How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it! Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. By their fruits ye shall know them…​. Not everyone that saith to Me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven: but he that doeth the will of My Father Who is in heaven, he shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, and cast out devils in Thy name, and done many miracles in Thy name? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity. Every one therefore that heareth these My words, and doeth them, shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock.

—Matthew 7:14–16, 21–24

ON May 10, 1976, Fr. Seraphim Rose was driving home to the St. Herman Monastery in the mountains of northern California. He was coming from Oregon, where he had just picked up a shipment of his first published book, Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future — a book that would one day become spiritual dynamite, especially in Russia. The book was an examination of contemporary religious phenomena, symptoms of the “new religious consciousness” which prepared the way for one world religion and marked the beginning of a “demonic pentecost” in the last times. Never before had such a penetrating analysis of 20th-century spiritual currents been written, for until now no one had studied them so closely according to the timeless wisdom of the Holy Fathers.

In the early to mid-1970s, when Fr. Seraphim was writing his book, much of the phenomena he was describing was considered part of an aberrant “fringe.” But he saw what was coming: he saw that the fringe would become more and more the mainstream. He saw the frightening unity of purpose behind a wide range of outwardly disparate phenomena, and saw the end result looming over the horizon. As he travelled southward with this book which was to blow the mask off the most subtle forms of demonic deception in our times, it was appropriate that he should stop at a nucleus of neo-paganism in America: Mount Shasta. Considered by some to have been a holy mountain of the original Indian inhabitants, Mount Shasta had long been a center of occult activities and settlements, which were now on the increase there. Fr. Seraphim drove part way up with his truckload of books. Standing in the shadow of the immense mountain, on a spot where neo-pagan festivals were commonly held, he sang Paschal chants, sang of Christ’s Resurrection and His victory over satan and the law of death. A thought arose in his mind which had come to him before: “An Orthodox priest should come and bless this mountain with holy water!” Later, after his ordination to the priesthood, he would return to bless the mountain. But his book would do more: it would move mountains.

1.) How This Book Was Born

The seeds of Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future had been with Fr. Seraphim for quite some time. In the early 1960s he had begun a monumental work, The Kingdom of Man and the Kingdom of God, which would trace the philosophical, spiritual and social currents of the last 900 years, and would include a large section entitled “Orthodox Christian Spirituality and the ‘New Spirituality.’” For years his monastic co-laborer, Fr. Herman, had been urging him to complete his magnum opus, but Fr. Seraphim had balked on the grounds that it was too big a job to undertake along with all the other tasks of their St. Herman Brotherhood, and that, besides, it was too intellectual and abstract. “We need something more practical,” he said. By this time his understanding of Orthodox Christianity had deepened considerably, both from study and from personal struggle, and he was better able to contrast pseudo-spirituality with a commanding view of true, sober and salvific spiritual life. Ironically, as he had grown in both inward and outward knowledge since the early 1960s, his writings had grown not more complex and abstruse, but more accessible, understandable, basic and to-the-point.

In 1971, Fr. Seraphim began to write and compile chapters for Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, serializing them in the Brotherhood’s journal The Orthodox Word. Four years later, on Bright Friday, May 9, 1975, the fathers finished printing the first edition of the book. It sold out so quickly that they had to do another printing in August, and then again the following May. An expanded edition was published in 1979. The book had struck a responsive chord; the monastery received letters and visits from several people

who had been delivered from spiritual deception after reading it.

2.) The Clarity of a Patristic Mind

In the last century, the Russian Orthodox philosopher Ivan Kireyevsky explained how the acquisition of the Patristic mind enables one to see what others cannot: “An Orthodox mind stands at the point where all roads cross. He carefully looks down each road and, from his unique vantage point, observes the conditions, dangers, uses, and ultimate destination of each road. He examines each road from a Patristic viewpoint as his personal convictions come into actual, not hypothetical, contact with the surrounding culture.” These words exactly describe Fr. Seraphim and explain why his writings now seem so prophetic. It was not that he was a divinely inspired prophet to whom the mysteries of the future were revealed. Rather, it was that he had acquired the Orthodox Patristic mind, the mind of the ancient Holy Fathers; and with this he discerned where the road of his surrounding culture — its general spiritual trend — was headed.

When Fr. Seraphim was writing in the mid-1970s about the dangers of the neo-pagan cults, there were other “cult-watchers” around (although then they were not so widely listened to as when the “cult-scare” hit America in 1979, in the wake of the Jonestown massacre).Without the Patristic principles of spiritual life, however, they were not able to perceive the underlying unity behind the phenomena of UFOs, Eastern religions, and the “charismatic revival” — all of which possess mediumistic techniques for getting in contact with fallen spirits under different guises.

Now that the New Age movement has become so visible and powerful, a number of “warning” books by Christian authors have become available. In 1983, a year after Fr. Seraphim’s death, one of these books became a number one bestseller among Protestant Christians: The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow: the New Age Movement and Our Coming Age of Barbarism, by Attorney Constance E. Cumbey. Although this book is also not informed by Patristic principles and may include some exaggerations, it came as a much-needed eye-opener to the Christian world, revealing little-known facts about the roots of the New Age movement, and about the cooperating religious, political, economic, health and environmental organizations working toward the “New World Order.” After the book came out, Constance Cumbey went on a speaking tour, appearing many times on television and radio, giving interviews and debating such prominent New Age leaders as Benjamin Creme. Then, in 1988, she came across Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future. This book by a predecessor in her field was like a revelation to her. To the St. Herman Brotherhood she wrote: “An unknown benefactor sent me a copy of Fr. Rose’s book approximately one year ago, and I consider it the most important book I have read on the subject to date. Reading Fr. Rose is like drinking pure water after wading in muck! I have recommended it to many people in my public talks and radio interviews.”

3.) The Impact of This Book in Russia and throughout the World

Of the forty books which the St. Herman Brotherhood published during Fr. Seraphim’s lifetime — twenty in English and twenty in Russian — Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future was the most popular. At the time of this writing, it is in its ninth English printing.

In Russia the impact of the book has been far greater than it has in America. During his lifetime Fr. Seraphim learned that the book had been translated into Russian behind the Iron Curtain, but he was never to know the astounding results. After his death it became known that the Russian translation (or a number of translations) had been secretly distributed among believers all over Russia in the form of countless typewritten manuscripts. The lives of untold thousands were changed as this book awakened them to the spiritual dangers of their times. The book is particularly relevant to Russia today, where a society deprived by seventy years of enforced materialism is falling prey to the growing influence of fraudulent spiritual trends.

With the “opening up” of Eastern European countries, portions of the widely known “underground” manuscript of Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future were published in newspapers inside Russia. The chapters on “The Fakir’s Miracle and the Prayer of Jesus” and on the UFO phenomenon appeared, introduced by biographical information on Fr. Seraphim. In both cases the articles were deliberately published to fulfill a specific need, since Eastern religions and UFO experiences have attracted tremendous interest in Russia. As the newspaper publishers stated, Fr. Seraphim’s explanation of these phenomena has proven more plausible than any other theory. One believer in Russia, Mikhail Scherbachev of the Moscow Patriarchate Publishing Department, has said it well: “Fr. Seraphim’s books demonstrate that these seemingly ‘inexplicable’ phenomena can be explained according to the stable, secure, precise theory of Orthodox Patristic doctrine.”

Finally, in 1991, the entire book was published in mass quantities inside Russia. Since then, several Russian editions have been printed and distributed. Along with Fr. Seraphim’s The Soul After Death, this book is one of the most widely read spiritual books in Russia today. It has been sold not only in bookstores and churches throughout the country, but even in the subway (Metro) and on book tables in the streets.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future began to be published in other countries, as well — primarily in Orthodox countries, where it has generated widespread interest. There are now editions in Greek, Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Georgian, Latvian and French. The seventh chapter of the book, on the “charismatic revival,” has also been translated into the Malayalam (south Indian) language and published in India.

4.) Uncompromising Witness

Although Fr. Seraphim was generally understated in his deliberate avoidance of sensationalism, some readers may find the conclusions he draws in this book to be unnecessarily severe. In this, as in all his published writings, he was not one to soften his punches. Since betrayals of Christian truth — from the blatant to the highly subtle — were going on everywhere, he felt he could not afford to put on kid gloves; he had to be uncompromising in print.

Despite his severity when it came to writing about demonic deceptions which could lead the well-meaning to eternal perdition, Fr. Seraphim was loving and compassionate when it came to his pastoral approach to individual people. This personal, one-on-one care for people can be seen in his letters, journals and counsels which are cited in his biography, Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works. The present book, on the other hand, is an unequivocal statement, written for the world at large with a specific purpose in mind. Because Fr. Seraphim adhered to this purpose without sidestepping in the least, his book has over the years succeeded in jarring countless people out of complacency, making them take spiritual life more seriously, and giving them a firm push on the right path. It has challenged them with the reality that there is indeed a spiritual war going on, a battle for souls, and that they must walk circumspectly (Eph. 5:15) so as not to lose the grace of God which leads them heavenward.

May God continue to use this book to enlighten those wandering in darkness, and to remind those walking in the light how straight and narrow is the path they are to tread — the path to eternal life.

Hieromonk Damascene

St. Herman of Alaska Monastery

Platina, California

September 2004