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The Bible contains the apocalypse, not only the Revelation of St. John the Theologian, with which the New Testament majestically closes, but also a number of apocalypses in the prophetic books of the Old Testament, both in the Gospel and in the speech of the Lord himself, and in the writings of His apostles. They testify to the general tragedy of the world and human history, as well as the tragic destinies of the Church, the trials that befall it. However, it speaks not only of trials, but also of accomplishments, and not only of the last convulsions of the world before its end, but also of that Future in the life of the Church, which is still awaiting its fulfillment. Is there this Future in the life of the Church, i.e. really fulfilled time, containing new creativity, new prophecy, new inspiration? Of course, it is not completely new, for it is revealed within the New Testament Church, in its depths, but it nevertheless contains a new, as yet unknown page of history. Or, in principle, there cannot be anything new in the history of the Church, which has already been internally fulfilled, although it may continue for some indefinite time, so much so that this epilogue can stretch out over a number of acts? There may be three different answers to this question: the first, which was given in early Christianity, is that there is no future, because there is no time at all, the last hour of history has already arrived, and one must directly wait for the second coming of the Lord; Any possibility of apocalypticism with such a response is absorbed here by eschatology. The second answer is that the history of the Church is internally completed, although externally it continues, for the Church already has within itself the fullness of its accomplishments. Therefore, in essence, nothing internally separates us from the end, and it is only a question of the duration of time, but not of new achievements in it. This view rightly demonstrates the fullness of the gifts of grace given to Pentecost. Therefore, it is unacceptable to expect a new revelation, a “Third” Testament, although this does not prevent the fact that new dogmas are being revealed in the history of the Church, new not in the sense of revelation, but of their revelation. Such a negative solution to the apocalyptic question is most characteristic of Catholicism, which in the papacy has a fully completed dome of the church building, covering the vault of heaven with its constellations. The papacy is both the present, the past, and the future for Catholicism, which therefore no longer demands anything, because it imagines that it already contains everything. In the Western Church the teaching of the blessed one has triumphed. Augustine (and also the African Bishop Tichonia), according to whom the civitas Dei is the Catholic Church, and that mysterious prophecy of the Apocalypse about the thousand-year kingdom (Rev. 20: 1–6), as well as the Old Testament prophecies about the messianic kingdom, also applies to it, to its life. Contrary to the Jewish sensibility in their understanding, which was characteristic of Papias, St. Polycarp, St. Justin the Philosopher, St. Irenaeus Bishop Lyonsky, the allegorical understanding 42 triumphed, which can be defined as clerical spiritualism, while all the brightness and power of genuine apocalyptic texts was left without attention and corresponding interpretation. The same spiritualism became the property of Orthodoxy for a long time, partly under the direct influence of Catholic thought, sometimes characteristic of representatives of the highest hierarchy in Orthodoxy, and partly in accordance with the spirit of the era. In particular, for example, the Byzantine era of church history could feel as unchangeable and finally determined under the dome of imperial power as the Western Church in papism, and only after the fall of Byzantium all the conventionality and relativity of this era was revealed, although neither Greek nor Balkan Orthodoxy under the Turkish yoke became characterized by the apocalyptic establishment that was inherent in the Eastern Church in the first centuries (and the most the origin of the Apocalypse can be considered in connection with the life of the eastern churches of Asia Minor and their sentiments). On the contrary, the soul of Russian Orthodoxy, despite the presence of clerical spiritualism on the surface, mainly in the hierarchy, in its depths has always been accessible to apocalyptic trepidation and forebodings, and in them the third type of apocalypticism that we have outlined is expressed. The Russian apocalypse has a dual character, corresponding to the duality of the apocalyptic prophecies themselves - dark and bright. In the first case, their tragic side is perceived, and the apocalyptic takes on an eschatological coloring, with harbingers of the imminent end of the world, sometimes not without panic and spiritual flight from modernity into eschatology. This eschatological panic manifested itself especially clearly in the Russian schism, which, although it officially separated from the Church, in its spiritual structure retained the spirit of Orthodox churchliness, albeit with inevitable one-sidedness. The appearance of the Antichrist in the person of Emperor Peter the Great, the cessation of the grace-filled priesthood thanks to heresy, and finally, the mark of the beast, which is imposed on everyone by the godless state, such were the evidence in the eyes of schismatics about the end of the world, and this prompted the most zealous to flee into the forests and self-immolate there, preferring baptism of fire to life under the rule of the Antichrist. But along with this, a legend arose about the bright city of Kitezh, although it sank to the bottom of the lake according to God’s vision, but was accessible to the eyes of the worthy. These eschatological sentiments continue, of course, even now, when the Russian people are really under the paw of a beast, blaspheming God and every shrine. Along with this popular eschatology, throughout the 19th century, as in our days, a different apocalypticism comes to life in the circles of the highest church intelligentsia, full of hopes and forebodings of new, as yet unexplored possibilities in the life of the Church. These apocalyptic aspirations remain vague and unclear. They cannot be different by their very nature, for they relate to what belongs to the realm of prophecy. Until the proper developer is given in history, the images on the undeveloped film remain dim and unclear, for times and periods must come when prophecies will be revealed and fulfilled. One common faith unites apocalyptically minded circles - history not only no longer faces a tearing end, but is not yet internally finished, and therefore the history of the Church still has a new, unrevealed future ahead of it, and in the face of this future it is appropriate to think, perhaps, not about the end, but rather about the beginning of history. Of course, it is not given to anyone to know the times and dates when the Lord will come, but this word of His can be interpreted in both opposite senses, and the unknown of the time of the end of history does not negate the need and obligation to live responsibly and consciously. History must be lived and lived out, and not just somehow ended, passing through it, like through a gloomy and empty corridor to the Kingdom of Heaven. This pseudo-ascetic nihilism in history is considered by some to express a truly Christian attitude towards the world, although in reality it is more consistent with Manichaeism or Buddhism. In history, not only is the tearing tragedy of the confrontation between good and evil revealed, but something is also accomplished, without which and before which it cannot end, and, therefore, the coming of Christ will not take place, and it also requires the fullness of time for itself, like the first. It is this positive feeling of history, its meaningfulness, that is what feeds apocalypticism, the thirst for the actual revelation of all the possibilities of human and world existence before its end, or, more precisely, a transcendence into another existence. Historical humanity determines this completeness to the best of its own understanding. Before the Orthodox consciousness of our days, it stands in its utmost maximum form as the ecclesiasticalization of all life through the determining influence of the Church, through its internal manifestation. In an age when the separation of Church and State is becoming a universal slogan, this idea may turn out to be utopian and imperfect. However, it could arise only when the subordination of the Church to the state, external and internal, sometimes reaching the point of enslavement, which was accepted as the norm of their mutual relations and was called the “Christian state,” had become obsolete. Having abandoned such an understanding (which the Catholic Church still does not want to abandon, and today expresses it in the restoration of its symbolic “Vatican” state), Orthodoxy is only now gaining the opportunity to fully realize and set itself the task of the internal degeneration of the state with its eventual dissolution. Isn’t this idea, among others, contained in the prophecy about the thousand-year reign of Christ, in the 20th chapter of the Apocalypse? Of course, this presupposes a new revelation of the forces of Orthodoxy. A similar task for Orthodoxy is indicated in the manifestation of its strength and its influence in culture. The initial relationship between religion and culture is that culture comes from a cult and has a theurgic and mystical character. Subsequently, the secularization of culture takes place, its secularization, the “separation” of culture from the Church, due to which the Church itself receives the place of only one of many branches of culture. However, the original attitude expresses an internal norm, and the current secularization is a painful deviation from it, which must have its end. Orthodoxy contains among its spiritual gifts the power of cultural creativity, which it has to give to its sons (just as God filled Bezalel and his helpers with the “Spirit of God, wisdom, understanding, knowledge and all skill” (Ex. 31:3)). At the same time, their own internal development of science, art and all artistic endeavors, with a certain depth and maturity, leads them to religious self-determination and calls them to bring their gifts to Christ, like the Magi to the Baby of Bethlehem. Therefore, the life of the Church must acquire a still unknown fullness, along with the current focus on personal salvation, the forces of the Christian community must be revealed in it. Of course, this will not yet be “heaven on earth,” which would make its passage through fire and transformation unnecessary and unnecessary. After the thousand-year reign, according to the Apocalypse, follows the uprising of Gog and Magog with all the nations deceived by Satan; they surround “the camp of the saints and the beloved city” (Rev. 20:7–8). Evil still remains in the world and is making its last efforts. However, this last battle does not presuppose an exhausted and already exhausted enemy, but the Church, showing all its strength that can only be available to it. These are the forebodings of Russian modern apocalypticism in Orthodoxy. According to them, one cannot bow one’s head to the ongoing secularization and the spread of atheism. All this can only be a dialectical moment in historical development, an antithesis, followed by a new synthesis. There is still a future in the history of the Church, for there are clearly matters and tasks that require resolution. If the green tree of Christianity now seems to have withered, does this not mean that the Gardener has cut off all the old shoots in His vineyard, so that new ones will grow more vigorously? This idea about the highest calling of the Church, in relation to serving the world in various forms, animates Orthodox Russian thinkers of the 19th-20th centuries, and it also forms the ideological basis of the Russian Student Christian Movement abroad. For individual thinkers, this idea receives different expressions, while the general problematic remains unchanged. But their common feature is that they contain a call to creativity, to inspiration, to the transformation of life. In the teachings of N.F. Fedorov, which was discussed above, it turns into a call for the resurrection of the sons of the fathers, and, thereby, the boundaries between this century and the future are removed, as well as between apocalypticism and eschatology. Of course, all these creative aspirations may seem only like the fantasies of solitary thinkers who have neither an ecclesiastical nor a historical basis for themselves. However, they originate in the Orthodox Church and are fed by its underground springs. And didn’t the prophets of Israel seem to their contemporaries to be similar dreamers, who through the destruction of kingdoms and worlds saw the Future? For this aspiration of Russian Orthodox thought, for these creative calls and insights, there is an internal evidence that is greater than external. And in any case, it is not for man to limit or make changes to the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer: Thy Kingdom come! Thy will be done as it is in heaven and on earth! As is known, in certain movements of Protestantism (Anabaptists in Germany, Millenarian Puritans in England, Taborites in the Czech Republic, etc.), apocalypticism took the form of revolutionary socialism, just as in general Jewish apocalypticism with “heaven on earth” is the prototype and primary source of socialist utopianism, which we have in the bloody communism of our days. (Cf. my essay: “Apocalypse and Socialism” in the collection “Two Cities”).