Satanism in the Broader Sense
Satanism in the broader sense entails the unconscious, unintentional, and indirect service of the Devil. In this case, the worship of Satan, bowing down before Satan, and preaching Satan—whether as a real spiritual being or as a metaphor—are absent; nevertheless, service to him remains, whether active or passive, in accordance with Christ’s words: “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters” (Luke 11:23).
“The true words of our Saviour Jesus Christ are: ‘He who is not with Me is against Me’ (Matt. 12:30). Catholics, Lutherans, and Protestants have fallen away from the Church of Christ. They are not with us; they are not of one mind with us; they are hostile towards us; they persecute us unto death; they mistreat us in every way because of our faith; they ridicule both our faith and us, and cause us every kind of harm, particularly in their centres. They openly oppose Christ and His Church; they do not venerate the Life-Giving Cross, the icons, or the holy relics; nor do they observe the fasts and the sacred dogmas of the saving faith. They are not with us, but against us and against Christ. Turn them, O Lord, towards Thy true Church and save them,” writes Saint John of Kronstadt.
“The principal force of the Antichrist’s warfare against Christ will be directed against His divine-human Body—the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church—and against the Triune Divinity within it. For the struggle against the Church is, in fact, a struggle against the Holy Trinity on earth,” writes the Venerable Justin of Ćelije. One form of the struggle against the Church is the fomenting of schism. Rome’s falling away from the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church is the greatest schism in the history of the Church and has had the gravest consequences, but it is not the only one. Among the schisms that concern us most directly, we may mention that of Artemije, the former Bishop of Raška and Prizren.
If Saint John of Kronstadt writes the foregoing about schismatics and heretics in connection with the words, “He who is not with Me is against Me” (Matt. 12:30), then these words apply all the more to the children of the Devil (John 8:44) and the servants of Satan, such as fortune-tellers, sorcerers, astrologers, occultists, neo-pagans, and adherents of political ideologies such as communism, National Socialism, neoliberal ideology, gender ideology, the ideology of homosexuality, feminist ideology, and others.
In the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament, we find the following commandments: “Do not turn to mediums or fortune-tellers, nor seek them out, lest you be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God” (Lev. 19:31). In addition, it is written: “You shall not practise sorcery or divination by times” (Lev. 19:26). Likewise: “There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through the fire, or one who practises witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives these nations out before you” (Deut. 18:10–12).
Anyone who turns to fortune-tellers, sorcerers, and astrologers turns to the servants of the Devil, who perform their service in cooperation with demons, instead of turning to the Lord God. “I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord’s table and the table of demons” (1 Cor. 10:20–21), it is said in the Gospel.
We have already mentioned Simon Magus as one of the precursors of the principal Antichrist. The Acts of the Apostles states concerning him: “But there was a certain man called Simon, who previously practised sorcery in the city and astonished the people of Samaria, claiming that he was someone great” (Acts 8:9).
We have written about fortune-tellers, sorcerers, and astrologers in the text entitled “Susceptibility to Superstition and Magic”; those interested in further details are therefore referred to that work.
“Magic and occultism constitute a voluntary quest for union with the prince of hell; they are a pact between Satan and man, concluded against God. Through diagrams, mantras, incantations, and astrological charts, the occultist attempts to rule over the spiritual world and subject it to himself. In reality, however, after turning to a demon, the occultist resembles a child who wishes to ride upon a tiger’s back but ultimately finds himself between its jaws. At first, a person is voluntarily drawn to occultism; then, as though bewitched, he enters the sphere of demonic powers, which draw him in like a swamp. Only a few succeed in freeing themselves from this living mire; the majority comprehend their catastrophe only at the hour of death, when the imaginary ‘angel’ casts aside the mask of a helper and the person beholds his murderer—the demon. Magic is an act of bribery for which a person pays with his immortality,” writes Archimandrite Raphael Karelin.
Nor shall we attempt to be exhaustive when discussing political ideologies; instead, we shall only briefly indicate their anti-Christian character. When it comes to communism and National Socialism, we believe that, given the passage of time, all the essential facts are well known to the interested public.
“It is known to everyone that communism emerged openly in history as the sworn and bitter enemy of Christianity. Communism denies every religion. In fact, it is itself a religion—the most fanatical that has ever existed in the world, the most intolerant, and the darkest. Christianity is a religion that leads towards Heaven; communism is a religion that leads to hell. Christianity preaches love for all; communism preaches class hatred and the destruction of those who disagree. Christianity is an exalted religion founded upon faith in the triumph of Truth and the Love of God. Communism is a religion whose aim is the creation of an earthly ‘paradise’—a paradise of animal satiation and spiritual barbarism,” writes Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky) about communism in Moral Theology.
One of the key elements of the ideology of National Socialism, or Nazism, is racism—particularly antisemitism—which the Nazis used to justify genocide. We have written more extensively about the connection between National Socialism and neo-paganism in the study entitled “Racism, Pseudo-History, and Neo-Paganism”; interested readers are therefore referred to that work.
In connection with Saint Justin of Ćelije’s words that there have been three principal falls in the history of the human race—the fall of Adam, the fall of Judas, and the fall of the Pope—we may say that the fall of the proponents of neoliberalism, the ideology of homosexuality, feminist ideology, and gender ideology constitutes the fourth great fall in human history, bearing in mind their interconnectedness. Admittedly, differing opinions are possible in this regard; thus, the theory of evolution might perhaps be identified as the fourth great fall, and the aforementioned ideologies as the fifth.
The theory of evolution plays an important role in the humanist revolt against God, for it denies both the creation of man by God (Gen. 1:27) and the authority granted to him to rule over the earth and exercise dominion over everything created upon it: “over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living creature that moves upon the earth” (Gen. 1:28). “In the universe as Darwin conceived it—and even more conspicuously in Darwinism—every conceivable force and factor is present except God, spirit, and morality,” writes Saint Nikolai of Ohrid and Žiča.
When it comes to neoliberalism, the ideology of homosexuality, feminism, and gender ideology, their character may be indicated most concisely by the following words from the Dogmatics of Saint Justin of Ćelije: “The entire activity of the Antichrist and all his precursors within the human race has a single aim: to declare all the laws of God, all the laws of Christ, to be evil, dangerous, and destructive to human beings and to the human race. They must therefore be rejected and replaced with other laws of opposite content and meaning: Christ must be replaced with the Antichrist, and all His laws with the laws of the Antichrist.”
“God is the Creator and Holy King, perfect Consciousness and perfect Conscience. Therefore, the authority and jurisdiction of God as Lawgiver are beyond dispute and comparison. Human beings as legislators—so-called legislators—either proclaim the law received from God or paraphrase it, dividing and elaborating it for application to the more or less complex circumstances and conditions of life. Naturally, wherever there is freedom, there is also abuse. Human beings have frequently abused both the Law of God and their own legislative authority. They have imposed their own personal and selfish laws, thereby offending God and demeaning their neighbours. Such abuses of legislative authority have been perpetrated by individual rulers, conquerors, oligarchic groups, or political parties. God did not bless these abuses of law and legislation, but He permitted them so that human freedom might be preserved and human wickedness revealed,” writes Saint Bishop Nikolai of Ohrid and Žiča in Nomology.
The proponents of neoliberal and gender ideology, feminist ideology, and the ideology of homosexuality continue to divide and elaborate laws directed against God. The Big Bang theory denies God as the Creator of the universe and of the Earth itself; the theory of evolution specifically denies God as the Creator of living nature and humanity; while gender ideology challenges God as the Creator of man and woman. Feminist ideology and the ideology of homosexuality reject God as Lawgiver and seek to impose new laws directed against God.
Let us recall the words from the Book of Genesis concerning the creation of man: “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Gen. 1:27). What, however, do the proponents of gender ideology say? They claim that there are not only male and female sexes, but also a range of gender categories, with each individual deciding which of these categories to identify with. The number of gender categories is not finite, because each individual not only selects a category but also creates one, on the basis of various subjective factors.
We cannot but relate the fact that gender ideology offers every person—and forcibly imposes upon them!—the choice of a gender category to the serpent’s words addressed to Eve, according to which she and Adam would become like gods (Gen. 3:4–5). What do the creators of gender ideology offer to human beings? They offer them the opportunity to reject the fact that God created man and woman, and to choose or invent a gender category—that is, a gender identity—for themselves, thereby becoming like gods. This illusion that they are creating something new beyond the male and female sexes, despite the primary and secondary sexual characteristics that unequivocally indicate that this is a delusion, reveals the extent to which their minds have been darkened. At the same time, it once again confirms that the serpent is “more cunning than any beast of the field” (Gen. 3:1).
By demanding equality for women, the proponents of feminist ideology challenge the words of the Creator and Lawgiver addressed to woman: “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Gen. 3:16). We also find this commandment in the New Testament: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, just as Christ is the Head of the Church; and He is the Saviour of the body. Therefore, just as the Church is subject to Christ, so let wives be subject to their own husbands in everything,” says the Holy Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians (Eph. 5:22–24).
By accepting the ideas of feminist ideology, the Sixth Commandment of God, which prohibits murder, is rejected, since the proponents of this ideology advocate a woman’s right to infanticide. Moreover, the proponents of feminist ideology state that “abortion is a key component” (emphasis ours, D.M.) “in achieving equality” between men and women.
Let us recall at this point that The Satanic Temple has designated Lupercalia, observed on 15 February, as one of its holidays, describing it as “a celebration of bodily autonomy, sexual liberation, and reproduction”. As we have already noted, “bodily autonomy” is understood to mean the right to abortion—that is, the right to infanticide.
Furthermore, feminist ideology also supports human trafficking in the form of so-called surrogate motherhood.
When it comes to the ideology of homosexuality, its proponents deny both the order established by God and God as Lawgiver, through sexual immorality with persons of the same sex—between men and between women—as well as through unions for which they attempt to appropriate the word “marriage”.
We have seen that the opening ceremony of the Satanist conference SatanCon also included the tearing apart of the Bible “as a symbol of oppression, particularly the oppression of the LGBT community”.
By adopting the ideology of homosexuality, the commandment of God concerning procreation—which is possible only within the marital union of a man and a woman—is also rejected. “Then God blessed them, and God said to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth’” (Gen. 1:28).
In order to create the appearance of a family, homosexuals make use of so-called “surrogate motherhood” (men), the donation or purchase of male reproductive cells (women), or the adoption of children.
The proponents of the ideology of homosexuality also reject the commandment concerning the honouring of one’s parents: “Honour your father and your mother, that it may be well with you and that you may live long upon the earth.” Since homosexual unions consist of persons of the same sex, the words mother and father are abolished and replaced with the terms Parent 1 and Parent 2.
This is one of the areas in which the ideology of homosexuality and neoliberal ideology, understood as market fundamentalism, converge: male and female reproductive cells and children become commodities, while pregnancy and childbirth become services.
When it comes to the ideology of neoliberalism, we must bear in mind—in connection with the fact that Satan transforms himself even into an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14)—that the concept of “tolerance”, as one of the key concepts of this ideology, and the Christian concept of “love” are not only different, but entirely opposed to one another.
Christian love entails love for God, which, in the broadest sense, also means love for and observance of God’s laws, as well as love for one’s neighbour. At the same time, love for God’s laws entails hatred of evil and the struggle against evil—that is, sin: “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword” (Matt. 10:34).
Tolerance, on the other hand, entails precisely the opposite: tolerating sin and evil—that is, becoming reconciled to sin and evil and accepting them.
We emphasise this because we are being called upon to show tolerance towards the most diverse sins imposed upon us by the ideologies of neoliberalism, homosexuality, gender, and feminism, frequently under the guise of state laws.
“It is natural for man to be angry with the Devil, who sets his cunning snares. The natural power of the mind is hatred of evil,” says Saint Joseph of Vatopaidi. In this case, the Devil sets before us tolerance towards evil, presenting it as the highest degree of love for humanity.
Let us recall once again the information found on the website of The Satanic Temple: for a film to be characterised as Satanic, it does not require any overt depiction of the Devil or demons. By analogy, for an idea to be characterised as hostile to Christ, it does not need to contain any mention of Satan or demons, much less appear in the form of the open worship of the Antichrist.
One of the principal rules for recognising a particular idea or phenomenon as anti-Christian and Satanist is: “You will know them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:16).
When it comes to neo-paganism, it is not even necessary to refer to the works of Orthodox theologians; it is sufficient to examine the definition of paganism found on the website of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “Neo-paganism is a broad and diverse contemporary religious movement rooted in traditional magic, shamanism, mythology, and Satanism. (…) Adherents of neo-paganism do not wish to imitate the pagans of prehistoric times; rather, relying upon archaic concepts—above all, belief in the omnipotence of occult forces and energies—they seek to resolve the pressing questions of their existence and determine their future. Neo-paganism is diverse and encompasses, in addition to mystical healing cults, sacred and mythological utopias, and even Satanic ‘churches’,” the aforementioned webpage states, among other things, concerning neo-paganism.
Dimitrije Marković
