Eschatological war : Russia and the West

Eschatology is one of the fundamental dimensions of contemporary world geopolitics. A geopolitologist can no longer exclude the eschatological aspect of international relations from his analyses, since the leaders of the two largest nuclear powers in the world place the « Apocalypse », the « martyr » leading to « paradise », « Satan » and the « Antichrist » at the heart of their discourse.

American leaders have accustomed us to theological-political and messianic rhetoric referring to the end times. It is an integral part of the genesis and political history of the United States.

But what is new – since the Washington-led Euromaidan revolution in 2014 and even more so with the war in Ukraine as a consequence – is the eschatological tilt in the discourse of Russia’s highest leaders.

We have reached an unprecedented stage in history where the two greatest military and nuclear powers, confronting each other on the geopolitical chessboard, hold a religious discourse accusing each other of embodying evil, with the explicit threat of mutual nuclear destruction.

The present study aims to distinguish the eschatological role and the theological-political nature of each of these two protagonists of world geopolitics. To do so, we will use the tools of religious science, the history of religions, and of course eschatology, combined with an analysis of the historical evolution of these great powers and those of which they are the heirs.

Clash of civilizations

Christian Russia facing antichristic progressivism

The disruption of international law and the demonization of the enemy

Since the dismantling of the modern State, the sovereign state, which the legal theorist Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) perceived as early as the 1920s, international law and the legal framework of war have been turned upside down. Modern European law theoretically placed the two belligerents on an equal footing ; however, under the influence of the unequal Anglo-American powers, we entered, in the 20th century, the era of the criminalization of the enemy, of his demonization. The enemy is thus excluded from humanity.

« The Versailles peace (which was less a peace than a pillorying) was, on the contrary, as a result of the sanction war, where the enemy, declared aggressor, falls to the rank of criminal… The sanction war, by definition « just », is thus the essence of civil war. By wanting to introduce it between sovereign States, we transform their armed conflicts into international civil wars. The confusion that began at Versailles culminated three decades later in the ‘crimes against peace’ of the Nuremberg trials, which gave the coup de grâce to the European conception of duel warfare. »[1]  (Peter Haggenmacher)

This brought us back to the medieval concept of just war. In Europe, the Roman Church was the supreme authority that could decide whether a war was just or not. This authority having disappeared, it is the UN, whose headquarters are in New York, which has replaced the Church. The authority of the UN is not exercised over the United States, nor over Israel, the main perpetrators of chaos in the world, so planet earth has been transformed into the Wild West, where the law of the jungle reigns, the law of the strongest, the law of the Anglo-Americans, the Judeo-Protestants.

In 1947, Carl Schmitt perceived the danger presented by the modern means of destruction in the possession of the United States. War, he explained, will incite the belligerent in possession of superior armaments to demonize his enemy, to deprive him of the status of enemy, to see him only as a monster to be eliminated.[2]

Since then, we have seen the Americans destroy entire countries, massacre civilian populations by the millions, invoking the fight for freedom, against the Axis of Evil, etc.

Meanwhile, Russia has rebuilt itself and has become, in Syria, as in Europe, a wall against Anglo-American and Israeli imperial ambitions.

This is an indisputable fact of which we are going to deliver a historical-political-eschatological interpretation by telescoping the Jewish, Christian and Muslim texts relating to the end times.

Eschatology and Messianism: American Geopolitics

If we study the history of civilizations in contemporary times, namely the 19th and 20th centuries, we can conclude that the current confrontation between Russia and the West is a clash of civilizations. A clash between modernism and tradition. Modernism being represented and led by the West with its avant-garde head, first the British Empire and then the United States.

For the sake of rigor, we must distinguish continental Europe and the Anglo-American thalassocratic world. Today, the West is equated with the ideological fabrication of Judeo-Christianity, which refers much more to the Anglo-Saxon world than to Latin and Germanic Europe.

What is called today « the West » is not only an ideological construction, but a political one, namely the European Union and its geostrategic counterpart, the armed wing of the United States, NATO. This West was subverted by the Protestant Reformation and England, which experienced an economic and geopolitical expansion driven forward by a Judeo-Protestant messianism, which accompanied and followed the revolution of Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658).

The Anglo-American empire is thus this ideological, political and geopolitical ensemble that has gradually absorbed the Old Catholic, Greco-Latin and Germanic continent, and which, at the turn of the 20th century, can no longer be called Christian. Materialistic modernism and the revolutions coming from the matrix of Judeo-Protestant messianism that promoted it have invaded and gradually disintegrated Catholic Europe.

The geopolitical manifestation of the confrontation between tradition and modernism was described by the British historian Arnold J. Toynbee in 1947:

« This concentric attack launched by the modern West against the world of Islam inaugurated the present conflict between the two civilizations.

It will be seen that it is part of an even larger and more ambitious movement by which Western civilization aims at nothing less than the incorporation of all mankind into one great society, and the control of all that, on land, sea and air, mankind can exploit by modern Western technology.

What the West is doing to Islam, it is doing at the same time to the other surviving civilizations – Orthodox Christians, Indians, the Far East – and to the surviving primitive societies which are now in a state of collapse, even in their final remnants in tropical Africa. »[3]

This movement to incorporate the whole of humanity into one great society is accompanied by another movement to integrate all traditional religions into one[4] within the framework of the United Nations of Religions, Congress Of The Leaders of World and Traditional Religions[5]. The statement in 2012 by the representative of Judaism at the World Congress of Religions, Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel Yona Metsger, is explicit:

« My dream is to build something similar to what the United Nations is for diplomats, it would be to unify the religious, the dignitaries of every nation, of every country, including those who do not have a diplomatic relationship. »[6]

Since the end of the Second World War, it is the United States that has taken over in Great Britain as the driving power of Judeo-Protestant modernism that is waging this war of civilizations to impose its model on the world.

This Anglo-American imperialism is the product of Old Testament messianism; the fusion of Jewish messianism and Calvinism. This explains why the British and Americans support the Zionist project, which is one branch of Jewish messianism that seeks to fulfill the biblical promises.[7]

In the 1530s, England began a religious reform: closing of monasteries, confiscation of church property and a break with Rome. Thomas Cromwell (an uncle of Oliver Cromwell’s ancestor), King Henry VIII’s chief minister, led this policy. In the second half of the sixteenth century, England became a maritime power and the influence of Judaism grew.

The fusion between Judaism and the nascent Protestant thalassocratic empire took place and constituted, along with America, the antichristic geopolitical power.

« It was once believed that between the expulsion of the Jews under Edward I (1290) and the return (more or less officially) to freedom of immigration under Cromwell (1654-1656) there were no Jews in England. This view is no longer shared today by anyone familiar with the history of the Jews in England. There have always been Jews in this country, but they became very numerous during the sixteenth century. (Queen) Elizabeth herself had a certain preference for Hebrew studies and for a Jewish entourage. Her physician was Rodrigo Lopez, the Jew who provided Shakespeare the model for his Shylock. »[8]

« It is well known that at the time of the Reformation there was an intimate relationship between Judaism and certain Christian sects, and that the Hebrew language and Judaic studies were the subject of great interest. It is particularly well known that in seventeenth century England the Puritans surrounded the Jews with an almost fanatical cult. Not only were the religious views of such influential figures as Oliver Cromwell inspired throughout by the Old Testament, but Cromwell himself dreamed of a reconciliation between the Old Testament and the New and of an intimate union between the Jews, God’s chosen people, and the Anglo-Puritan religious community. A Puritan preacher, Nathanael Holmes (Homesius) declared that his most ardent desire was to conform to the letter of certain verses of the Prophets and to serve Israel on his knees. Public life and church sermons had an Israelite stamp. The only thing missing was that parliamentary orators began to speak Hebrew, which made them feel as if they had been transplanted to Palestine. The Levellers, who called themselves « Jews », demanded the promulgation of a law making the Torah an English code; Cromwell’s officers proposed that his Council of State be composed of seventy members, following the example of the Jewish Synhedrim (Sanhedrin); among the members of the Parliament of 1653 was General Thomas Harrison, an Anabaptist, who, in agreement with his party advocated the introduction of the Mosaic law in England; in 1649, it was proposed to Parliament to replace the holiday of Sunday with Saturday; the banners of the victorious Puritans bore the inscription:  »The Lion of Judah.  »[9]

But there is also evidence that Christian clergy and laity of this period read not only the Old Testament, but also rabbinic literature. It is therefore quite natural to admit that the Puritan doctrines came directly from Jewish doctrines. »[10] (Werner Sombart)

In the early seventeenth century, English Protestant theologians began to advocate the idea of resettling Jews in the Holy Land in order to hasten the return of Jesus and thus convert the Jews to Christianity. Among the Protestant theologians who promoted this project were Joseph Mede (1586-1635), Richard Baxter (1615-1691) and an English parliamentarian, Sir Henry Finch (1558-1625), who wrote a work of exegesis in which he « predicted » the return of the Jews to the Holy Land: The World’s Great Restoration, or the Calling of the Jews.

This originally Jewish messianic vision, which became Protestant, was to take root in America, colonized by the English Pilgrim Fathers (1620), who considered themselves the new chosen people, America as the new Promised Land, the land of the world’s origins, where they were to build a « New Jerusalem ».

« Most often, the Atlantic is compared to the Red Sea, the emigration of the English sects is identified with the flight of the Hebrews. The comparison was indeed useful : the Red Sea which closes after the passage of the fugitives is a definitive barrier between the chosen people and their oppressors; but also the crossing of the Red Sea belongs to providential history. »[11]

The Pilgrim Fathers saw America as a new Promised Land, a new Jerusalem, and then in the 19th century, in the 1840s, the messianic idea of « manifest destiny » appeared, the civilizational expansion towards the West – the colonization of the West of America by the Anglo-Saxons from the East – and in the 20th century the « manifest destiny » of the United States will concern the whole world. It is a universal messianic imperialism.

Theodore Roosevelt, who presided over the United States from 1901 to 1909, used the concept of manifest destiny to justify American imperialism.

Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) was also part of this messianic tradition, stating: 

« I believe that God presided over the birth of this nation and that we are chosen to lead the way for the nations of the world in their march along the paths of freedom. »[12]

« America is the only ideal nation in the world… America has been given the infinite privilege of fulfilling its destiny and saving the world…We have come to redeem the world by giving it freedom and justice. »[13]

In the continuity of the idea of a new chosen people, in the middle of the 20th century the doctrine of « American Exceptionalism » emerged, promoted in particular by the influential sociologist Talcott Parsons (1902-1979).

President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) was influenced by the evangelical millenarian and Christian Zionist writer Harold Lee Lindsey (born 1929). His theopolitical book, The Late Great Planet Earth (1971, with a circulation of four million copies) was President Reagan’s bedside book.

Lindsay writes in his book: « The essential event that many Bible readers of the past have failed to consider is this momentous prophetic sign: Israel must once again form a nation in the land of his ancestors. The nation of Israel, a dream for so many years, became a reality on May 14, 1948, when David Ben Gurion read the Declaration of Independence which announced the founding of a Jewish nation under the name of Israel. »[14]

Interpreting the prophecies of Ezekiel and Joel about the northern power that is to attack Israel at the end of time, Harold Lindsey, like many rabbis, deduced that it was Russia:

« Gog from the land of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, refers to the power that lies at the ends of the north. You only have to look at a globe to verify the accuracy of this geographical inclination. There is only one nation that is at the northernmost extremities as seen from Israel: the USSR. »[15]

James Watt, Secretary of the Environment under Ronald Reagan declared that it was useless to worry about ecology since Christ would soon return to earth.

« In the same way, the representation of Saddam Hussein as the Antichrist at the time of the first Gulf War is not unrelated to the permanence of a millenarian imaginary in America’s Middle East policy. More generally, the presence of the religious within politics is proving to be more and more decisive. »[16] (Pascal Bouvier)

In 2003, when George W. Bush’s United States was preparing to bomb Iraq under the influence of the pro-Israeli lobby[17], the American president tried to convince French President Jacques Chirac that this was the war of Gog and Magog.

« In 2003, Thomas Römer, professor of theology at the University of Lausanne, received a phone call from the Elysée Palace. Jacques Chirac’s advisors wanted to know more about Gog and Magog… Two mysterious names that were uttered by George W. Bush while he was trying to convince France to join him in war in Iraq. An apocalyptic prophecy, Bush is said to have told Chirac that Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East, and that biblical prophecies were being fulfilled. This was a few weeks before the intervention in Iraq. Thomas Römer explains: Gog and Magog are two creatures that appear in Genesis, and especially in two of the most obscure chapters of the « Book of Ezekiel » of the Old Testament. Apocalyptic prophecy of a world army waging final battle against Israel. »

« This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to take advantage of this conflict to wipe out the enemies of his people, before a new age begins »,  continues Thomas Römer.

And Römer points out that George W. Bush is not the first to seek an incarnation of Gog and Magog on earth. Ronald Reagan believed that the Cold War and the existence of the atomic bomb made Ezekiel’s prophecy possible.[18]

More recently, Mike Pompeo, an evangelical Zionist protestant and secretary of state in the Trump administration, said that « I think it’s certainly possible » that Trump is the modern-day Queen Esther.[19]

The eschatological shift in the discourse of Russian leaders

Vladimir Putin and the visible top leaders of the Russian State are rational, cold and pragmatic ; pragmatism that is manifested as much in their speeches as in the realistic foreign policy of Russia. There is no sign of religious or ideological fanaticism in their behavior or their vision of international relations.

But it is clear that in the face of Western aggressiveness, geopolitical irrationality – not to say messianic fanaticism – and the evolution of Western societies, which, from Moscow’s point of view, is a complete degeneration and decadence, Russian leaders have been adopting a discourse with increasingly religious overtones for several years. It is a kind of dialectic: the Judeo-Protestant empire, which will henceforth be called « antichristic », is forcing the Russian leaders to reaffirm their Christianity.

On March 25, 2017, Vladimir Putin pointed to LGBTism, an avatar of Satanism that has taken over the West:

« We can see that many Western European States have taken the path of rejecting or denying their own roots. Including their Christian roots, which are the basis of Western civilization. In these countries, traditional morals and identity have been denied. National, religious, cultural and even gender identities have been denied or relativized.

There, policies treat a family with many children legally in the same way as a homosexual couple.

Having faith in God is equivalent to having faith in Satan.»[20]

At the 15th annual meeting of the Valdai Club (October 15-18, 2018), Vladimir Putin, who attended on October 18, spoke about a possible nuclear war, which he concluded with a sentence giving the future world war a religious dimension:

« Our doctrine does not provide for the use of nuclear weapons through a preventive strike, but in response to an enemy strike… Only if we are convinced that a potential aggressor has launched an attack on Russia…

The aggressor must be aware that revenge will be imminent and that he will be destroyed in any case…

We, as victims of aggression, will go to Paradise as martyrs, while they will simply die, without even having had time to repent. »

Last June, former President of the Russian Federation (2008-2012), former President of the Russian government (2012-2020), Dmitry Medvedev, who is currently Vice President of the Russian Security Council, made apocalyptic remarks in an interview with the Al-Jazeera TV channel :

« It’s not a forecast, but it’s what’s happening. You can look at it in different ways. You can say that the horsemen of the Apocalypse are coming at a gallop. And we have to trust in Almighty God. »[21]

The four horsemen of the Apocalypse are mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and in the book of Revelation of John (New Testament).

The book of the prophet Ezekiel describes them as four punishments:

« For thus saith the Lord God: How much more when I send My four sore judgments against Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the evil beasts, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast. » (Ezekiel, 14:21)

In the book of Revelation of John (6:1-7), are described:

– A white horse, « he who sat on it had a bow; a crown was given to him, and he went forth conquering and to conquer. » ;

– A red horse, « he that sat on him was given power to take away the peace of the earth, that men might slay one another; and a great sword was given to him » ;

– A black horse, « and he that sat on him had scales in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; but do no harm to the oil and the wine. » ;

– A horse of a pale color, « He that sat on it was called Death, and Hades was with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to destroy men by sword, and by famine, and by death, and by the wild beasts of the earth. »

In an interview broadcast on the Russian State television channel Rossiya 1 on Sunday, July 17, 2022, the Chechen commander of the « Akhmat » division, Apti Alaudinov, called the Russian intervention in Ukraine a « holy war ». In line with Vladimir Putin’s discourse on Western Satanism, the Chechen commander believes that Russia, including of course the Chechens (Muslims) fighting in Ukraine, is waging a holy war against the « Satanic values of Europe and the United States »[22]

« Throughout my childhood I prepared myself for this war that we see today. This is the holy war that our saints and forefathers told us about. I will tell you one thing. I praise the Most High for living in Russia today. I praise the Most High because this country is led by Vladimir Putin, because this man has refused to accept the so-called European values. In reality, they are satanic values that have been imposed on the whole world. I am grateful to Him because He has kept this person adhering to the values and because this nation is going towards the path of the Most High. We do not live under LGBT flags. And as long as he is alive, we will not live under those flags.

And I think the most important thing to see is that the leader of our Republic (of Chechnya), the hero of Russia, Ramzan Akhmat Kadirov is a close ally of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

Let me tell you why I believe this is a holy war, and why we will certainly win this war. Everything we see today, NATO etc, when I read the Islamic scriptures and the Christian scriptures – I have studied the Bible, the Qur’an and the Torah – I know what we are facing, the war against the army of the devil, against the army of the Dajjal, the Antichrist.

Many were surprised when I said that Spetsnaz Akhmat is the army of Isa ‘alaihi salam, the army of Jesus, because we are waiting for the coming of Christ more than anyone else. Spetsnaz Akhmat is not alone in the army of Isa ‘alaihi salam, all the forces and units fighting on the side of Russia is the army of Jesus, Isa ‘alihi salam. We are fighting those forces that impose on us everything that is displeasing to God and that He hates. Everything that is abnormal to man. A man is born to marry a woman so that they may have children and populate the earth.

America, the main enemy of mankind, and Europe, the stooge of NATO, carry all that is satanic. This is the army of the Dajjal, the Antichrist. We oppose this army…

I am grateful to Putin because he has done what Muslim countries should have done a long time ago. The leaders of the Muslim countries did not have enough courage to unite and counterattack America and NATO. Putin was able to do it, to make that decision and confront this nation. We are proud to be his countrymen.

Surprisingly, almost the entire Muslim world is on our side. Those in the Muslim world are not afraid that their bank accounts will be seized. They all say today that they are for Russia, that they support Russia. »[23]

In his homily on 6 March 2022, ten days after the start of the intervention in Ukraine, the Russian Orthodox Patriarch, Kirill, interpreted the confrontation between Russia and NATO in Ukraine as a civilisational, religious and eschatological confrontation, of which homosexuality, promoted in the West, is one of the issues[24] :

« In the Donbass, there is a rejection, a fundamental rejection of the so-called values that are proposed today by those who claim world power. Today there is a test of loyalty to [Western] power, a kind of pass to this ‘happy’ world, a world of excessive consumption, a world of apparent ‘freedom’. Do you know what this test is? The test is very simple and at the same time terrifying: it is a gay pride parade. The demand of many countries to organise a gay pride parade is a test of loyalty to this very powerful world; and we know that if people or countries reject these demands, they are not part of this world, they become outsiders.

But we know what this sin is, which is promoted by the so-called « pride marches » (gay pride). It is a sin that is condemned by the Word of God – both the Old and New Testaments. And God, in condemning sin, does not condemn the sinner. He only calls him to repentance, but in no way makes sin a norm of life, a variation of human behaviour – respected and tolerated – by sinful man and his behaviour. If humanity accepts that sin is not a violation of God’s law, if humanity accepts that sin is a variation of human behaviour, then human civilisation will end there. And gay pride is supposed to demonstrate that sin is a variation of human behaviour. That’s why, to get into the club of these countries, you have to organise a gay pride. Not to make a political statement « we are with you », not to sign agreements, but to organise a gay pride parade. We know how people resist these demands and how this resistance is repressed by force. So it is a matter of imposing by force the sin that is condemned by God’s law, that is, imposing by force on people the denial of God and His truth.

Therefore, what is happening today in the sphere of international relations is not just politics. It is about something else and something far more important than politics. It is about man’s salvation, about his place to the right or left of God the Saviour, who comes into the world as Judge and Creator of creation. Many today, through weakness, stupidity, ignorance, and most often because they do not want to resist, go there, to the left side. And everything that has to do with the justification of sin condemned in the Bible is today the test of our faithfulness to the Lord, of our ability to confess faith in our Saviour. »[25]

What is the Katechon?

The Katechon and the Antichrist

Katechon in Greek means « what is keeping back » or « one who is keeping back » (the end). It is a concept found in an eschatological passage in St Paul’s second epistle to the Thessalonians :

« Now as to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and our meeting with him, it is our desire, my brothers,

That you may not be moved in mind or troubled by a spirit, or by a word, or by a letter as from us, with the suggestion that the day of the Lord is even now come;

Give no belief to false words: because there will first be a falling away from the faith, and the revelation of the man of sin, the son of destruction,

Who puts himself against all authority, lifting himself up over all which is named God or is given worship; so that he takes his seat in the Temple of God, putting himself forward as God.

Have you no memory of what I said when I was with you, giving you word of these things?

And now it is clear to you what is keeping back (Katechon) his revelation till the time comes for him to be seen.

For the secret of evil is even now at work: but there is one who is keeping back (Katechon) the evil till he is taken out of the way.

And then will come the revelation of that evil one, whom the Lord Jesus will put to death with the breath of his mouth, and give to destruction by the revelation of his coming;

Even the one whose coming is marked by the working of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders,

And with every deceit of wrongdoing among those whose fate is destruction; because they were quite without that love of the true faith by which they might have salvation.

And for this cause, God will give them up to the power of deceit and they will put their faith in what is false:

So that they all may be judged, who had no faith in what is true, but took pleasure in evil. » (St Paul, Second epistle to the Thessalonians, II, 1-12)

The Katechon is thus an entity, a being and/or a force that holds back the coming of the Antichrist.

According to Eusebius of Caesarea (265-339), a bishop and historian of the first centuries of Christianity, the Katechon is the Roman Empire. Rome would thus be the earthly power holding back the Antichrist[26].

Eusebius of Caesarea’s proximity to the Roman emperor Constantine I is no doubt a factor in his interpretation, but this does not exclude it. We shall see later that the Church Fathers came to the same conclusion as he did.

Constantine I was the emperor who, in 313 (Edict of Milan), put an end to the persecution of Christians, and who, in 325, institutionalised the Church to which he donated the palace of the empress Fausta on Mount Caelius, the Lateran, which became the Holy See of the bishop of Rome.

The Katechon, Rome and Jewish eschatology

Eusebius of Caesarea’s interpretation echoes Jewish tradition. Indeed, Jews does not recognise Jesus, son of the Virgin Mary, as the Messiah. Moreover, according to Christian and Muslim eschatology, the Messiah awaited by the Jews is the Antichrist.

According to the Talmud, Sanhedrin 98a (2nd century CE), the Messiah will be located at the gates of Rome among the lepers and beggars of the Eternal City[27]. The historian of Judaism Gershom Scholem comments :

« This truly astounding ‘rabbinic history’ appears as early as the second century, long before the Rome that destroyed the Temple and cast Israel into exile gave way to the Rome of the Vicar of Christ and a Church seeking to prevail through the affirmation of messianic fulfillment. This symbolic antithesis between the true Messiah seated at the gates of Rome and the Head of Christendom enthroned there has been constantly in the minds of Jews as they have reflected on the Messiah over the centuries. On several occasions, aspirants to the messianic dignity will make the pilgrimage to Rome and sit on the bridge facing the Castel Sant’Angelo, thus performing a symbolic ritual. »[28]  

The fall of Rome is inscribed in Jewish tradition as one of the conditions for redemption, for the advent of the Messiah of the Jews and the reign of Israel.

As G. Scholem stressed it out, Jewish eschatology focused on Rome long before it became the seat of the Church. The Roman Empire, which had destroyed the Second Temple, was seen by the Jews as an enemy, and it would be doubly so when Rome became the location of the Holy See.

The great rabbi and master of the Talmud, Eliezer ben Hourcanos, who lived in the first century, gave an interpretation of a verse from Genesis in the light of the book of Daniel from which he drew his conclusions about the final victory of Israel. He lists the empires that are to fall, the « enemies » of Israel who will be « clothed with shame », while on the head of the Messiah « his diadem will shine ». The fourth and final enemy empire of Israel is none other than Rome.[29]

Therefore, if the Messiah of the Jews is the Antichrist, the adversary who seeks to overthrow God’s order on earth, he is logically destined to subvert every Christian empire, every Christian kingdom, every Christian State, every Christian nation. And by « Christian empire » we exclude the Anglo-American Judeo-Protestant empires, which are closer in their values, religious orientation, eschatology, political actions and role in the world to Jewish messianism than to genuine Christianity. The Anglo-American empire is one of the avatars of the Antichrist. It was the Judeo-Protestant world that gave birth to feminism and LGBT ideology.[30]

Historical examples illustrate very clearly this pattern of opposition between Rome and Jewish messianism, between the Christian Empire and the Antichrist. Two examples of Katechon action are given here, in the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, where self-proclaimed Jewish Messiahs attempted to impose themselves on Rome and subdue the Church.

The Kabbalist Rabbi Abraham Abulafia, a self-proclaimed Messiah son of Joseph announcing the arrival of the Messiah son of David[31], travelled to Rome in 1280 to meet with Pope Nicholas III and subdue him. Before he could meet Pope Nicholas III, he was informed of Abulafia’s plan and ordered his arrest and death. The pope died of apoplexy in the following days; Abulafia thus escaped death.[32]

In the sixteenth century, between 1524 and 1532, two Kabbalist rabbis attempted to subjugate the Church, a Christian kingdom in Europe, and the Holy Roman Empire, and use them as tools to accomplish Jewish messianic purposes. David Reuveni and his pupil, Solomon Molcho, another self-proclaimed Messiah son of Joseph, in turn approached the Cardinals and Pope Clement VII, King John III of Portugal, and Emperor Charles V to launch a war against the Ottoman Empire in Palestine to « liberate » the Holy Land and restore the Kingdom of Israel.

Solomon Molcho attracted the attention of the Christian priests who came to listen to his speeches, thanks to his charisma and his visions, which impressed his audiences: he predicted, for example, the flooding of Rome in 1530 and the earthquake in Portugal in 1531. In some of his speeches he announced the fall of Rome and Christianity, as well as the reconstruction of Judea. He even gave the date of the arrival of the Messiah, son of David, which he predicted for the year 1540. Through his master David Reuveni, Molcho was able to get closer to the cardinals in Rome and to meet Pope Clement VII, whom he tried to convince that the redemption of the Jewish people was imminent. He succeeded in impressing the Pope, who gave him written approval to preach before a Christian audience and to publish his texts (on condition they were not anti-Christian). Once he had gained the Pope’s confidence, he tried to convince him to form an army of Marranos to launch a war against the Ottoman Empire in order to expel it from Palestine, settle the Jews there and thus hasten the coming of the Messiah. His project in Rome was interrupted by the Inquisition who wanted to arrest him. The Pope personally hid Molcho and smuggled him out of Rome.

Reuveni and Molcho then went to the most powerful man in Europe, Charles V (1500-1558), the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, whom they tried to convince to create an army of Marranos to attack the Ottomans, and asked him to convert to Judaism. Charles V then played the role of Katechon : he imprisoned David Reuveni in Spain until his death and sent Solomon Molcho to the Inquisition, which burnt him at the stake in 1532 in Mantua, Italy.

« Molcho’s visions and speeches mixed kabbalah and incitement to messianic political action among Christians. His martyrdom (1532) made him counted by the Jewish community as one of the « saints » of the Kabbalah. The apocalyptic movements saw the advent of Martin Luther as a new omen, a sign of the collapse of the Church and the approach of the end of time. »[33] (Gershom Scholem)

Indeed, Reuveni’s and Molcho’s religious-political attempts coincided with Martin Luther’s reformation, which spread rapidly in Germany. Thus, Emperor Charles V – the Katechon of the time – had to deal with two simultaneous attempts to subvert Catholic Europe.

The Protestant Reformation and its revolutionary consequences were a blow that weakened the Christian Empire of the time, and consequently the whole of European Christianity and ultimately the Roman Church.  Judeo-Protestantism became an element of civilisational, political and historical corrosion that overcame the Catholic monarchies and empires.

The civil wars between Catholicism and the fundamentally revolutionary Protestantism gave rise to the conceptualisation of the modern State at the end of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. From that time onwards, the organic link between the Church and the European nations was broken, and the politico-religious power of the Holy See declined inexorably.

This decline continued until the disintegration of Catholicism in Europe with the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), which ratified the disappearance of the Church – perhaps temporarily – as a historical actor, as a Katechon.

This disappearance of the Catholic Church logically coincides with the decomposition of the modern, sovereign State in Europe. As we have seen above, in terms of international law and the law of war, the UN has replaced the Church, just as supranational organisations have confiscated the sovereign prerogatives of the European States.

The geopolitical result of this long and complex political-theological-historical movement is the submission of the entire european continent to Anglo-American Judeo-Protestant forces : NATO, European Union, IMF…

This is how the antichristic powers took over the formerly Catholic Europe.

The Katechon: the Christian Empire and the Caliphate ?

Carl Schmitt argues that the Katechon can be none other than the Christian Empire, the power that holds back the Antichrist, the negentropic force that repels evil and entropy, the expansion and increase of disorder.

« For this Christian Empire it was essential that it should not be an eternal Empire, but that it should keep in mind its own end and the end of the present age, while being capable of historical power. The decisive concept that historically founds its continuity is that of the power that holds, the kat-echon. Empire here means the historical power that can hold back the appearance of the Antichrist and the end of the present age, a force that holds back, in the words of the apostle Paul in his second letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 2. This conception of the Empire is attested to by numerous quotations from the Church Fathers, texts by Germanic monks of the Frankish and Ottonian period – especially the commentary on the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians by Haino of Halberstadt, and Adson’s letter to Queen Gerbera – statements by Otto of Freising and other documents up to the end of the Middle Ages. It can even be seen as the hallmark of a period in history. The Empire of the Christian Middle Ages lasts as long as the idea of the kat-echon lives.

I do not believe that any other representation of history than that of the kat-echon is even possible for an original Christian faith. Faith in a force that holds back the end of the world provides the only bridge from the eschatological paralysis of all human becoming to a historical power as imposing as that of the Christian Empire of the Germanic kings. The authority of the Church Fathers and authors such as Tertullian, Jerome and Lactantius, and the Christian continuation of Sibylline prophecies combine to affirm that only the Imperium Romanum and its Christian extension explain the persistence of this world age, and protect it against the overwhelming power of evil. »[34]

Carl Schmitt’s conclusion excludes the idea that there is another Katechon than the Christian Empire of Europe, an extension of Rome. This is where we differ from Schmitt.

The Imperium Romanum and its Christian extension are not the only enemy of the antichristic forces. The Caliphate, the Muslim Empire, as well as the Muslim religion, represent, in the same way as the Church and the Christian Empire, a historical politico-religious power to be put down.

We have explained that the Messiah expected by the Jews is the Antichrist for Christians and Muslims. In the Islamic tradition, the Antichrist is called the Dajjal, which means « the deceiver », « the impostor ». The Messiah of the Jews is necessarily the Dajjal, the false Messiah, the one and only Messiah being in the Qur’an, Jesus, son of the Virgin Mary.

We have read in Jewish eschatological texts that the fall of Rome is one of the conditions for the redemption of the Jewish people, the advent of their Messiah and the reign of Israel. But it is not the only condition. The basic texts of Judaism also indicate that the destruction of Ishmael (son of Abraham, father of the Arabs and consequently of the Muslims), of Islam, is another of the conditions for the coming of the Messiah of  the Jews.

We mentioned earlier one of the Talmudic masters, Eliezer ben Hourcanos (1st century), who interpreted a passage in Genesis in the light of the Book of Daniel to conclude that the fall of Rome would precede the advent of the Messiah. His interpretation concludes with a « prophecy » that it is on the « Ishmaelites (Arabs) that the son of David (the Messiah) will grow up as it says in Psalms (132:13-18): ‘‘For the Lord has chosen Zion. He has chosen it as His dwelling place: ‘It will be My resting place forever; there I will dwell, for I have chosen it: I will bless its supplies abundantly. I will satisfy its poor with bread. I will clothe her priests with garments of triumph, and her godly men shall break forth into shouts of joy. There I will make the horn of David grow. I will light the torch of my Anointed. His enemies. I will clothe them with shame, and on his head shall shine his diadem.’’ »[35]

« The son of David will grow up over the Ishmaelites » is interpreted by later rabbis to mean that the Messiah will appear after the fall of Ishmael’s descendants, for it is among the Arabs (in Jerusalem) that the Messiah of the Jews will appear.

In the Talmud it is written that God « repents for having created the Chaldeans, the Ishmaelites (Arabs) and the evil inclination ». He would therefore repent of having created the Ishmaelites because « the tents (where the Arabs live) of the robbers prosper, and those who provoke God are safe, since God brought them from his hand. » (Mas. Sukkah 52b)

Ovadia Yossef (1920-2013), Chief Rabbi of Israel, founder and spiritual leader of Shass, the third largest party in Israel, « kingmaker of almost all Israeli governments for the past thirty years » (wrote a journalist in 2013)[36], made several statements about a future destruction of the Arabs:

« May they disappear from the earth. May God send a scourge to the Palestinians, these children of Ishmael, these vile enemies of Israel. »[37]

In 2001, Ovadia Yosef, called for the outright extermination of the Arabs (all Arabs, not just Palestinians):

« It is forbidden to have pity on them. You must send missiles and annihilate them. They are evil and hateful. »

« The Lord will turn the actions of the Arabs against themselves, deplete their seed and exterminate them, devastate them and banish them from this world. »[38]

In 2012, Ovadia Yosef called on all Jews to pray for the annihilation of Iran. Defense Ministry officials, as well as National Security Council Chairman Ya’akov Amidror and Interior Minister Eli Yishai, had visited the Chief Rabbi to persuade him to support a possible Israeli attack on Iran. A week before receiving them, Ovadia Yossef had made a similar speech about Iran[39].

In the most important book of the Jewish mystical tradition, the Zohar (13th century), the fate of Muslims and Christians is discussed. The following eschatological passage from the Zohar has been studied by all rabbis who have dealt with the question of the end of time:

« The sons of Ishmael (Muslims) will dominate the Holy Land for a long time while it is empty, just as their circumcision is empty and imperfect. They will prevent the sons of Israel from returning there until this merit of the sons of Ishmael is exhausted. The sons of Ishmael will cause harsh wars in the world and the sons of Edom (Edom is Esau in the Bible, the brother of Jacob, considered by Jewish tradition to be the father of Christian Rome) will gather against them to fight. They will make a battle against them on the sea, one on the land and another near Jerusalem. The one will have control over the other. Nevertheless, the Holy Land will not be conquered by the sons of Edom. » (Zohar, parashat Vaera, p. 32A)

Historically, the forces that destroyed the Ottoman Empire from within and abolished the Caliphate are the same forces that undermined European Christianity and the Catholic Church from within. These are Freemasonry and the Sabbatean-Frankist movement (Jewish sects falsely converted to Catholicism and Islam in order to destroy them from within), which notably gave rise to the Young Turks, who subverted the Ottoman Empire and abolished the Caliphate in 1924[40].

By lifting the veil on the arcane history of the abolition of the Caliphate, we discover the antichristic, messianist, atheist and nihilist forces that were at work. The destruction of the Caliphate was a necessary condition for the creation of the Jewish National Home and Israel.

At the end of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire was seriously in debt, so Theodor Herzl proposed to have the Turkish debt written off in exchange for the Ottoman Empire giving up Palestine to the Zionists[41].

On 19 June 1896, the Turkish Grand Vizier (Prime Minister) received Herzl and passed on this message from the Sultan and Caliph:

« The Jews can keep their money. The Turkish Empire belongs to the Turkish people and not to me. When my Empire is dismembered, perhaps they will receive Palestine for nothing. But only our corpse can be divided. I will never consent to vivisection. »[42]

In 1904, Herzl asked Pope Pius X for a letter of support for the Zionist project; the Pope received him, but categorically refused. His official reply testifies to this:

« We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem, but we can never encourage them to do so. The soil of Jerusalem was not always sacred, but it was sanctified by the life of Jesus. The Jews did not recognise Our Lord and so we cannot recognise the Jewish people. Non possumus. »[43]

There is a clear parallel between the subversion of the French Monarchy, the French Revolution and the history of the late Ottoman Empire, both in terms of ideology and the methods and networks at work.

It was in the middle of the 19th century, and more precisely from the 1860s onwards, that Masonic networks were set in motion in the heart of the Ottoman Empire: scholars, people close to the Sultan, and senior civil servants, including ministers, joined Masonic lodges on a massive scale – in particular the French lodge L’union d’Orient, whose period of activity corresponded to the most liberal decade of the Empire’s political and social history (1863-1874). These men, for the most part, played a role in introducing liberalism into the Ottoman Empire[44]. So important was the establishment of Freemasonry in Turkey at the time that Sultan Murad V – who reigned for only a few months in 1876 before being deposed by Abdulhamid II – was himself a member of a Masonic lodge[45].

The Young Turks, who overthrew the Ottoman power and abolished the Caliphate in 1924, created on 14 July 1889 (a date chosen to mark the filiation with the French Revolution of 1789) a political movement, the Union and Progress Committee, which they organised on the model of the Grand Orient de France Masonic Lodge.

Some genealogical, historical and religious details about the Young Turks are necessary here to identify the nature of their revolution and the force that brought down the Caliphate.

In the 17th century, in Turkey, a self-proclaimed messiah, Sabbatai Tsevi, falsely converted to Islam in 1666. He drew his followers, 200 families, into his conversion and encouraged them to stay together as a company of secret fighters[46]. In doing so,  writes Gershom Scholem, « he behaved like a spy sent into the enemy’s [Islam’s] camp. »[47]

In the period when Tsevi converted to Islam, he ordered his « prophet » Nathan of Gaza (between 1667 and 1672) to travel to Rome to perform a secret magic ritual designed to hasten the downfall of the Church leaders.[48]

These Jews, falsely converted to Islam, called Sabbateans or Donmehs (« upturned jackets » in Turkish), « provided many members of the Young Turk intelligentsia… The Donmehs played an important role in the early days of the Committee of Union and Progress, the organisation of the Young Turk movement that originated in Salonika. Among the participants of this movement were notorious freethinkers, especially from the Jakubis and Izmirlis sects (all crypto-Jews). These, after the collapse of their former sectarian convictions, had come to adopt a negative and ‘enlightened’ position with regard to religion. But there were also devout Sabbatarians who combined their Turkish patriotism and nationalism with their utopian Jewish messianism. There is evidence that David Bey, one of the three ministers of the first Young Turk government and an important leader of the Young Turk party, was a Donmeh and played an important role in the Karakash sect. He belonged to the most important family of this group, the Russo family, direct descendants of the incarnate God Baruchya Russo, also called Osman Baba. »[49]

The first administration that took power after the Young Turk revolution (1909) had three Donmeh ministers. David Bey held the position of Minister of Finance. Moreover, « the Jews of Salonika readily claimed (although this was denied by the Turkish government) that Kemal Atatürk was of Donmeh origin. »[50]

The project of the Young Turks was to depose Sultan Abdulhamid II, restore the liberal constitution of 1876-1877 and impose atheism in Turkey. In their project they were helped by the French and Italian Masonic lodges of Salonika, a city which was home to the main actors of the Young Turk plot and which had been an important Kabbalistic and Sabbataist centre for several centuries. These same Donmeh were at the head of the Ottoman Empire from 1908 onwards.

In 1908, they restored the liberal constitution, and in 1909 they gave the Empire its first national Masonic obedience, the Grand Orient Ottoman[51].

At the same time, the Young Turks created what Thierry Zarcone, an eminent specialist in Eastern Masonry, calls « a sort of secret service, an invisible instrument of political action and even of coercion and elimination ».

A young turk author, Hüseyn Cahid Yaçin (died in 1957), testifies and tells how the Union and Progress Committee, the Young Turks organisation, became over the years more than a secret political organisation, in fact a real « religion »:

« To consolidate the spirit of the Committee, a new religion and a mezhep, so to speak, a confraternity-style structure, was created… There is, in the country a unionist spirit, in fact a mystical influence. »[52]

Before the First World War, which led to the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of the Jewish National Home, the Zionist Agency was established in Constantinople in 1908 with the permission of the Young Turks, who had just taken power through a revolution. This important fact is in addition to the statements in favour of Zionism made by several Turkish youth leaders[53].

As soon as they took power, the Young Turks, in addition to allowing the Zionist Agency to be established in Turkey, reopened negotiations on the creation of a Jewish nation in Palestine. The sympathy between the Donmeh who took over Turkey and the Zionist Jews was such that many young Zionists decided to settle in Constantinople to study, learn Turkish, and above all to work on the Jewish populations of the Ottoman Empire to convert them massively to the Zionist project, starting with the local Jewish elite, by means of propaganda actions: press, field activism, development of associations, nucleation of communal institutions…[54]

The creation of the Jewish National Home, a project opposed by Pope Pius X and the Sultan and Caliph Abdulhamid II, is directly correlated to the worldly forces of the Antichrist who were necessarily to get rid of Christianity and Islam, each representing a Katechon.

The Katechon in the Qur’an

Speaking of Zionism, the Qur’an states that it is Gog and Magog who, in the end of time, will bring the sons of Israel back to Jerusalem, although they were forbidden to return there.

« Forbidding a city by Us abolished that its people should return to it

before it is opened to Gog and Magog and they come pouring out from all the hills » (Surah Al Anbiya, The Prophets, 21:95-96)

We will not venture here into a precise identification of Gog and Magog, but we will make the connection, as Sheikh Imran Hosein did before us, between the eschatological announcement made by the Qur’an and the conquest of Jerusalem in 1917 by the British Empire, which created the Jewish National Home and allowed Jews to settle in the Holy Land.

It was under the influence of Zionist Jews that the British attacked the Ottomans to drive them out of Palestine. In the First World War, Britain found itself in trouble in 1916, cornered by the German Empire and on the verge of signing the armistice proposed by the Kaiser. A Zionist delegation went to the British Cabinet to propose a deal to the British.

The Zionists then promised to bring the United States into the war on their side, in exchange for the British driving the Ottomans out of Palestine and giving it to the Jews. This historical fact is documented. Official statements of the then British Prime Minister Lloyd George, referring to this deal, are recorded in the Peel Commission Report (July 1937)[55].

« In the evidence he gave before us Mr. Lloyd George, who was Prime Minister at the time, stated that, while Zionist cause had been widely supported in Britain and America before November, 1917, the launching of the Balfour Declaration at that time was ‘‘due to propagandist reasons’’ ; and he outlined the serious position in which the Allied and Associated Powers then were. The Roumanians had been crushed. The Russian Army was demoralized. The French Army was unable at the moment to take the offensive on a large scale. The Italians had sustained a great defeat at Caporetto. Millions of tons of British shipping had been sunk by German submarines. No American divisions were yet available in the trenches. In this critical situation it was believed that Jewish sympathy or the reverse would make a substantial difference one way or the other to the Allied cause. In particular Jewish sympathy would confirm the support of American Jewry, and would make it more difficult for German to reduce her military commitments and improve her economic position on the eastern front.

Those were the circumstances in which the British Government issued Balfour Declaration.

‘‘The Zionist leaders (Mr. Lloyd George informed us) gave us a definite     promise that, if the Allies committed themselves to giving facilities for the   establishment of a national home fos the Jews in Palestine, they would do their      best to rally Jewish sentiment and support throughout the world to the Allied         cause. They kept their word.’’ »
(Palestine Royal Commission Report, Presented by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to parliament by Command     of His Majesty, Jully, 1937, p. 23)

And that is precisely what happened. The United States, which had no interest in the European conflict, came to the aid of the British by declaring war on Germany on 2 April 1917. The Jewish lawyer Louis D. Brandeis (a descendant of a Sabbatarian-Frankist family), then President of the Supreme Court of the United States, and Rabbi Stephen Wise (co-founder of the New York Zionist Federation in 1897 and President of the American Jewish Congress from 1922 to 1946) influenced President Woodrow Wilson’s decisions to bring the United States into the war and to support the Balfour Declaration; a similar process was used to push President Truman to recognise the State of Israel in 1948[56].

The Zionists’ promise was fulfilled with the entry of the United States into the war, and seven months later, on 2 November 1917, the Balfour Declaration was issued. The Balfour Declaration was a letter from Arthur James Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, to the banker Lionel Walter Rothschild, in which he promised the creation of a Jewish home in Palestine.

Are we to conclude that Britain and the United States are Gog and Magog? At least, are they led by Gog and Magog ? In any case, we identify them, along with the State of Israel and its lobby, as being the antichristic geopolitical forces.

Gog and Magog, these powers that sow chaos on earth, are mentioned in another surah of the Qur’an where, it seems to us, there is mention of a Katechon, which held back Gog and Magog from ancient times, until the end of time.

We will not go so far as to use the Epistle to the Thessalonians to interpret the passage from the Qur’an that we are going to quote, as this would be inappropriate and methodologically unsound. But let us remember that St Paul spoke of « what is keeping back » and « the one who is keeping back » the Antichrist. In the Qur’an we will see that there is a human being (Dhû’l-Qarnayn), who has built a barrier that keeps back, or rather kept back, Gog and Magog.

« They ask you about Dhu’l-Qarnayn: I will recite to you from his story what is to be recalled.

Verily We established his power on earth, and We gave him the ways and the means (asbâban)[57] to all ends ». (Surah al Kahf, the Cave, 18:83-84)

In the verses that follow, there is an account of a journey by this powerful person to a geographical area described in detail by the Qur’an. Based on this Qur’anic description (and Ibn Kathir’s tafsir commentary), Sheikh Imran Hosein located this area in his book An Islamic View of Gog & Magog in the Modern World[58]. He came to the conclusion that it is the area between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.

Dhû’l-Qarnayn continues his journey…

« Until, when he reached (a tract) between two mountains, he found, beneath them, a people who scarcely understood a word.
They said: « O Dhu’l-Qarnayn ! the Gog and Magog (people) do great mischief on earth: shall we then render thee tribute in order that thou mightest erect a barrier between us and them?
He said: « (The power) in which my Lord has established me is better (than tribute): Help me therefore with strength (and labour): I will erect a strong barrier between you and them:
« Bring me blocks of iron. » At length, when he had filled up the space between the two steep mountain-sides, He said, « Blow (with your bellows) » Then, when he had made it (red) as fire, he said: « Bring me, that I may pour over it, molten lead. »
Thus were they made powerless to scale it or to dig through it.
He said: « This is a mercy from my Lord: But when the promise of my Lord comes to pass, He will make it into dust; and the promise of my Lord is true. »
On that day We shall leave them to surge like waves on one another. » (Surah al Kahf, the Cave, 18:93-99)

We have tried to show that Christian Rome and the Caliphate were two Katechon that prevented the fulfilment of the Jewish messianic designs, which are nothing other than antichristic designs.

The ousting of the Christian and Muslim empires, the Holy See and the Caliphate from the historical scene allowed not only the creation of the State of Israel, but also the expansion of chaos, the destruction of entire countries, economic, social and societal disorder. The modern antichristic ideologies produced by the Judeo-Protestant world were then able to spread across the globe after the fall of the Caliphate and European Christianity.

This reinforces the idea that Christian Rome and the Caliphate were indeed Katechon, brakes to the Antichrist.

Moscow, Third Rome and Katechon?

The Caliphate and the Muslim empires have disappeared, but there remain Muslim states and organisations in the Middle East that resist the antichristic Empire. Islamic resistance is regional and minority within the Muslim world, but it is growing stronger as the antagonism between the US-Israelis and Russia increases, both in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Russia is the ally of Iran and Syria, whose destruction by what Vladimir Putin now calls the « Empire of Lies » and which we call the antichristic Empire in this context of eschatological warfare, was prevented.

The geopolitical developments of the last two decades have made Russia a Katechon; that is, a power that opposes the antichristic Empire which has now designated Moscow as its main enemy. The Russian Empire, this ontological enemy, this geopolitical adversary, this tellurocratic antagonist whose existence holds back the advent of the Antichrist whose geopolitical support is the Anglo-American Judeo-Protestant thalassocracy.

Russia, however, is not a Katechon in the classical sense. It is not the ideal medieval Christian Imperium Romanum. It is a modern State with internal contradictions, which has been partly infested, like all countries in the world, by the ideology of progress, including transhumanism.

Russia has adhered, albeit temporarily, to Western covidist policy and discourse, and has accepted the theory of global warming[59].

Transhumanism is currently allowed in Russia, where the influence of Silicon Valley has had its effect. Human body augmentation is already practised in Russia[60]. However, this development of transhumanism worries Vladimir Putin who wonders:

« The technological revolution, the dramatic breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, electronics, communications, genetics, bioengineering and medicine, offer immense possibilities, but they also raise philosophical, moral and spiritual questions, which only science fiction writers have asked recently. What will happen when technology exceeds the capacity of human thought ? Where is the limit of interference in the human organism, after which man ceases to be himself and is transformed into another essence? What are the ethical limits of a world in which the possibilities of science and technology have become virtually unlimited, and what will this mean for each of us, for our descendants, even our immediate descendants, our children and grandchildren ? »[61]

Transhumanism and modification of nature that may be mentioned in this passage from the Qur’an :

« God has cursed him, for he (Satan) said: ‘‘May I take from Your worshippers an allotted share, mislead them, give them false hopes, command them and they will slit the ears of the flock; yes, command them, and they will alter (falayughayyirunna) the creation of God!’’

Now whoever takes Satan as his protector, instead of God, loses by a great loss… » (Surah An Nisa, Women, 4:118-119)

Let us return to Russia. The current conflict, which radically opposes it to the West and everything it represents, is pushing Russia to perform an exorcism by expelling the avatars of modernism and progressivism from its body. This exorcism began before the war in Ukraine, notably with the ban on « propaganda for non-traditional sexual relations before minors » (a 2013 law). This law corresponds to the opinion of Russians, 81% of whom, according to a survey, consider homosexual relations to be reprehensible[62]. Same-sex marriage was also banned in 2020[63].

Russia, a country with a population of 145 million (in 2020), has 90% believers, 80% of whom are Christians (figure for the year 2014)[64] Today, four times as many Russians claim to be believers as under the USSR[65]. And in 2020, the Duma introduced faith in God into the Constitution, at the request of Vladimir Putin. The article on millennia in Russian history refers to « the memory of our ancestors who passed on ideals and faith in God »[66].

The West reproaches Russia for this conservative turn, this return to Christianity which worries them. Let us remember that Tsarist Russia was attacked in its Christian essence by the Bolshevik revolutionaries who were mostly Jewish, as Alexander Soljenitsyne[67] demonstrated and as Vladimir Putin recalled on 13 June 2013 on the occasion of his visit to the Jewish Museum in Moscow before an audience of rabbis:

« Up to 80-85% of the members of the government of the Soviet Union were Jews. And these Jews guided by false ideological thoughts arrested and repressed the followers of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and other religions. They did not make a difference. »[68]

A parallel can be drawn between the anti-Christian revolution that ended the Tsarist regime and the young turk revolution that brought down the Caliphate, seven years apart. Indeed, Lenin supported the young turk Mustafa Kemal in his armed struggle against the Allies and throughout his rise to power in Turkey.[69]

The Bolsheviks did not target the wrong enemy, they attacked the Third Rome.

For more than five centuries, Russian Orthodox have considered Moscow to be « the Third Rome », since the fall of the second, Constantinople, in 1453. The geopolitical situation at the time, which made Russia the only independent Orthodox State, made Moscow the logical successor to Constantinople. Constantinople was founded on the site of ancient Byzantium by the same man who established the Roman Church, the Emperor of Rome, Constantine (306-337). The logic of history: Constantinople supplanted Rome during the barbarian invasions, and Moscow succeeded Byzantium after the Ottoman invasion.

The theory of « Moscow Third Rome » was put forward in the same year as the fall of Constantinople by the monk Foma (Thomas) in a book, Eulogy of the Great Prince, the pious Boris Alexandrovic, written in the Russian city of Tver. The opinion gradually spread that « the Russian ruler is destined to replace the Byzantine emperor, that the Russians are called to succeed the Greeks and take the first place among the Orthodox peoples, because they are better Christians than they are.»[70]

This is the idea, born in the Middle Ages, of translatio imperii (‘transfer of power’). It is a concept of historical continuity through the transfer of power from one empire to another, as well as cultural continuity, translatio studii.

In 1472, Sophie Paleologue, the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, married Ivan III of Moscow. Muscovy was thus able to proclaim itself heir to the Byzantine Empire. It then adopted the double-headed eagle and proclaimed itself the Third Rome.

In 1508, the monk Philotheus (Filofey) wrote in his famous letter to the great prince Vasily (Basil) III:

« Know, most pious emperor [tsar], that all the empires belonging to the Orthodox Christian religion, are now united in your empire: you are the only emperor of the Christians of the whole world… All the Christian empires are united in your empire. After you, we await the Empire that will have no end… Two Rome have fallen, but the third remains and there will be no fourth. »

The eschatological dimension of this theological-political claim is very clear. Whether you are a believer or not, it is clear that history has led this Third Rome to finally become the world’s leading nuclear power in a forced confrontation with the antichristic empire. It seems that this is Russia’s destiny, from which it cannot escape.

On 16 January 1547, Ivan IV, grandson of Ivan III, was crowned tsar (a word derived from Caesar) in the Cathedral of the Dormition (which is located in the Kremlin in Moscow) and founded the Tsarate of Russia.

Moscow thus became the Third Rome in the 16th century, during which Europe experienced the Protestant reformation, the weakening of the Church and the Holy Roman Empire, and the transformation of England into a thalassocracy, an empire of the seas that would become the ontological enemy of Russia, a tellurocratic power.

In the sixteenth century, therefore, a new politico-religious geography was established opening the road to the eschatological war.

This religious history of Rome does not contradict the Islamic viewpoint. The Qur’an, revealed in the seventh century, considers Byzantium as the second Rome, for as we shall see, it is by the name of « Rome » that the Qur’an refers to the Byzantine Empire, the heir of Rome. Sheikh Imran Hosein has noted this point which is of extreme eschatological importance.

The thirtieth surah of the Qur’an is entitled « Rome », and it refers to the war between Byzantium, thus called « Rome », and Persia.

« Rome was defeated in the land below. But Rome, having been defeated, will be victorious in less than ten years. The decree is God’s for the after as well as the before, and the believers should rejoice on that day in the help of God, who grants it to whomever He, the Almighty, the Merciful, wills.

This is the promise of God, who cannot fail in His promise: but most do not know

they know only the appearance of the life of this world, and they do not care about the last life (the Hereafter) » (Surah Ar-Rum, Rome, 30:2-7)

The Muslims had been saddened by the defeat of Christian Byzantium by the Persians. But the Qur’an gave them the news of a Byzantine victory that would indeed bring them joy a few years later.

The Qur’an probably refers to the Persian invasion of Syria (613-614) and the victories of the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius in 624. It should be noted that on this occasion the Jewish warriors of Galilee, under the command of Benjamin of Tiberias, joined the Persians in this war against the Byzantines. These Jews wanted to drive out the Christians and reconquer Palestine: they burned the churches, sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the convents. They succeeded in attracting the Israelites of Damascus, southern Palestine and the island of Cyprus to the movement. But finally Heraclius detached them from the Persians who had broken their promise to the Jews to give them Jerusalem[71].

The following verses of the Surah « Rome » relate to the creation, the end of the world and the Last Judgement. This undoubtedly indicates that the fate of Rome is directly connected to the end of time and will have a decisive role to play in it.

We can see that according to the Qur’an, as for orthodox Christianity, Rome is not fixed for eternity in Italy. It is the political-religious centre of Orthodoxy. In Islam, we call « Rome » the political centre of Christianity, heir to the Imperium romanum, which can therefore be neither a weak Christian country nor Protestant America, since the latter was considered by the Pilgrim Fathers who founded it, not as the new Rome, but as the new Jerusalem. Thus marking the filiation with Judaism.

Returning to eschatology, the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of God be upon him) announced to the Muslims that they would be allies of Rome in a war against a common enemy:

« You will make an alliance (sulh), in trust (amina), with Rome and together you will fight a common enemy. »[72]

The Byzantine Empire having disappeared, the only Christian power inheriting from Rome of which this prophecy can speak is Russia. Moreover, the current geopolitical context corresponds perfectly to this word of the Prophet, since the alliance in question is effective: the Russians, including the Muslim Chechens, Syria and Iran, are fighting the same enemy, namely the NATO forces in Ukraine and the Israeli-terrorist forces in the Middle East, and soon beyond.

And we know from the Qur’an that there remains until the end of time a Christian power capable of standing up to and defeating the antichristic powers:

« Then God said: « Jesus, behold, I cover you, raise you up to Me, purify you from those who denied you, and place those who followed you above those who denied you, until the Day of Resurrection: after which you will be made to return to Me, and I will decide between you the matter of your dispute.

As for the deniers, well! I will punish them with a severe chastisement in this world and in the Hereafter; they will find no helper

And those who believe and do good deeds, I will give them their reward. I will pay them their wages. 

God does not love those who commit iniquity. » (Surah Al Imran, The Family of Imran, 3:55-57)

The deniers in question who disbelieved in Jesus are none other than the Pharisees and other Jews who followed them and rejected Christ. God therefore promises that the Christians will remain above them until the Last Hour. The historian and exegete Ibn Kathir (14th century) comments (in his tafsir, commentary on the Qur’an) on this passage as indicating superiority in terms of power on earth. He takes as an example Constantine who established Christianity as a Roman religion. Thus Ibn Kathir writes: « Constantine built more than 12,000 churches and temples and the city that bore his name: Constantinople… Constantine had done this to defeat and humiliate the Jews, and God had helped him against them because he was closer to the truth than they were… »

Several academic studies have highlighted the enormous influence of the pro-Israeli Jewish lobby in the United States[73] and in the European Union[74]. This is the result of the long-term submission of the European continent to the Judeo-Protestant powers.

Therefore, the West cannot be considered as the geographical and civilisational area that follows Jesus.

There is a pro-Israeli Jewish lobby in Russia, but its influence has been declining at a very high rate for several years, as tensions between Russia and Israel have increased[75]. This is evidenced by the ongoing closure of the Jewish Agency for Israel in Russia ordered by the Russian Ministry of Justice[76]. And on 6 July 2022, the Chief Rabbi of Moscow, head of the largest Jewish community in Russia, Pinchas Goldschmidt (also President of the Conference of European Rabbis), left Russia to move to Israel following the intervention in Ukraine which he opposed[77]. The spokesperson of the Jewish community in Russia, Olga Yessaulova, stated that « there is no question of a successor, perhaps there will not be one.»[78]

The only Christian power with the means to stand up to the enemies of Jesus and their allies is Russia. Geopolitical developments in the Middle East and Ukraine, the deleterious role played by Israel and its networks against Russia in these conflicts, have inevitably accentuated the opposition between Moscow and Tel Aviv. And this opposition will only get worse, as we have been writing since 2015[79].

All the cross-checks we have made here, using the different religious traditions, their respective eschatology, the theological-political history of Christianity, the Qur’an and the geopolitical developments of recent years, converge to point to Russia as the Katechon, the ally of the Muslims, facing the forces of the Antichrist.

Youssef Hindi