Archimandrite Ephraim, Abbot of the Vatopaidi Monastery,Mount Athos.
We live at a time when people are
becoming increasingly vindictive. Their morals are deteriorating and
their minds are darkened. The absurdity that people are experiencing
today is obvious and undeniable. We’re living in a time prophesied by
Anthony the Great when people who are mad appear to be rational and
those who are rational are deemed mad. It may be claimed that in older
times, too, there was rampant sinfulness, but we ought to note that
there was never this offensive legitimation and widespread social
acceptance of sin. In our time, abortions, adultery and homosexuality
have all been made legal, though this would have been inconceivable
until the middle of the 20th century. It’s a cause of astonishment, if nothing else, that today sin is projected not simply as legitimate, but as an ideal way of life.
Today the family is undergoing a great
crisis throughout the world. The eternal enemy of humankind knows very
well that if he strikes at the core of society, which is the family,
he’ll achieve his goal. He’s created conditions such that young people
avoid or delay getting married, and naturally with no thought to what
should go without saying- chastity and a life in Christ. They don’t
have a Church wedding, which is the only valid and blessed marriage in
the sight of God. They have a civil wedding or that modern, demonic
agreement to live together, by which even homosexuals can marry.
And even in existing families he’s
created temptations out of nothing, so that divorce presents itself very
easily as the ideal solution! The statistics from dioceses in the
Church of Greece, indicate that in any year there are more divorces than
weddings.
