A prophecy accredited to St. Neilos, an ascetic of Mount Athos who lived six hundred years ago, tells about the coming of Antichrist and the people who will live in the final days:
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Around 1900, the world begins to be unrecognizable. When the time draws near for the approach of the Antichrist, man's mind will be in darkness because of the passions of the flesh, and both disrespect and lawlessness will increase. Then we will not recognize the world. The appearances of people will change, and one will not be able to tell the difference between men and women because of their shameful way of dressing and their hairstyles. People will be deceived by Antichrist, and they will be worse than wild beasts. Parents will not be respected, nor will the elderly. Love will disappear. Christian leaders, archpriests and priests will be vain men (with only a few exceptions), totally ignorant of what is right and wrong, and then all tradition of the Church and of the Christian people will change.
Piety will not exist among men, only licentiousness will prevail. Lies and love of money will increase to the utmost, and woe to those who gather wealth. Prostitution, adultery, homosexual sins, thefts and murders will be at the highest level. Men will be deprived of the grace of the Holy Spirit received in baptism, and will lose the remorse of conscience.
There will be no pious leaders of the Church, and how sad for those Christians living during this time, who will lose their faith completely, for there will be no one to guide them. Then they will leave the world to go to holy places to seek spiritual comfort for their sorrows, and everywhere there will difficulties and discomforts.
And all these things will take place because Antichrist will control the whole world, giving false signs to deceive everyone. Satan will give such perverted wisdom for the invention of things that people will be able to speak to each other from one end of the earth to the other. Also men will fly like birds in the air and travel under the water like fish.
With these things, men will abide in comfort without realizing that Antichrist is misleading them, making them think that because they have scientific knowledge, they do not need to believe in God the Holy Trinity.
At that time the all-merciful God, seeing the destruction of the human race, will cut time short in order to save the few who remain, whom Antichrist has not managed to mislead. And suddenly the two-edged sword will fall, to kill the deceiver and his followers.