A excerpt from the book “Against False Union” by Alexander Kalomiros, containing a warning against ecumenism and an anticipation of the struggle for truth in the time of the apocalypse.
The world and the devil are leading the Church to such frightening trials that the day might comewhen all the bishops of the land will enter into communion with the heretics. What will the faithful do then? What will the few do who have the heroism not to follow the masses, not to follow their kin, their neighbors, and their fellow citizens?
All the faithful will have to understand that the Church is not there where it appears to be. Liturgies will continue to be performed, and the churches will be filled with people, but the Church will have no relation with those churches or those clergy and those faithful. The Church is where the truth is. The faithful are those who continue the unbroken tradition of Orthodoxy, that work of the Holy Spirit. Those real priests are those who think, live, and teach as the Fathers and the Saints of the Church did, or at least do not reject them in their teaching. Where that continuity of thought and life does not exist, it is a deception to speak of the Church, even if all the outward marks speak of it.
There will always be found a canonical priest, ordained by a canonical bishop, who will follow the Tradition. Around such priests will gather the small groups of the faithful who will remain until the last days. Each one of these small groups will be a local catholic Church of God. The faithful will find in them the entire fullness of the grace of God. They will have no need of administrative or other ties, for the communion that will exist among them will be the most perfect there can be. It will be communion in the Body and Blood of Christ, communion in the Holy Spirit. The golden links of the unalterable Orthodox Tradition will connect those Churches among themselves as well as with the Churches of the past, with the Church triumphant of heaven. In these small groups the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church will be preserved intact.
Of course, it is wonderful that order and coordination should exist in the outward functionings of the various churches, and that the less important churches should receive their direction and guidance from the more important churches, the way it is now between dioceses, metropolises, archdioceses, and patriarchates, but in the last days, such outward relations and contacts will be impossible most of the time. When the age of the Antichrist aproaches, even the Ark of the Church will be difficult to discern. There will be such confusion in the world that one Church will not be able to be certain of the orthodoxy of another because of the multitude of false prophets who will fill the world and who will be saying, “here is Christ”, and “there is Christ”. Whateverwill be accepted officially as the Church, having little by little already betrayed the treasures of the Faith, will have been assimilated by the indescribable, unifying marmalade which will retain most of the outward signs of the Church with satanic cleverness. Here and there small groups of faithful with some priest will still preserve the true Tradition alive. However, there might even be misunderstandings among the really Orthodox churches because of the confusion of tongues which exists in the contemporary Babel. But none of that will ever sever the essential unity of the Church.
But who will be able to recognize the Church of Christ in those small, scorned groups of faithful that lack all worldly splendor? Yet at the end of time, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church will be just those forgotten and outwardly disunited little parishes which may even be ignorant of the others’ existence, but will be united among themselves by the mystical bonds of the Body and Blood of the Lord, in the Holy Spirit, with the common Faith and Tradition which will remain undefiled.
“Against False Union”, Alexander Kalomiros