Where is the greatest darkness? Where the most powerful light shines and then fades away. There is the greatest darkness. In the market where hundreds of lights shine and where nightlight competes with the daylight, when all the lights go out, then, that market is darker than the gypsies’ unlit tents.

Oh, my brothers in Christ, today I opened my eyes and saw such a market, and it was so bright, brighter than the sunny skies. But all the lights came off, and we saw from the heights of Balkans a valley without lights, as dark as a mole’s hole. That market is recognized on the world map as Europe whose nations deem to be the equivalent of atheism and mercilessness.

What is Europe?

It is greed and intelligence. Both human: human greed and thirst for human knowledge. And these two are best embodied by the Pope and Luther. What is therefore Europe? Pope and Luther. Culmination of human greed and thirst of human knowledge. The Pope is the embodiment of human greed for power. Luther the European human determination to learn all through intelligence; Pope as ruler of the world and the scientist as the master of the world. This is the essence of Europe. The former means throwing mankind into the fire, the second means throwing mankind into the sea. And both mean the alienation of man from God.

For the first means denial of faith, and the second denial of Christ’s Church. In this way, the evil spirit has manifested in Europe for centuries. Who can it ward off this terrible evil spirit? No one but He who is known in the history of mankind as only power capable to fight against demons. It is Jesus Christ, the Messiah and Saviour of the world, one born of the Virgin, killed by Jews, resurrected by God, showed by heaven, glorified by angels and acknowledged by saints.

As long as Europe has followed Christ, “Sun of Righteousness,” and apostles, martyrs, saints and His innumerable pious and righteous followers, she resembled to the market lit by hundreds and thousands of lights. But when greed and human intelligence opposed Christ as two storms, lights before people faded away and darkness engulfed the market. According to human greed, every nation and every human being seek power, pleasure and glory just after image of the Pope of Rome. According to human intelligence, each nation and every human being consider themselves the most intelligent, saying that they are entitled to all the wealth on earth. How wouldn’t these lead to wars between nations and between people? How wouldn’t these cause madness and anger among people? Or epidemic, drought, floods, disease, revolutions, and wars? And these are supposed to happen, however, as to protrude pus from infected wounds as to disperse the stink of impurity and lawlessness.

Papacy uses politics as a means to gain power. Lutheranism uses philosophy and science, because it believes they will help attain knowledge. So greed started war against knowledge, and knowledge against greed. This is the new Tower of Babylon, this is Europe. But in our time arose a new European generation who brought, through atheism, greed and intelligence together and denied and discarded the Pope and Luther. Now no one hides greed and no one praises intelligence. Human greed and human intelligence are nowadays brought together through one marriage that is neither Catholic nor Lutheran, but clearly an openly satanic. Europe today is neither Papist nor Lutheran. She is outside these and beyond.

She is entirely earthly, without any desire to ascend to heaven. She cannot ascend to heaven by using infallibility “passport” or Protestant intelligence scale. She renounced the journey to heaven. She wants to stay here. She wants its tomb where the cradle was. She has not known the other world. She does not feel the heavenly fragrance. She does not see in her dream angels and saints. She does not want to hear of Mother-of-God. Fornication strengthens the hatred against virginity. The whole market is covered in darkness. All lights are off. Oh, what a terrible darkness! Brothers kill each other believing they are enemies. Father denies his son and the son his father. The wolf is a more faithful friend to wolf than man is to man.

Oh my brothers in Christ, don’t you see this? Didn’t you experienced for yourselves antichristian Europe’s darkness and iniquity? You want to go with Europe or with Christ? With death or with life? Ask yourselves. Lighten up. Decide. Death or life. These two Moses put before his people. And we put before you. Be aware: Europe is death, Christ is life. Choose life, to be alive forever. Amen.

(These pages were written by St. Nicholas Velimirovic when he was imprisoned in the concentration camp at Dachau, near Munich, Germany in 1945. They are part of the book – “The prison window” – word 25, page 77)

Translation from www.ortodoxiatinerilor.ro