Nowadays, when there is an ongoing struggle between the bearers of true spiritual values and those who are trying to replace them with new-fashioned and sometimes distant from Christian doctrines, prophecies made several centuries ago by the great ascetic and ascetic ─ Rev. Neil the Myrrh-streaming, became especially relevant. His words, born of personal experience of knowledge of God, may help the current generation of people find the right spiritual guidelines.
An orphan from the village of St. Peter
It is known from the life history of the Monk Nile that he was born at the end of the 16th century (the exact date is unknown) in the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula. The village where the house of his parents was ─ pious and deeply pious people, was called Agios Petros tis Kinurias. In Russian, it is usually called simply the village of St. Peter.
Orphaned as a teenager, Neil was brought up by his uncle ─ Hieromonk Macarius, who managed to replenish the lad with the heat of parental love lost by the heat of his heart. Sensitively tracking all the movements of the soul of his pupil, he skillfully directed them to the path of serving God, while helping to enrich his mind with the knowledge that would help him in this difficult field.
The beginning of monastic service
The writings of Hieromonk Macarius were not in vain, and the young man in a short time comprehended not only the grammar of the Greek language, thanks to which he thoroughly studied the books of the Holy Scriptures, but also was imbued with the wisdom of the works of the holy fathers of the church. Having reached the appropriate age, Neil decided to forever reject the joys of the perishable world and devote himself to monastic service.
Fulfilling his intention, he took monastic tonsure and shortly afterwards he was ordained first to be a hierodeacon and then to a hieromonk. Having taken this decisive step, which determined his whole future life, Neil the Myrrh-streaming, together with his venerable uncle, labored in one of the local monasteries, serving the Lord and exhausting the flesh with strict penance.
For the first time on holy mountain
However, the thirst for spiritual deed, which withered their souls, was so great that the life they led within the walls of the monastery could not satisfy her. Both were irresistibly drawn to where the high world found its earthly incarnation. One of such places was Mount Athos, for many centuries, revered as the inheritance of the Most Holy Theotokos, or Her “vertogradom” (vineyard), as she herself had told Saint Nicholas about this. It was there that the pious monks directed their feet.
Arriving on Mount Athos, they first went around the monasteries, hermitages and deserts there, choosing a place that fully met their spiritual needs. Soon the Lord led the monks to the part of the mountain that was unpopulated then and covered with wild vegetation, which was called Holy Stones from ancient times.
Legal aspect of desertification
There, far from a world filled with sin and temptations, they could fully surrender to silence and a prayerful feat. However, before constructing the cells, my uncle and nephew went to the Lavra and asked for the blessings of her abbot, who was responsible, among other things, for the distribution of land between those who sought salvation on the holy mountain.
Seeing the sincerity and purity of the intentions of his petitioners, the abbot generously blessed them, backing up the words with a document on the right to use the land. In turn, Hieromonk Makarius handed him a certain amount of money, as if expressing his deep appreciation and son's humility.
Departure to the Lord hieromonk Makarius
Having thus become the owners of the land, Neil Myrrh-streaming and his companion set about clearing it from the forest, which densely covered the slope of the mountain. God-seeking relatives had to make a lot of work before their cells appeared on the spot where until recently a forest stood by an impassable wall. But perseverance, backed by constant prayer, is known to be able to work true miracles.
Soon after the completion of the work, the Lord called Hieromonk Makarii to His heavenly abode, and his nephew was left alone, becoming his worthy heir and successor to the acquisition of spiritual perfection. He spent long days and nights in prayers, making efforts to finally merge in spiritual union with Heavenly Father. For this, in addition to the internal mood, external factors were also necessary, the first of which was complete isolation from people, but often it was not enough.
Thirst for complete loneliness
The news of a new ascetic fleeing among the forest thickets quickly flew over the Athos monasteries, and monks reached him, full of reverence for the ascetic life of the newcomer, and wishing to share spiritual experience with him. This greatly distracted Neil the Myrrh-streaming from his prayer stay in the High World, and the enemy of the human race sent irritation, the manifestation of which, as you know, is a great sin, and negates many difficulties on the path of spiritual growth.
In order to avoid the diabolical nets and clear his way to salvation, the pious hermit decided to move to another place ─ such where his solitude would not be disturbed by anyone's presence. Leaving the cell barely inhabited, the hermit set off again, and very soon found what he wanted.
On a mountain cooler
It was a completely wild place, representing a small cave, the entrance to which was barely visible among the wild rocks. Its location, as well as the abyss that began a few meters from the entrance to the cave, made the shelter impregnable not only for people but also for wild animals. Just as many Christian saints looked for possible difficulties along the paths of earthly life, overcoming them brought them closer to the gates of paradise, so the Rev. Nile, despising all the dangers, chose a cave as a place for his further stay, more resembling a mountain bird shelter than a human dwelling.
It was in it that he spent the rest of his earthly days, pouring out warm tears of love for God and accomplishing great feats in the fight against evil temptations. Until the last breath, the hermit Athos suffered tightness, hunger, and various other bodily torments, contemplating the heavenly visions and the liquidation of angels. Forever hidden from us a story about how much he had to endure. Only the all-seeing God and the holy Mount Athos know the price that the ascetic paid in this life for the keys to the gates of paradise.
Myrrh-flowing cliffs
Finally, in 1651, the earthly life of the holy hermit came to an end, and the all-merciful Lord called him to His Kingdom of Heaven. The abbot of the Lavra learned about this event from his night vision, and the next morning he sent monks to bury the wounded remains of the holy righteous man. With great difficulty, the brothers climbed the steep slope of the mountain to the shelter, where a lifeless body lay on the stones, and, digging a grave in the cave, made a burial.
The life of Nil Myrrh-bearing, compiled shortly after his canonization, tells that soon after his blissful assumption he was glorified by the Lord, who revealed the miracle of myrrh-streaming from the walls of the cave, which served as his refuge for many years.
Aromatic oily liquid, possessing healing properties, poured so abundantly that, flowing down the mountain slope, rushed to the coastal strip and mixed there with the sea waves. Pilgrims from all over the Orthodox East came to Mount Athos in those days to gather miracles. Since that time, the Rev. Nile was called Myrrh-streaming, and his official canonization soon followed. The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates his memory twice a year: May 7 (20) and June 8 (21).
The gift of vision from God
After spending many years in cave solitude, the holy hermit left behind a rich literary heritage, devoting his prayer-free time to writing ascetic writings. A special place in them is given there to the Divine revelations, which he took as a reward for his asceticism.
As was often the case in the history of Christianity, the Lord sent His faithful slave a great gift of insight, which allowed him to capture with his inner eyes the pictures of a future life prepared for people. Many of them served as the basis for writing the famous prophecies of the Nile Myrrh-streaming.
But Mount Athos made his main prophecies, more than a century and a half after his death. In the period from 1813-1819. he repeatedly appeared in night vision to the pious Svyatogorsky monk Theophanes, who each time, having risen in the morning, conscientiously recorded what he heard. So the possession of the Orthodox world was a collection of prophecies, repeatedly published in a separate book, and called the “Posthumous Broadcasts of the Nile Myrrh-streaming”.
About the intercession of the Queen of Heaven
Among them are given, in particular, the saint’s statements that those times are close, about which the Lord spoke that, having come to the world, he may not find believers in it. But even in such disastrous times, the Monk Nile proclaimed to all those seeking the salvation of the soul about the inexhaustible power of the Protection, extending over the world to the Most Holy Theotokos.
The key to salvation, according to him, was the miraculous Iveron image of the Queen of Heaven, stored on Mount Athos. The Monk Nile commanded the brethren not to leave the holy mountain until this icon was with them. If, for whatever reason, she leaves the Lavra, then all pious monks must immediately leave her. Unfortunately, the life of modern society has largely become a confirmation of what the prophecies of the Neil Myrrh-streaming contain.
"Antichrist is closer than ever"
The Athos ascetic opens in great detail to us the time of appearance in the world of Antichrist and reports on those social phenomena that will precede his arrival. He devotes a significant place in his prophecies to the description of anarchy, which will be destined to embrace the world in its last times, about the general depravity that has supplanted the good beginnings of morality from human hearts, as well as the bitterness that will bring people the adoption of the antichrist press.
The Forerunners of Antichrist
One of the monk’s most important thoughts is the assertion that the forerunner of the appearance of the Antichrist on earth will be the love of money and the thirst for carnal pleasures, which overwhelmed the hearts of people and supplanted any desire for acquiring eternal life from them.
Rev. Nil the Myrrh-streaming in his reasoning reminds descendants of the appearance on the banks of the Jordan of the Forerunner of the Lord John the Baptist, who for many years exhausted the flesh in the desert and rejected all earthly joys before announcing to people the closeness of the One who would take them from the hands of eternal death.
Following this, he paints a picture of how greed and voluptuousness conquer the world, being the forerunners of the Antichrist and thereby creating the ground for the rejection of the Law of God and the denial of the Savior. But even in this case, according to the saint, not everyone will die, but only those who voluntarily submit to the power of the antitype (by this term he means everything that precedes the appearance of the Antichrist).
The son of the progenitor of lies
Having appeared in the world, the Antichrist will begin to show people all sorts of signs and wonders, striking their imagination, forcing them to believe in their divinity. Outwardly, this enemy of the human race will be like a meek and humble lamb, but its inner essence is a predatory wolf, hungry for blood. His food will be the spiritual death of people who have preferred the passions of this world and have closed for themselves the gates of the Kingdom of God.
At the end of the world, vices such as oblivion of faith, covetousness, envy, condemnation, enmity, hatred, adultery, praise of fornication, virility, and a whole series of sinful aspirations of mutilated human souls similar to them, reached a special scope. All this evil will become a life-giving food, giving the Antichrist new strength.
In contrast to how Jesus Christ appeared in the world to do the will of God the Father who sent Him, so the Antichrist will be on earth to fulfill the will of his father, which, of course, is the devil. From him, the progenitor of lies, he will perceive the ability to overshadow people's eyes by deceiving his flattering words. This will ultimately lead him to the pinnacle of earthly power, and will make it possible to rule humanity, or rather, that part of it that will succumb to his cunning inventions. Being on the verge of perdition, they will naively believe that Christ the Savior leads them forward.
Prediction of the future Russian tragedy
A lot of the predictions of the Nile of Athos (as he is often called in church literature) comes true today, and gives us the opportunity to see firsthand the truth of his statements. It is enough to give only such a very characteristic example.
At the end of October 1817, during one of his nightly appearances, the saint Monk Feofanu said that four twenty-five years had passed, and monasticism would run out in a significant part of the Orthodox world. In those days, contemporaries could not in any way imagine how accurately the events that followed exactly a century later in Russia, swept over by the fire of the Bolshevik coup, were foreshadowed.
There are many similar examples. All of them illustrate insight - a great gift of God, acquired for the deeds that are described in detail in the life of the Nile of Myrrh-streaming, and have been passed from mouth to mouth for many generations.