Several kilometres from the town of Kropotkin, an old hieromonk, Fr. Macarius, lived alone in a cave. He was famous among the people because he was clairvoyant. He spoke little, but the people loved him and respected him for his firm stand in the faith. And for a long time the authorities did not touch him, for he lived as a recluse and no-one saw him. But someone was watching him. And if he was asked a question he did not hide the truth.
Thus once he was asked:
"Batyushka, is it possible to recognize the registered, 'Soviet church'?"
"How is it possible to recognize Metropolitan Sergius as Orthodox, as the head of the Christian Church, if he has subjected the Church to the Antichrist? His declaration is apostasy from Christ the Lord. He is the same kind of renovationist as those who lived at the beginning of the 1920s. It is impossible to believe him. And his 'church' is only a church on the outside, while inside, as the Lord says in the Gospel, it is 'the abomination of desolation'!... What have we to fear? We shall remain with the lawful locum tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, Metropolitan Peter. Lord, give him strength..."
"Batyushka, so it is quite wrong to go to this church?"
"Of course! One should not only not go there regularly, one should not even drop in there by accident."
"They say that everything is in the old style there."
"It only seems like that. You can't see the change with your eyes and hear it with your ears. It is in their minds."
"Well, what will happen if all those who now serve in secret die off. Will it be wrong to go there even then?"
"One must never go there! It is the 'church' of apostasy*."
[*A Catacomb document published by Jordanville in 2002 states similarly: "Bear humbly the penance of God, if you have to be without a shepherd. This is not penance from men, but from above, from the Lord... Do not try to go to open temples of false churches, this is a trap. There, the last heresy begins - the confession of the Antichrist...”.]
"But, you know, many go there and praise it."
"Don't look at those who go there. But look at those who do not go there, not only those who are still alive, but also those who remained faithful to God until death..."
"Is there really heresy there?"
"It is worse than any heresy there!"
"But what can be worse than heresy?"
"To recognize the antichrist!..."
Of course, the blessed elder knew that these words, the words of a fearless confessor of the Christian faith, would come to the ears of the authorities and they would undertake corresponding measures. But it seems that the authorities did not see any point in making a big commotion out of this - the elder did not, after all, appear in public. It was not expedient to accuse him of the most evil agitation and undermining of Soviet power. It was too clear to everybody that he had no self-seeking motives. He was a hermit. And so they decided to get rid of him quietly.
The elder was forewarned by God by what death he would die. And when a woman who greatly venerated him brought him a towel, he took it in his hands and wept bitterly. The woman did not understand why the elder was weeping. She only knew - or rather felt - that something mysterious, and perhaps fateful in the life of the elder, was linked with this towel...
The elder was found strangled with the help of this towel!