St. Nilus
was one of the many disciples and fervent defenders of St. John Chrysostom.
He was an officer at the Court of Constantinople, married, with two sons.
While St. John Chrysostom was patriarch, before his exile (398-403), he
directed Nilus in the study of Scripture and in works of piety. St. Nilus
left his wife and one son and took the other, Theodulos, with him to Mt.
Sinai to be a monk. The Bishop of Eleusa ordained both St. Nilus and his
son to the priesthood. The mother and other son also embraced the religious
life in Egypt.
From his monastery at Sinai, St. Nilus was a well-known
person throughout the Eastern Church. By his writings and correspondence
he played an important part in the history of his time. He was known as
a theologian, Biblical scholar and ascetic writer, so people of all kinds,
from the emperor down wrote to consult him. His numerous works, including
a multitude of letters, consist of denunciations of heresy, paganism, abuses
of discipline and crimes, of rules and principles of asceticism, especially
maxims about the religious life. He warns and threatens people in high
places, abbots and bishops, governors and princes, even the emperor himself,
without fear. He kept up a correspondence with Gaina, a leader of the Goths,
endeavoring to convert him from Arianism. He denounced vigorously the persecution
of St. John Chrysostom both to the Emperor Arcadius and to his courtiers.
St. Nilus must be counted as one of the leading ascetic
writers of the 5th century. His feast is kept on November 12th in the Byzantine
Calendar. He is commemorated also in the Roman Martyrology on the same
date. St. Nilus probably died around the year 430 as there is no evidence
of his life after that.
The Prophecy of
St. Nilus:
After the year 1900, toward the middle of the 20th century,
the people of that time will become unrecognizable. When the time for the
Advent of the Antichrist approaches, peoples minds will grow cloudy from
carnal passions, and dishonor and lawlessness will grow stronger. Then
the world will become unrecognizable. Peoples appearances will change,
and it will be impossible to distinguish men from women due to their shamelessness
in dress and style of hair. These people will be cruel and will be like
wild animals because of the temptations of the Antichrist. There will be
no respect for parents and elders, love will disappear, and Christian pastors,
bishops, and priests will become vain men, completely failing to distinguish
the right-hand way from the left.
At that time the morals and traditions of Christians and
of the Church will change. People will abandon modesty, and dissipation
will reign. Falsehood and greed will attain great proportions, and woe
to those who pile up treasures. Lust, adultery, homosexuality, secret deeds
and murder will rule in society. At that future time, due to the power
of such great crimes and licentiousness, people will be deprived of the
grace of the Holy Spirit, which they received in Holy Baptism and equally
of remorse. The Churches of God will be deprived of God-fearing and pious
pastors, and woe to the Christians remaining in the world at that time.
They will completely lose their faith because they will lack the opportunity
of seeing the light of knowledge from anyone at all. Then they will separate
themselves out of the world in holy refuges in search of lightening their
spiritual sufferings, but everywhere they will meet obstacles and constraints.
And all this will result from the fact that the Antichrist
wants to be Lord over everything and become the ruler of the whole universe,
and he will produce miracles and fantastic signs. He will also give depraved
wisdom to an unhappy man so that he will discover a way by which one man
can carry on a conversation with another from one end of the earth to the
other. At that time men will also fly through the air like birds and descend
to the bottom of the sea like fish. And when they have achieved all this,
these unhappy people will spend their lives in comfort without knowing,
poor souls, that it is deceit of the Antichrist. And, the impious one.
He will so complete science with vanity that it will go off the right path
and lead people to lose faith in the existence of God in three hypostases.
Then the All-good God will see the downfall of the human race and will
shorten the days for the sake of those few who are being saved, because
the enemy wants to lead even the chosen into temptation, if that is possible...
then the sword of chastisement will suddenly appear and kill the perverter
and his servants...
Saint Nilus - fifth century...
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