Mending the Cloth
Europe is uniting economically, politically, even militarily. But that is not all.
As the European Union looks to absorb the nations of Eastern Europe, it is important that Trumpet subscribers also keep their eyes on another unification trend within Europe.
The head of the largest single religious organization in the world has made it his stated objective to secure unity in the church by bringing the Orthodox churches back into the Roman Catholic fold.
Will the pope succeed? Certainly, the groundwork for a degree of unity is being laid right now.
The Pope’s Recent Actions
Lately, Pope John Paul ii has made a habit of being “the first pope ever” to visit certain areas, and his reasons are no secret. He wants to heal the breach in Europe between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches—a split rooted in a dispute over the infallibility of the pope that goes all the way back to a ninth-century dispute between the eastern and western churches.
John Paul ii visited Bulgaria earlier this year, the first visit ever to the communist country by a pope. While there, he said he had never believed there was a Bulgarian connection to the attempt on his life in 1981, removing a major barrier between Bulgaria and the pontiff. He said to Bulgarian Patriarch Maxim, “Christ our Lord founded a single church, while we today appear to the world divided.” One Church. One Europe. This idea of unity is the pope’s primary mission. The problem is, Bulgaria is 83.8 percent Orthodox; less than 2 percent of the country is Roman Catholic. If the pope can unify the Bulgarian Orthodox Church with the Roman Catholic Church, he will have converted most of the country! A similar situation exists in Romania.
On October 13, John Paul ii and the head of Romania’s Orthodox Church, Teoctist, jointly presided over mass in St. Peter’s basilica and “pledged closer cooperation between their two churches” (Agence France Presse, Oct. 13). The pontiff expressed the urgency of his mission, saying that the need for a “common testimony of Christians has been made more urgent by a worrying spiritual crisis emerging in Europe and in a largely secularized world.” He also suggested to Teoctist that a “solid institutional structure” might help forge unity.
In a historic visit to Greece in May 2001, John Paul ii stated, “For the occasions past and present, when sons and daughters of the Catholic Church have sinned by action or omission against their Orthodox brothers and sisters, may the Lord grant us the forgiveness we beg of him.” This country has virtually no Catholic population. In Greece, the Orthodox Church holds 98 percent of the population.
Politics and Religion
So why is the pope seeking this healing now? The split between Roman Catholic and Orthodox occurred a millennium ago! In fact, a Roman Catholic pope has not visited Greece in nearly 1,300 years. Why is this so important to the papacy today?
The pope answers: “Together we must work for this healing if the Europe now emerging is to be true to its identity, which is inseparable from the Christian humanism shared by East and West.” But what is this identity?
It is the resurgence of the Holy Roman Empire! The political nature of the church can be tracked all the way back to Justinian’s restoration of the empire in 554 a.d., as can the idea of a unified Europe.
The glue that has held the diverse European continent together has always been religion. Thus, the political oneness forming in Europe today is inseparable from religion.
Remember: The Vatican is not simply a religious institution; it is also the oldest continuous political institution in Europe. The record of the Vatican wielding and exercising political power is beyond dispute. As time goes on, it will exercise that power to a greater degree than at any other time in history. The groundwork has already been laid in the formation of the European Union.
The present pope has consistently appealed to Catholics to unify behind the movement to unite Europe. When he visited the second-most important European Catholic cathedral, in Galicia, Spain, in 1996, his famous words were “Europe! Return to your roots!” Those roots run deep in a heritage that is steeped in the government-courting Roman Catholic Church, with often more effective control over the lives of citizens than the government itself.
A tribute to the seriousness of the Catholic Church’s pro-active role in Europe is not only made obvious by the fact that the Holy See is in constant negotiations with EU officials, but that all Eastern European aspirants to EU membership have signed a document giving the Catholic Church certain rights within their countries! These church-state treaties guarantee the church free exercise of its mission within each country. From the outset, this marks the measure to which the Catholic Church wants to gain influence in the eastern leg of the “United States of Europe,” or whatever name it will assume.
The Vatican is a formidable political power. It is the only religion on Earth represented in the United Nations. It has already succeeded in having laws of a religious nature passed in Europe. In June 1998 the Trumpet spoke of one such law: “Already the mark of this church is bound in European law, awaiting its enforcement. It was upon a German-Catholic initiative that Sunday was legislated as a ‘day of rest’ by the Brussels bureaucrats, and received the approval of the EU states.”
In his booklet Who or What Is the Prophetic Beast? Herbert W. Armstrong wrote, “It was for obeying God’s Fourth Commandment—keeping the Sabbath—that millions were put to death. The local Council of Laodicea, about a.d. 363, passed this decree: ‘Christians must not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, resting rather on Sunday. But, if any be found to be Judaizing, let them be declared anathema from Christ.’
“The church caused them to be killed. When the church branded one ‘anathema’ (a heretic), the state police of the empire began torturing him. Unless he recanted, he was tortured until he died!
“Laws became so strict no man could hold a job, or engage in business, unless he worked on Saturday and rested on Sunday.”
As the Roman Catholic Church becomes more unified, and wields increasing power, the time when that will happen again draws closer!
That They May Be One
How important is it to the pope that the Orthodox churches come under his control?
In a May 25, 1995, address, “That They May Be One,” John Paul stated, “How can unity be restored after almost a thousand years? This is the great task which the Catholic Church must accomplish, a task equally incumbent on the Orthodox Church.”
Many people, when they think of religious unity, think of tolerance. But religious unity and religious tolerance are not the same thing! Make no mistake: The pope does want unity, but tolerance isn’t part of the equation.
This church is described as the “lady of kingdoms” in Isaiah 47:5. God exposes the mentality behind these efforts at unification: “And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever …. Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children” (Isa. 47:7-8). Scripture reveals that a pope will attain religious unity before the return of Jesus Christ to this Earth.
The likelihood, though, is that John Paul ii will not hold his office much longer. The 82-year-old pontiff suffers from Parkinson’s disease, among other ailments. Some are gambling on whether he will still be pope in 2003, or whether he will choose to abdicate—assuming he is still alive.
And who will the next pope be? There is no clear answer to that, but we do know this: At present, a staunchly conservative John Paul ii has chosen 117 of the 120 cardinals that will select the next pope, a fact that points to the likelihood that an even more conservative pontiff will succeed him.
This church appears benign. But in Revelation 13:11, God describes it as a beast! It has the appearance of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ—but it speaks like a dragon!
Twenty years ago, Mr. Armstrong had the vision to write, “Bible prophecy says this European unification will be also a union of church and state (Rev. 17). Many European political leaders do not want religious domination, or even participation. But they are coming to realize they cannot be welded together into one great European super nation without the unifying power of the Catholic Church” (Member and co-worker letter, Nov. 22, 1982).
“And he [the church] exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him [the military power], and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast …. And he doeth great wonders … And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast [this is clearly a spiritual power]. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed” (Rev. 13:12-15).
On present indications, the Eastern Orthodox churches are moving toward yielding on papal leadership, though not yet on the doctrine of infallibility. But Bible prophecy does indicate, as we have seen, that the political entity of the Eurobeast will be ruled by one dominant church. This implies at least a compromise by the Orthodox churches in their 1,100-year resistance on the infallibility question.
The institution that emerges will be enormously powerful. First Europe will unite, both religiously and politically, and then it will seek to spread that unity over all the Earth.
But not for long. The Almighty God is about to intervene in the mess man has created on the Earth. Jesus Christ will return and establish His Kingdom. He will establish one pure religion. There will finally be a true peaceful, lasting religious unity, the likes of which has not been seen in history—but will be reality forevermore.