual delusion right now. People who think they’re doing the right thing, they think they’re noble, they think they’re Orthodox, they think they’re spiritual, and they’re going to tell all the rest of us that we’re going to hell.

I’m not listening to them; I’m listening to the Church. The Church tells me, the Church has always said, “Don’t pay attention to dreams and visions, even if you have them yourself.” They don’t say, “Don’t pay attention to dreams and visions unless somebody tells you that it came from St. Paisios, unless it’s by a monk, unless it’s by a priest, unless, unless, unless—” no! We’re not supposed to listen to these things. My dear brothers and sisters, please! Please, stop listening to these things! I’m worried about you.

We’re going to start—okay, we have a caller from Ontario, Canada: Gerasimos. Before we read from the Life of Anthony, who has something to tell us about dreams and visions, we’re going to hear from Gerasimos from Ontario. Hello, Gerasimos.

Gerasimos: Hi, how are you? Hello, Presvytera; good to talk to you.

Dr. Constantinou: Good to talk to you, too. Welcome. Go ahead.

Gerasimos: I’m a retired psychiatrist. I just retired two months ago after 42 years of practice. I stayed on for the 20 months to deal with what was happening with COVID with people’s anxiety, but what I saw developing and what I see developing in the Orthodox world and coming out of the Monastery of the Archangels Michael in Melbourne is the idea that COVID, that there is heresy called Covidism. And this is all cultic madness. It has nothing to do with anything. I think this is so serious, because to me it’s like someone has waved a magic wand, and people’s brains have gone to jelly. They’re just not thinking.

Dr. Constantinou: I agree. Thank you so much for saying that. I want to ask you something as a professional; I really value your opinion. I said this some time ago. We did talk about this on my program a while ago; I don’t remember how many months ago, but I said that there are a lot of religious delusions among spiritually unbalanced people. Have you found that as a psychiatrist to be the case? Do you concur with this? And that it tends to bring out religious delusions?

Gerasimos: Yes, I concur completely with this statement, and I’ve seen it explode in terms of the whole COVID-fear phenomenon, like all of this insanity that’s going on about the vaxxing and anti-vaxxing. All of the fear that’s been induced on everybody’s side is just outrageous, and it is—there’s a spiritual delusion. It’s prelest. You know the Russian word, prelest? I don’t know what it is in Greek.

Dr. Constantinou: Yes, I know.

Gerasimos: But it means spiritual delusion, and I really feel that this is a massive spiritual delusion which has happened to people, and that’s why people are being so irrational and families are being torn apart. Formerly really good monks in monasteries are now saying things like there’s a Covidism heresy, which is an outrageous assumption. It’s a terrible thing to say. It’s not true, just not true.

Dr. Constantinou: Yes. Thank you so much for calling in and sharing your experience with us. I can’t imagine what it was like for you for the last couple of years of your practice, to have to deal with this.

Gerasimos: Well, especially at an older age, it was kind of tough. But I just want to leave you with one thing. I ran my practice for the last 25 years as an Orthodox psychiatrist, which means I used the Fathers in the Church in my practice, and I had astounding success with people who traditional Western psychiatric modalities didn’t budge them very much. People were able to start to take ownership of their sinfulness and be able to start to begin to repent, and that was an extraordinary part of my practice. So any young doctors listening, I would encourage them to use the Fathers of the Church. I’m so grateful to hear about your dissertation. I’d love to read your dissertation.

Dr. Constantinou: Well, the commentary was published, and the rest became that book, Guiding to a Blessed End. The commentary is: Commentary on the Apocalypse by Andrew of Caesarea. But before you go—

Gerasimos: I’ll go ahead and buy it.

Dr. Constantinou: Thank you, Dr. Gerasimos. I really appreciate what you’re saying, and it’s so interesting that what you’re saying is something that St. Paisios talks about a lot. He says that when people would come to him for advice, he would make them go to confession first, and he was not a priest, so they would have to go to confession. It’s amazing how therapeutic that is. And they would get upset with him. They would say, “I’m just coming to you for advice. I don’t need to go to confession!” But he wouldn’t even talk to them unless they had gone to confession. So I really appreciate your experience and sharing that with us. Many people would benefit from that.

Gerasimos: Many people did; of course, some people did complain, but that’s to be understood. You can’t do a good deed without someone trying to knock it down. That didn’t stop me from doing it, because when I read the Orthodox Fathers 40, 50 years ago, I understood what a treasure trove there was here for all manner of healing, and as I was in my training in medicine. But just one more point, then I’ll leave.

Dr. Constantinou: Yes, I would love to hear your point.

Gerasimos: Because we live in a crazy world. We do live in an absolutely insane world. I find that, because the boundaries of normalcy are gone and we live in a totally fallen world, our need to pray more is so substantial, and the patients that did the best were those who could and would engage in prayer with Christ.

Dr. Constantinou: Wow.

Gerasimos: And over the years, maybe half a dozen became Orthodox, which was a blessing.

Dr. Constantinou: Wow. No, you’re the blessing. You are the blessing. I’m sure your patients benefited greatly, and I want to thank you. Now, what you’re saying here, of course, shows that connection between the mind and the soul. We can’t have a healthy soul if the mind is diseased, and vice-versa.

Gerasimos: Amen. That’s absolutely true.

Dr. Constantinou: Thank you so much for calling in, Doctor. I really appreciate your—

Gerasimos: You’re so welcome. God bless you, Jeannie, and thank you for your work, Presvytera.

Dr. Constantinou: God bless you, too.

Gerasimos: I’ve just started to listen to your program, and I think it’s terrific.

Dr. Constantinou: Thank you. I apologize for the ranting. I’m a little bit strong tonight. I’m a little overexcited tonight.

Gerasimos: No, that’s okay. You rant ahead. We need some honest Orthodox ranting. We actually really do need it.

Dr. Constantinou: Thank you. Efcharisto, Gerasime. Efcharisto.

Gerasimos: Okay. O Theos mazi sou. Bye-bye.

Dr. Constantinou: Thank you. Doxa to Theo. Okay, so before we get to Anthony the Great, I’m going to read to you about… That’s very— That’s amazing. I just think that this is a phenomenal call from Dr. Gerasimos up there in Canada, about his experience, so many exp— How he was able to heal people, and his insight with what’s going on in the world, psychologically with people. But he’s a psychiatrist, which means—there’s a difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist. He’s a medical doctor, and that’s not the same as a psychologist.

Okay, so this “About Dreams and Visions” comes to us from the Elder Joseph the Hesychast, and this is the letters—and this book is entitled Monastic Wisdom—the letters of Elder Joseph the Hesychast, who is a more modern Orthodox monk, and he wrote this letter called the 55th Letter. This is what he says. He says:

What does the Lord say? “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” He does not say, “Blessed are those who see visions and revelations,” so one should not rejoice in these things even if they are from God, but one should rejoice when he sees that the nous has found the heart and remains inside it. Then the entire body is at peace, the soul is calm, the heart leaps, the nous illuminates its powers, and tears run like a stream. The evil one is able to transform everything, but these things we are talking about now he cannot imitate. Nevertheless, when she see something she should not (he’s talking about the soul) tell anyone about it. If a person (here he’s talking about a person who believed they had a vision; the Elder Joseph says if someone) sees something, they should not tell anyone about it except her spiritual father (her elder, spiritual father), no one else.

They’re not to be shared. “These things are happening now”—and he’s talking because somebody asked Elder Joseph about a person who had had some kind of experience where she saw certain visions.

These things are happening now because she’s suffering and has great simplicity and fear of God, but these things do not last until the end. The evil one changes them when he finds a way. Later they lead to delusion.

Okay, we talked about this before with Paisios, who talked about a woman who had a genuine vision, and then afterwards the evil one was giving her more visions, and then she became deluded because of that. So this is why we’re not supposed to believe the visions, we’re not supposed to tell them to other people. Remember that story where people started to come to her house and she was telling them about her visions and things like this, and Paisios kind of snapped her out of it. So this is what the Elder Joseph the Hesychast said as well, that even if this delusion—even if a vision is true initially, the evil one changes them and then later leads them to delusions.

Therefore much caution and humility are needed, because the person, if she starts accepting the visions, in a little while all of her thoughts will become sick, and she will end up accepting all demonic and silly things as true and sent from God. What happens after that? A person becomes the mock of the demons. They fool him with writings and with visions, with dreams and revelations, with symbols and numbers and oracles and a heap of superstitions.

So this was his advice. It’s always the same, dear brothers and sisters; the advice not to listen to visions and revelations is always the same. Share those with your spiritual father only if you think you’ve had them. They’re not supposed to be publicized on the internet.

Now here is St. Athanasius. So that was Elder Joseph; he’s a pretty recent monk in Greece. Now let’s talk about St. Athanasius the Great, and his very, very famous work, Life of Anthony. And of course St. Anthony the Great was a very, very famous saint. He was called the father of monasticism; he didn’t really invent it, but he certainly popularized it. And we’re going to talk about what St. Anthony said about visions and things like this, and he had a lot of them. If you’ve never read the Life of Anthony, you should; it’s one of the classic Orthodox spiritual writings, patristic writing. So here’s what he says, and I’m going to read from different places in Life of Anthony, starting in section 33, but going… I’m going to skip through different things where he talks about experience with visions and dreams and things like this.

The demons sometimes say things by conjecture—

In other words, when sometimes people have a vision or a dream, and they think that this is sent by God, but the demons also kind of know what’s going on in our life because they’re watching us, and they say things by conjecture.

—so let no one be amazed or pay attention to visions or oracles. For what good is it to the hearers to learn from them days in advance about what’s going to happen? What is the purpose of the enthusiasm for knowing such things, even if one could, in truth, know them? This does not produce virtue, nor represent any evidence at all of good character. None of us is judged for what he does not know, any more than one is counted blessed because he learned and possessed knowledge. It is rather in regard to these questions that each faces judgment (these are the questions): whether he has kept the faith and sincerely observed the commandments. Therefore, we are not to attach much importance to these other things, and not for the purpose of gaining foreknowledge are we to train ourselves in labor, but rather, in order that we may please God in the way we live our lives.

So if the demons come to you at night and they wish to tell you what the future holds, or they say, “We are angels,” disregard them, for they are lying. And should they commend your asceticism (because they do this; they try to flatter you) and call you blessed, ignore them and have nothing to do with them. Instead, sign yourselves in your dwelling and pray that you will watch, and even as you watch they will become invisible. The truth is, they are cowards, and they are utterly terrified by the sign of the Lord’s cross, because in it the Savior stripped them of their armor and made an example of them. But if they recklessly hold their ground and dance around and produce various apparitions, do not dread them or cower in fear or pay any attention to them on the chance that they are good, for the discrimination of the presence of good and evil is easy and possible when God grants it.

Did you understand what he said? Not everyone has the discernment to tell the difference between good and evil visions or spirits.

A vision of the holy ones is not subject to disturbance, for he will not wrangle or cry aloud, nor anyone will hear his voice. A vision of saints comes with tranquility and gentleness that immediately brings joy and delight, and courage enters the soul, and the thought of the soul remains untroubled and calm.

Does this sound like the visions that people have been talking about? If people have been talking about things that gives you— Are you more tranquil and calm, or are you agitated and disturbed? That’s why it’s of the devil.

If some people, being human, are frightened by the vision of good spirits—

And he gives the example of how Gabriel, Archangel Gabriel, frightened Zacharias, or the angel appeared to the women at the sepulcher and they were frightened and said—

And they will say, “Fear not.” But that kind of fear comes to those people not from the soul’s cowardice, but because of the presence of superior beings, and this is the vision of holy ones. Let this be a sign to you—

And we’re reading from the Life of Anthony; these are the words of St. Anthony. They were recorded by St. Athanasius the Great

Let this also be a sign to you: when the soul remains in fear, that is due to the presence of the enemies.

So he’s talking about when there are visions and there’s a disturbance: it’s due to the presence of enemies.

For the demons do not remove the fear caused by apparitions, as the great Archangel Gabriel did for Mary and for Zacharias, and the angel that appeared at the tomb. On the contrary, when they see people who are fearful, they multiply the apparitions so as to terrify them all the more.

That’s exactly what’s happening. That’s exactly what’s happening. Continuing with the words of St. Anthony the Great:

Now if the devil, even the devil himself confesses that he is able to do nothing and we ought to treat him and his demons with utter contempt—

Because, by the way, Anthony had this vision in which he complained—that Satan himself came to St. Anthony and complained that Anthony had weakened him. “And why are you tormenting me this way?” So St. Anthony says:

Now if the devil himself confesses he is able to do nothing, we should treat him with contempt and the demons with contempt, for his part, the enemy has treacheries of sorts I have described, but we are able to scorn them, having learned of their wickedness. Therefore, let us not be plunged into despair in this way, nor contemplate horrors in the soul, nor invent fears for ourselves, saying, “I hope that when a demon comes, he will not overthrow me or pick me up or cast me down.”

We must not entertain these thoughts at all, and not grieve like those who are perishing. Let us take courage; let us rejoice, like those who are being redeemed. And consider in our soul that the Lord is with us, he who routed them and reduced them to idleness. Let us understand and take to heart that while the Lord is with us, the enemies will do nothing to us, for when they come, their actions correspond to the condition in which they find us. They pattern their phantasms after our thoughts. Should they find us frightened and distressed, immediately they attack us like robbers.

However, should they discover us rejoicing in the Lord, thinking about good things to come, contemplating things that have to do with the Lord, reflecting that all things are in the hands of the Lord, that a demon has no strength against a Christian and no authority over anyone, seeing the soul safeguarded by such thoughts, they are put to shame and go away. So if we wish to despise the enemy, let us contemplate the things that have to do with the Lord, and let the soul rejoice in hope.

Now the reason why I’m telling you this—this is a little bit of a sort of a foretaste of what’s to come next week; we didn’t get very far, as I anticipated. Next week, I’m going to talk to you about why you should not be afraid. Why are you afraid? We have the Lord! You have your seal, at holy chrismation. You have the power of prayer. You have the sign of the life-giving cross! You have nothing to be afraid of. If you did something morally wrong, what you would be experiencing inside of you is compunction—the Lord will help you to understand that you did something wrong—not fear, but compunction, and this produces repentance. And go to confession. Repent your sin and be forgiven of it.

But this fear and anxiety which is being stirred up among people is coming from the devil. He is the source of all of this. So we have reached the end of our time period. I want to thank Gerasimos, Dr. Gerasimos, for calling in from Ontario, Canada, and sharing with us his very profound experiences as a medical doctor, as a doctor of the mind, and how he saw the connection between this and the spirituality of the Church and how he was able to help many people by the spirituality of the Orthodox Church.

And next time, as we continue, I have many beautiful readings. I have one, two, three, four, five books in front of me I didn’t even get to: by the Fathers of the Church, by the saints of the Church. We will continue with our discussion about dreams and visions, Orthodox guidance on these. I will talk to you about how all of this is from the devil and read to you what the Fathers of the Church have to say about this. We will—if we have time next time next week; if not, the following week—we will delve more deeply into the book of Revelation, where I will show you why we are not in the end times, and I will explain to you by pointing at and answering some of your questions about specific passages, why this is not the mark of the beast, why pharmakeia is not this in the book of Revelation or elsewhere in the Bible, and again I will read to you from more Fathers of the Church about why we should not be afraid.

So I’m sorry we didn’t get further, but I’m glad that we’re not rushing through this discussion, because I think it’s extremely important. I hope that you will join us also next week as we continue our discussion. So now let us close with our prayer.

Lord, now let your servants depart in peace according to your word, for our eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared before the face of all peoples: a light to enlighten the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel.

Good night. Amen.