Education and high church office
Yavorsky studied in Kyiv and then in Catholic schools in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. After returning to Orthodoxy, he became a monk in 1689 and taught rhetoric, poetry, philosophy, and theology in Kyiv. His preaching brought him to Peter I’s attention during a visit to Moscow. In 1700 he became Metropolitan of Ryazan and Murom; following Patriarch Adrian’s death, he was appointed to administer patriarchal affairs. A locum tenens holds responsibility during a vacancy: Yavorsky was not elected Patriarch of Moscow.[1]
The Church in an age of reform
Yavorsky initially supported Peter’s reforms but increasingly opposed the direction of his church policy. He became president of the Holy Synod established in 1721, even as his practical influence declined and Feofan Prokopovich gained authority. His career thus crossed two forms of church government: administration during a patriarchal vacancy and the new synodal system.[2]
His literary work extended beyond the book represented here. The anti-Protestant Stone of Faith appeared posthumously in 1728. His surviving sermons number more than three hundred, and his writing also includes poetry and a rhetoric textbook. The biobibliographical account emphasizes the elaborate metaphors and learned allusions of his preaching. Those habits help explain why a theological argument in Yavorsky can also sound like an address intended to move an audience.[2]
Signs, interpretation, and historical argument
Signs of the Coming of Antichrist and the End of the World answers claims that the final Antichrist had already appeared. In his preface, Yavorsky describes opponents who called Moscow Babylon, denounced the Church, and used numerical calculations to support their conclusions. That controversy gives the book a particular purpose: to defend his understanding of the Church and challenge interpretations he considered misleading.[4]
He begins by distinguishing two ways of thinking about the end. Remembering death and judgment can lead a person to examine how he lives; trying to force an answer from mysteries God has concealed can lead to error. The preface develops this distinction through Revelation’s image of the sealed book and the commentary of Andrew of Caesarea. Yavorsky’s concern about speculative interpretation is part of his own argument, not an explanation added by a modern reader.[4]
The opening questions then clarify what he means by Antichrist. He distinguishes the many opponents of Christ mentioned in Christian history from the final individual whom the rest of the work discusses. This matters because references to opposition and deception in the present do not, in his reasoning, establish that the final events have already occurred. Readers who skip these definitions can miss the distinction on which later chapters depend.[4]
The main exposition groups signs before, during, and after Antichrist’s coming. Its first chapters discuss the end of Roman dominion and the preaching of the Gospel throughout the world. The latter turns to Matthew 24 and John of Damascus; it emphasizes that wars and upheavals alone do not establish the end. Subsequent sections examine persecution, the name and mark, the brief reign, Gog and Magog, Babylon, and the final events.[4]
Yavorsky compares interpretations rather than treating every biblical image as self-explanatory. The discussion of Gog and Magog, for example, opens by acknowledging differing opinions. His conclusion returns to the limits of human knowledge: describing the world as old does not tell us the date of its end, any more than an elderly person’s age tells us the day of his death. He connects expectation of judgment with conduct and faithfulness.[4]
The Russian primary text is available for readers who want to compare its sequence of questions, scriptural references, and responses with the English edition.[3]
Books and where to begin
Begin with the preface and the opening questions before turning to individual signs. They establish both the controversy and the meaning of the central term. Then read the sections in order, keeping the cited biblical passage beside the interpretation. Finish with the conclusion, which explains how the author wants knowledge of the last things to affect a reader’s life.[4]
The English volume includes selected facsimile plates, a glossary, a Scripture index, and an index of names and subjects. The Scripture index offers a convenient route back to the principal passages in Daniel, Matthew, Second Thessalonians, and Revelation. The edition identifies an 1819 Moscow Synodal Press printing as its source; that printing belongs to the book’s later publication history, after Yavorsky’s death in 1722.[4]
Related authors and places
Alexander Belyaev takes up related eschatological questions in the nineteenth century. A. P. Lopukhin belongs to the later world of Russian biblical scholarship.
