Homily for the Sunday of the Dread Judgment 7533 (2025), St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church, Winfield Pennsylvania

This Sunday of the Dread Judgment reminds us of the need for humility as we approach Great Lent, for we shall all be judged and by God Who sees and knows all we do and think. This is a bright sorrow. For, as the dismissal prayer for our services reminds us, He is a good God and the lover of mankind. But he reminds us in the Gospel also that even as we have done it unto one of the least of these, gave meat and drink, took in the stranger, clothed him, and visited the prisoner and the sick, so we did to Him, our Lord Jesus Christ. And as we did not, so too we neglected and spurned our Lord. This is a high standard. How far would we really go to help others in need personally, to take them into our homes, our safe space? Even with the urgency of how life can end at any time, will we depart from our comfort zone to bring non-Orthodox friends and co-workers into our Church home, to help save their soul, let alone into our family homes?

Meatfare humbles us accordingly. Just as the Gospel reminds us of the need to give meat to those in need, it comes to us to take away in effect meat from ourselves. Will we in our prosperous country abide by this rather simple restriction for Great Lent? The Lenten fast of vegan plus shellfish food, which begins in another week, reflects the traditional menu so to speak attributed to Paradise. There, carnivority was unknown. There was no preying on other animals, no predators in any sense of the word. Until after the flood in Noah’s day, according to tradition, God did not bless meat-eating among the children of men. It is a reminder of how far we are from Paradise, this coming fast, but at the same time a preparation for the glorious resurrection and redemption of Pascha.

Next Sunday we will, God willing, embark on the great fast but asking forgiveness of one another, something that Adam and Eve had neglected to do at the Fall, that is asking forgiveness of God and each other. Under the guidance of the Good Shepherd, we prepare ourselves not only by fasting, but also by Confession and by the blessing of our homes as we enter Great Lent. Such traditions of the Church are not merely incidental but basic. We can say that fasting is not as important as meeting the requirements of today’s Gospel. But fasting, confession, house blessings as we enter Lent, these are all small things to clean our spiritual home and fill it with the goodness of Christ, in preparation for the larger things and the hosting of others, so as not to leave it empty for the devils.

As part of early spring cleaning for Lent, can we reduce screen time, and come to Vigil and weekday services more often? Can we participate in parish Bible Study and online adult education to encourage others, help develop our parish prison ministry and aid to the poor, help with parish visits to those who are sick and shut-in? As we fast and reduce entertainment expenditures, can we apply savings of time and money to such charity? Can we forego family travel in Lent and devote that time and money to service for Christ, His Church, and our neighbors?

We often feel acutely the need for self-care. But today’s Gospel reminds us that if we find ourselves in Christ, self-care really lies in care for others in the Church, the Body of Christ, not for ourselves, but for God’s glory. As you do it to the least, you do it to Me said Christ. And as not, you neglect Me, He said. For we are made according to the Image of God, Who is Jesus Christ. He is, as the Church teaches us, both fully God and fully man. Living in our heads as the modern world teaches us to do denies the Incarnation of Christ, denies His embodiment. The Evangelist John teaches us, to deny that Christ has come in the flesh is the spirit of Anti-Christ. This is why Meatfare and fasting matter. They remind us of our embodiedness in Christ.

Our patron the Venerable Hierarch John of Shanghai and San Francisco gave a beautiful homily for this Sunday of the Dread Judgment, in which he dwelled largely on this issue of Anti-Christ in relation to the Last Judgement. I think he did so because Lent is a great training ground for us to open our hearts to God’s grace and resist the spirit of Anti-Christ in the world around us today.

St. John our patron said, “No one knows that day; only God the Father knows; but the signs of its approach are given in the Gospel and in the Revelation of the holy Apostle John the Theologian…. He represents the fate of the Church in the image of a woman who, in those times, hides in the wilderness: she does not show herself in public life…. Those forces that are preparing the appearance of Antichrist will have a leading significance in public life. Antichrist will be a man and not the devil incarnate. “Anti” is a word meaning “old,” or it means “in place of” or “against.” That man wants to be in place of Christ, to occupy His place and possess that which Christ ought to possess….He will have a helper, a Magus, who, by the power of false miracles, will fulfill his will and kill those that do not recognize the authority of Antichrist. Before the destruction of Antichrist, two righteous men will appear who will denounce him. The Magus will kill them and their bodies will lie unburied for three days, and Antichrist and all his servants will rejoice exceedingly. Then suddenly, those righteous men will resurrect, and the whole army of Antichrist will be in confusion and horror, and the Antichrist himself will suddenly fall dead, slain by the power of the Spirit…..

“”The mystery is already at work” (cf. II Thess. 2:7), and the forces preparing his appearance struggle above all against lawful royal authority. The holy Apostle Paul says that Antichrist cannot appear until “he that restrains” is removed…. Once having attained the summit of power, Antichrist will demand that men acknowledge his attainment as something to which no other earthly power and no other man could possibly attain…. He will do what pleases men, on the condition that they recognize his Supreme Authority. He will let the Church function, and allow her to hold Divine services, he will promise to build magnificent temples—provided he is recognized as the “Supreme Being” and that he is worshipped. He will have a personal hatred for Christ. He will live by this hatred and will rejoice at seeing men apostatize from Christ and the Church. There will be a mass falling away from the faith; even many bishops will betray the faith, justifying themselves by pointing to the splendid position of the Church….Men will cleverly justify their fall, and an endearing evil will support such a general disposition. Men will grow accustomed to apostasy from the truth and to the sweetness of compromise and sin….

“…all who worship [Antichrist] will have a mark on their forehead and right hand. It is not clear whether this will be an actual mark on the body, or if this is a figurative expression of the fact that men will acknowledge in their minds the necessity of worshipping Antichrist, as well as submit their wills to him….then the two righteous men [already] mentioned will appear and will fearlessly preach the faith and expose Antichrist… two “lamps,” … “burning olive trees,”…  Antichrist will kill them by the power of the Magus. Who are these men? According to Church tradition, these are the two righteous who never tasted of death: the Prophet Elias and the Prophet Enoch. There is a prophecy that these saints, who had not tasted of death, will taste it for three days; but after three days they will resurrect. Their death will be a great joy for Antichrist and his servants. Their rising three days later will bring them unspeakable horror, terror and confusion. And then will come the end….
“All the elements will melt….In an instant everything will change. And the sign of the Son of God will appear, that is, the sign of the Cross. The whole world, having willingly submitted to Antichrist, “will break out in lamentation,” … Antichrist is slain… The end, and accountability for one’s whole life, an account to the True God.

“Then, from the mountains of Palestine, the Ark of the Covenant will appear. The Prophet Jeremiah hid the Ark and the Holy Fire in a deep well. When they took water from that well, it burst into flame….. Everything will be changed, suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye. The dead will resurrect in new bodies — their own, but renewed — just as the Saviour arose in His Body, and on it were the traces of the wounds from the nails and the spear; but it possessed new properties, and in this respect it was a new body. It is unclear whether this will be an altogether new body or that with which man was created. And the Lord will appear on the clouds with glory. How will we see Him? With our spiritual eyes. Even now, at death, righteous people see that which other people around them do not see. The trumpets will sound, loud and powerful. They will trumpet in men’s souls, in their conscience…. The Prophet Daniel, speaking of the Dread Judgment, relates how the Ancient of Days, the judge, is on His throne, and before Him is a river of fire…. if sin has become natural to a man, then it burns up the man himself as well. That fire will flare up inside a man: on seeing the Cross, some will rejoice, while others will fall into despair, confusion, terror…. In the Gospel narrative, some stand to the right of the Judge, some to the left — their inner consciousness separated them. The very state of a man’s soul casts him to one side or the other, to the right or to the left…. if [the soul] has not repented of that sin and has not become free of it, it will come to the Dread Judgment with the same desire for the sweetness of sin and will never satisfy its desire. In it will be the suffering of hatred and malice. This is the state of hell…the inner fire; this is the flame of vice, the flame of weakness and malice; and there will be [the] wailing and gnashing of teeth of impotent malice.”

So St. John teaches us for this day.

Brothers and sisters, as we go forth today after partaking of the Body and Blood of our Lord, and feast for Meatfare afterward, as we prepare for Great Lent, let us remember the antidote for Anti-Christ in today’s Gospel: As much as you did unto the least of these, you did to Me, says our Lord. Let us look up to the icon of the Dread Judgment above the west door as we exit outside today. On it, in a central place above all the upheaval, is our Lord Jesus. May He have mercy on us, for He is a good God, and the lover of mankind. Amen.