Elder Ephraim of Philotheou & Arizona
A remarkable homily of Saintly Elder Ephraim about Orthodox teachings and prophecies concerning the last days.
“We are waiting. We are waiting. According to the Book of Revelation of John, according to the prophecies of the Saints. We are waiting for the Antichrist, and he is welcome to come. Because he will come to examine, rather, to run a test. To see to what extent, how much, they (the people) believe positively in Christ. The testing will take place upon faith, upon the Divinity of our Christ. Many people of God speak about the Antichrist, all with good intention, with a good purpose: to be of benefit. That is why they speak. But there is a difference in opinions, for no one can speak with certainty. Some say that the Antichrist has been born and is of a certain age. Others say no. The ‘no’ is the more prevalent and the truer opinion. Because when the Antichrist is about to come, humanity must be in the worst possible condition. Then this ‘savior’ will come as the messiah, in order to deceive people into following him. As for whether he has been born now, this present condition does not foresee it, nor does it allow for it. Because people on earth now have all good things. They have no need of the Antichrist’s offering. What could he possibly give us so that we would believe in him? In what way could he deceive us? We have no need of him. The prophecies of the Saints have not yet come to pass, nor have they been realized.
Saint Kosmas of Aetolia, this newly appeared missionary, the one who spoke so salvifically to the world and especially to our homeland, the one who saved our religion and our language. For if this Saint had been absent, we Greeks would not know how to speak Greek. This Saint, so small according to human knowledge and science, yet great before God, great for the salvation of the Greek people. This Saint studied for 17 years as an ascetic and monk at the Monastery of Philotheou on Mount Athos. This Saint, moved by love for his fellow human being, for the Christian, for the Greek people, for his brother, out of great love set out from there, from that humble monastery. He sought the help of God and His guidance, and he undertook this great struggle: to save Hellenism from Islamization. The Turks at that time, through coercion and violence, were driving the sheep of Christ to the denial of Christ. This coercion, this head‑tax that had been imposed by the Sultan upon the poor and sitters on the fence. That deep sigh of the Greek, of the Orthodox, of the enslaved human being, reached all the way to heaven. And God sent enlightenment to this tiny man, so that he might put the great ones to shame. God chose the foolish in order to shame the powerful. The foolish, the unlearned. The love of God chose them to reveal His majesty and His greatness. This small man, according to human wisdom, went forth from the Holy Mountain with the blessing of the Church and the fathers. And he reached all of Greece and helped the human, the Greek people; he saved the Christians, he taught the exactness of the Christian life, he urged those who had abundance to open schools....
...to publish books, to make baptismal fonts, to baptize the little children; the schools to teach letters so that they may read the Gospel, the Oktoechos (or octave) is the basic musical system of Byzantine Church Music, to read the mysteries of the Church, to preserve the faith. And he succeeded. For his path was guided by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, this need is now opening before us on a very great scale. There we had Turkish slavery; here we will have satanic slavery. We need saints like Kosmas to appear in the world, to help, to prepare the ground in the hearts of the faithful, to prepare them for this great struggle. For this reason we must believe wholeheartedly, live as Christians, and teach our fellow human being, our colleague, in a Christian way, our children, so that the day after tomorrow they may face all these great and terrifying situations that will come upon the human race because of great sin. The Antichrist will come; evil will come. This Saint Kosmas, this God‑illumined man, this sanctified one, this holy vessel of the Holy Spirit, spoke and said that a third world war will take place. He said many things, and they were fulfilled. The rest will also be fulfilled. So then, Saint Kosmas said that a third world war will take place. People will become very few. A man will travel a whole day just to meet another person, to call him his brother. There will be an immense amount of blood in Constantinople. So much blood will be shed that a three‑year‑old calf will float upon it. The blood, he says, will reach down to the abyss, that is, to the very depth of death itself there. Just as the Angel, the Archangel Michael, when he cast out the angelic host of Lucifer, said:
‘Let us stand aright, let us stand with fear,’ and they stopped, the collapse of that angelic host ceased there, the host that ended up becoming demonic. Thus, says Saint Kosmas, he will speak then as well, and the war will stop. ‘Let us stand aright, let us stand with fear,’ and the war will stop. And the victory, according to his prophecy, will be given to the Greeks. And he says that 1/3 of the Turks will be slaughtered, that is, they will be killed. 1/3 will flee into the depths of Asia Minor, and the other third will become Orthodox Christians, for they will be descended from Greek blood, from the child gathering/kidnapping of the Turks, since in history, as we have read, the Turks once carried out the mass gathering/kidnapping of children. They would gather the little children and form the best army, the Janissaries. And these children, as a brave army, fought against the other Greek children. And they too were Greek children. But they did not know that they had Orthodox and Greek parents. Therefore, from this Greek lineage, from this Greek and Orthodox blood, that 1/3 of the Turks will become Christians. And afterwards, there is a sleeping general named John, whom the Archangel Michael will then point out to the Christians, indicating that he is the one who will now reign. He will point out the place to them with his finger, and they will call him to lead and to reign over the Greek and Orthodox people. And this will come true. Years ago, on the Holy Mountain, there was a hierarch named Ierotheos. He came from Asia Minor, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate assigned him to the Holy Mountain to perform ordinations, memorial services, liturgies, and so on.
He was a holy hierarch in the manner of Saint Nicholas. From this holy hierarch I was deemed worthy to receive the priesthood. From Asia Minor. A blessed man of God. I will tell you just one thing. During the all, night vigils we held, fifteen hours of vigil, this man, elder of 88 years old, did not sit on the chair at all. From the throne he would step down to the pew, again standing, and during the Divine Liturgy, 3 hours long, which followed after the long-term service of Orthros, he remained standing. We placed a chair for him to sit, but he did not want it. He would say, ‘Our Virgin Mary has not tired me yet.’ And yet his whole body trembled from exhaustion. This holy hierarch, he is the one who told us. He is the one who saw this sleeping general, John, who will rise when this great third world war will take place. He saw him. For the lips of a hierarch and an elder do not lie. So, he told us the truth, and we asked him, because at that time my blessed and holy Elder was still alive, and our whole brotherhood had brought him to our little chapel, and there we sat and asked him our questions, and he told us everything. We heard it with our own ears. He says, ‘There is this sleeping king, and he will rise.’ We asked him, ‘When, Elder?’ ‘When, holy Hierarch of God?’ He said, ‘When the Third World War takes place.’” And he also told us that his right hand is on the hilt of the sword, the sword which is still in its sheath. And it is said that when the sword comes out of its sheath, then the third world war will take place. We, with our curiosity we asked him: ‘Your Eminence, how much of the sword is still inside the sheath? A little… only a few inches remain before it comes out,’ he said.
And when, in 1955, those acts of vandalism took place in Constantinople, and the Turks committed so many outrages against the hierarchs and priests and churches, and against the shops of the Orthodox Greeks. At that time I was at the hermitage of the Holy Unmercenaries, and I see the hierarch outside the hermitage, bare‑headed, distressed, flushed, sweating, and I run out and say to him: ‘Your Eminence, please come inside so I may give you a glass of water.’ Why are you like this? And he says to me: ‘My child,’ he says, ‘my deacon,’ he says, ‘do you know… could it be now,’ he says, ‘that the Third World War will take place?’ Because these acts of vandalism, could they be the beginning of the war? And I fear that it might happen on Monday and the king will rise,’ etc. And of course it was not that time, its hour had not yet come, but the man spoke that way because of what was happening then in Constantinople. And afterwards Saint Kosmas of Aetolia says: ‘After this holy king reigns, then he will live, he will live for 33 years.’ The life of those years will be a heavenly life on earth, both in terms of material blessings and in terms of faith. And then, he says, ‘the saying of the Gospel will be fulfilled, where the Lord tells us that a time will come when there will be one faith in common throughout the world.’ And then, he says, ‘people will live happily, having such a holy king reigning over humanity. After the death, his natural death, of this holy king, there will follow…’ There will follow the collapse of happiness, both spiritual and material, for humanity. Because the people will be few, and the goods will be many.
And then it will be a time when gold will be like iron, and people will make spoons and forks out of gold to eat with. And because of the many goods, the impure will rush into pleasures and sin will also arise from goods, and from the waste of divine fear, man’s great apostasy from God is exalted and born. The collapse of morality will begin as the chief consequence of this collapse, and immediately people will become fleshly, just as in the days of Noah. What was it like in the days of Noah? People gave themselves over to the abundance of goods, they ate and drank, and so on, and the flood found them, and everyone is lost. And so, in this case as well, after the repose of this Holy King, all morality will collapse. People will collapse spiritually. The fear of God will begin to fade, and after the falling, away of the divine fear, apostasy will arise. Apostasy will bring about the deprivation of God’s grace, and therefore the deprivation of material goods will follow as well, both as a consequence and as a response to the apostasy, as a sign of God’s withdrawal. And then, in that condition, very, very… you know… A condition in which there will be no fear of God at all, nor faith. The Antichrist will be born, and he will begin to preach faith in himself, claiming that he is the Messiah, and that he alone will help and save the human race from this destruction and misery. And then the few remaining priests who fear God, together with the few Christians, the faithful, will flee to the mountains and the caves, taking with them a little salt, and there they will escape the sealing of the beast, the Antichrist. And those who confess faith in Christ will be martyred, they will suffer martyrdom very harshly.
Then the great saints who did not undergo a natural death, Enoch, Elijah, and John the Theologian, will be resurrected, and they will bear witness to Jesus. And they will be slaughtered by the Antichrist and will receive the crown of martyrdom. And thus they too will follow the disciples who endured a martyr’s end. And so, after these things, the Doomsday will come. And the great Judgment will take place. And then the human race will be judged and will be separated forever. And as we said in our other talk, in the other world the Orthodox Christians who will attain great salvation, in order to enjoy… In order for them to enjoy Paradise, without any deprivation, and without any thought that could cast a shadow over that enjoyment, God will withhold from them the memory of hell and of those who are being tormented. As in a vision of a saint. A saint said that the Second Coming had taken place, and the Lord sat and judged the world. The righteous to His right, and the others to His left. And when this distinction and final separation had taken place, then a noise was heard, a great noise, and all people in general, both these and those, both the righteous and the unrighteous, were seized with great fear. And then they see that beneath the throne of Christ, of the righteous Judge, there came a fiery river with a roar, and the evil angels were casting those on the left into the fiery river. And seeing this, Christ, and the saints seeing the sinners, each one would hypothetically say within himself: ‘Could it be that among them is my own… the one I knew… person A or person B?’ Seeing them, those on the left, being pushed by the deceitful angels and being cast into the fiery river, they began to grow distressed and to despair and to cry out. And the Lord said:
“Well, it is not necessary. Even here, the righteous should not have to suffer. They suffered enough in life and felt pain from the sinners and endured hardships for them, but the sinners did not want to repent and are justly punished. But now that the righteous have come to their rest, they have no, there is no reason of justice, for them to suffer.” For this reason, Christ immediately closed off the courtyard, and the fiery river ceased to be visible, and so on. He also removed from the memory of the righteous and of the souls being saved the remembrance of hell and of the people being punished. And after this conclusion happened, this holy man saw, the ascent toward heaven took place. The Cherubim and the Seraphim and the angels were going before them, and Christ followed with the entire Christian multitude, with all the holy people and the people being saved, who were shining like the Lord Himself. All together, chanting the eternal Easter, striking up the eternal Easter, they ascended into heaven, and Christ opened the gate of Paradise and entered together with the saints. And when the saints, this holy man saw, when the saints beheld the good things that God had prepared for these people who were being saved, they were unable to speak from the wonder and from the astonishment. And the Lord began the distribution, to the martyrs, to the righteous, to the ascetics, to the people who endured illness, injustice, and the other ranks. He granted an allotment within His boundless kingdom, in the boundless Paradise, a place of eternal rest from now on. There took place the perfect rest and the Sabbatarianism. And in the name of this great expectation of these difficult days that we await, let us prepare ourselves accordingly.
Let not the thought deceive us that these things will not take place. They are written, they are decided, they are prophesied, and they are being prophesied even by our own condition, by the very state in which we are living. When does a doctor put the scalpel to use? When does he remove a part of the body? Then, when he saw that medically it was necessary to remove it, because the diseased member had rotted, because it had become cancerous, because it had become a sickened limb, and so on, the scalpel absolutely had to be used. Otherwise, that afflicted part will bring the illness upon the rest of the body as well, and death will come. For this reason, it is better that one part be cut off so that the rest may be saved. Therefore, this condition in which we are living, and which people will live through after these things, reveals and foretells that the end is near. And since the end is near, we too must draw near to God, approach Him, and indeed be found worthy, not with words as I am speaking now, but with awareness of the heart, to live the Passion of our Christ so that within our heart there may be born a love for Christ. And if we love Christ, this love will conquer the world. This love of Christ will conquer the power of Satan, it will overcome all difficulties, and it will open the gate of Paradise. Let us live the martyrdom. We see our Crucified One, whom we have in our icon corner, and so many other holy icons that bear witness to His martyrdom. Let us try, rather, let us pray, because simple knowledge does not change a person. Let us pray that grace may be given to us, grace and mercy in the martyrdom of Christ, and then we will truly live it.
If we live it, then our eyes will become like two fountains, and our heart will receive, like living water springing up into eternal life from the love of God. We have an immediate need for this grace in order to face the sufferings. The sufferings will be very great. They will be extremely great, because we find ourselves weak. If we were strong, it would be nothing. When the love of God and divine longing come, neither martyrdom nor difficulties nor crucifixions nor anything else troubles the human being. Only when we are deprived of grace do we poor people find ourselves at war, without a weapon, without a shield, without anything, exposed to the enemy’s fire. Therefore, death will follow. For this reason, we must live through prayer the martyrdom of Christ, so that He may deem us worthy to endure the martyrdom for the love of Christ. And if we are martyred, if we are found worthy of this great grace, the love of God will be given to us. For in order to be martyred, we must be chosen by God. We must be loved by God especially, because the crown will be very special and adorned with the martyrdom of the end times. And because it will be so very beautiful and glorified, we must be both chosen and singled out by Divine Providence. And the very fact that we are Christians means we are beloved by God. How many, many people, better than us, are not Orthodox Christians? And we, the poor, I am the first, have been made worthy of this grace to be baptized, to receive adoption, to receive the holy myrrh, to believe orthodoxly and truly in the true God and to hope for eternal life and to avoid hell. And even if I say only this, just to escape hell and not be abandoned by God, to go down there, that alone is a great mercy of God.
So then, when, in comparison, the gain of the Kingdom of Heaven follows, who could possibly describe it? What great compassion and mercy of God this is! In general, we have been shown so much mercy that we end up being ungrateful. We offer nothing to God. Our life is a blessing from God and our life presents an ingratitude. Of the Holy Spirit, let us love our Christ by studying His passion. If we study it and live it, we will beat the passion. Then we will also gain the love of God and the atonement for our sins. And if God wants us, even sinners, to become witnesses, to become confessors, honor and glory to God, to whom alone belongs honor, glory, and worship.”
This homily was uploaded on August 28, 2012, by the YouTube channel Balanthsberoia1 – Ελλάδα και Ορθοδοξία: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMiFIx84X8Q
The homily was translated to English and published by ‘The Holy Wisdom’ YouTube Channel on July 10, 2026.