There is a Spirit of Delusion in the World

Ed. note: In honor of the recent commemoration for the repose of Met. Augoustinos of Florina (which occurred on his patron’s feast day: Aug. 28), we provide a small portion from his catechism classes about the appearance of widespread delusion across the world. His warning of the seriousness and apocalyptic nature of this crisis should provoke all Orthodox Christians to a renewed sense of watchfulness and diligence in our day, as this spirit spreads further to more people and also deeper in its grip over them.

Metropolitan Augoustinos (Kantiotes) of Florina

There is a Spirit of Delusion in the World*

We live in a huge world-wide trend of delusion, which starts from the smallest things and reaches to the greatest things. The Apostle says that all those who aren’t inclined to good will fall into the nest of the Antichrist—those who strain to hear different things here and there.

I remember, in Athens, there was a serious, but not spiritual person who had a certain problem. He went to ten different spiritual fathers for advice. The first spiritual father opened the Gospel and told him: “My child, this is what you should do.” He didn’t like that advice, so he went to another spiritual father, but he said the same thing. He went to a third father, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, a seventh, and eighth and a ninth and the also told him the same thing. He went to the tenth spiritual father, and he told him: “Oh, that’s nothing…” Then the man was satisfied and said, “Oh, you are a good spiritual father, you told me the truth!...”

Do you see? He agreed with the last, with the “rogue,” who had the same spirit as himself, and listened to him. He didn’t listen to the other nine, who expressed the spirit of the Gospel. And now in a society, those spiritual fathers are popular. Oh—they say—that’s nothing, everyone does it.

Didn’t you see what happened in Athens? Lecturers, important people, gathered to lecture on sex. And thousands of youth gathered at the lecture hall and shouted and screamed: “Down with virginity…” The situation is terrible. A spirit of delusion has spread at an amazing rate. They say: There’s nothing wrong with adultery, there’s nothing wrong with pre-marital sex, they aren’t bad things. What are you doing sitting there and telling me those things?....

Holy Scripture prophesied that. It says that there will come a day, when people who perform shameful acts, will consider them to be something innocent, as if they were drinking a cup of water, a sweet beverage (how abominable and filthy is a man who drinks iniquity like water [see Job 15:16]). That is the spirit of delusion which will spread enormously. And these things will occur to the people who fall into the nets that sin spreads.

* Taken from Kantiotes, Bishop Augoustinos N., Christians of the Last Times, translated by St. Augustine's Monastery (Florina, Greece, St. Augustine's Monastery, 2022), pp. 157-158.