St. Paisios the Athonite
1“The fire that has ignited in the Balkans will spread. The current Russian leadership will be overthrown, and the Orthodox peoples of the Balkans will clash with the NATO forces on Turkish soil, and Turkey will disappear from the map. Cyprus will receive a temporary slap from the Turks. But through the General Conflict, “Byzantium” will be reborn.
Everything is governed by the Divine Logos; it is not governed by the Americans, nor by the Jews… They prevail once only because God allows it, in order to discipline His own.
The old Israel, the old pious ones who were Jews, were trained seven times. And for seventy years they were captives of the Chaldeans (the present‑day Persians).
As soon as their rule ended, they returned. It was a discipline, a slap, to awaken them. They, the Jews, were the old Israel.
Today, we are the new Israel. But our discipline is seventy times seven and not sevenfold, because we had knowledge. The seventy times seven, which is our captivity (the 1453 Fall of Constantinople) under Islam, is now exactly ending. This was God’s rule for our sins.
A similar thing happened with the Russian people. Fifty years ago, together with my Elder, Joseph the Hesychast, we met a Russian monk, an elder. To strengthen him regarding the sufferings of the Russian people and the trial of the faithful under communism, we wanted to give him courage, speaking words of consolation. But he said: “It is nothing; it is a rule that will last seventy years.” “How do you know this?” we asked. And his answer: “In 1917, when communism prevailed, Christianity was declared illegal, and whoever killed Christians was a hero. The Christians panicked, and the wealthy fled to Europe, while the others ran to the churches, hoping that God would work a miracle to save them. In a large church, that of the Holy Apostles, about five thousand Christians entered.
When the Bolsheviks found them, they set fire to the church. One of the Christians did not die. He managed to climb high into the domes and stayed next to a window, breathing. He told me that when the moment came when people began to die, crying and shouting, the Twelve Apostles appeared and told them that they could not help, because God did not permit it. It is a rule for our sins that will last seventy years.”
This is what the Russian monk told us fifty years ago. In the time that passed since then, I had almost forgotten his words. But when the paper tower of “Eastern prosperity” collapsed, then I remembered. I sat and counted and saw that it was exactly seventy years. Now our own rule of seventy times seven is ending, and they will return. Now the spiritual law will be applied in many ways.
First, God will discipline the great enemies of Orthodoxy, which are Islam and Catholicism. Those who relentlessly strike Orthodoxy will now disappear. Even those who destroyed Byzantine civilization were not the Turks who destroyed it, but the crusaders, the Europeans, the Catholics who strengthened the Turks so that they would destroy Byzantium. Their descendants, therefore, God will gather inside there, and they will be slaughtered there. You are younger and will see it, since you will be alive. Now the Great Conflict will occur, Armageddon. What has now begun in the Balkans will not stop.
The one who will prevent it from spreading is the divided Russian leadership, which sides with the Americans. But the Russian people will overthrow them, and the Christian peoples of the Balkans will advance.
The Russians now want to come out into the Mediterranean. That will be the springboard. But this will not be the real truth. The truth is that God is calling them as His instruments. As they descend, they will extinguish and annihilate the Turkish scourge within one week. And when Turkey’s friends (the descendants of the crusaders), NATO, descend to save her, then there will be the great Conflict, and they will be slaughtered.
Cyprus will receive a slap from the Turks (because now it is untouched), but it will be temporary. Turkey will be erased, and not even a single page in world history will remain to remind that this cursed tribe ever existed.
I love my homeland very much, and I am very saddened that today Greek youths are ashamed to say they are Greeks. The word “Greek” does not express racism. The word “Greek” expresses racism for everyone except the Greeks. But now we are not Greeks; we are Romans, we are Byzantines, we are Theanthropos’s. We have risen higher.
It is a pity, because today the devil has managed to capture the leaderships. I weep for Greece. Nothing is left standing today. For Greece to be saved, all its leaders, wherever they may be, must go into exile. They must leave, because their presence contaminates.
Today everything has been sold. “International Zionism,” with programs it has been implementing for 180 years, has succeeded today in applying its plans.
But today, when we have all knelt and there is no hope, the God of our fathers will intervene for the blood of our Martyrs and the relics of our Saints. The Greek blood that was shed for Orthodoxy, if united today, would become a floating river to drown the cannibals who are called “great.”
When the first splitting of the atom occurred and the atomic bomb was made, I myself heard Eisenhower declare: “Today we stand at the threshold of Greek mathematics.” The cannibal spoke the truth!
As for the situation in former Yugoslavia, it is a product of the Vatican. It is the “blessings” of the Pope, the “great Christian.” The meanings of all these are grasped by international Zionism, the international stock exchange called America. America does not exist. The Zionists are America. After receiving the satanic messages, they forward them to the Vatican, which turns them into plans, and then calls Islam to implement them. This is how the satanic plans operate today. They have succeeded in capturing our leaders.
Our hopes are only in God. And you must live as Christians, because I tell you responsibly, and you will see it, that we do not have many days. What is igniting now in the Balkans will continue. This will be the starting point through which God, in His own way, will free the Christians and raise them again to their proper place. And Byzantium will return. And do you know why? Because the European peoples will reunite. Who will guide them? No one holds anything. Only we hold the Orthodox faith.”
The text is the complete Chapter 10 from the 2001 publication about the Elder, Words of Grace and Wisdom.