Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Congratulations with the feasts of the Resurrection of the Lord and the conception of the Virgin Mary by Saint Anne!

Last week on Monday (December 16), the Church marked the memory of the Holy Prophet Zephaniah. Today let’s briefly discuss him.

The Holy Prophet Zephaniah lived during the reign of the pious and holy Judean King Josiah, who ruled the southern Jewish kingdom in the second half of the seventh century B. C. Zephaniah was of aristocratic or perhaps even royal lineage. The Prophet wrote his short book sometime before the fall of the Assyrian Empire. Its prophecy is different from the prophecies of the other Old Testament saints whom we discussed earlier (Obadiah, Nahum, and Habakkuk) in that his terrifying words are addressed not to external enemies, but first and foremost to his own Jewish nation. The fact is that the Jews of that time were far from living piously. Many of them, if not the majority, were indifferent to service to the one true God and to a strict adherence to the Jewish ritual law. Some even made sacrifices to idols and lived according to the customs of the pagans.

In the first part of his book, the Holy Prophet Zephaniah with biting words denounces the Jews for their idol worship, foretells the destruction of the Judean Kingdom, and calls the Jews to repentance before this disaster befalls them. In the second chapter, the prophet denounces the neighbouring nations, in particular the Assyrian city of Nineveh, and also foretells their ruin. In the third and final chapter Zephaniah once again denounces Jerusalem and then moves on to prophecy about the future new Jerusalem and the righteous citizens of Sion (Sion is one of the hills on which Jerusalem is built. This name is often used as a synonym for Jerusalem in both Holy Scripture and liturgical texts). He notes that not only the Jews, but also the faithful from among the gentiles will be there. There, in this new Jerusalem, everything will be calm and quiet, and the Lord will defend everyone from their foes.

Of course, all of these prophecies came to be, both in the literal, historical sense as well as in the allegorical, spiritual sense. The Judean Kingdom was indeed destroyed and the Jews were led into captivity by the Babylonians at the beginning of the 6th century. The Assyrians and the other nations also suffered. Despite this, the pious Jews who managed to survive, after many years of exile returned to their land and reestablished their temple. In the spiritual understanding of things, we know that Jerusalem represents the Holy Church or the Kingdom of Heaven. After the coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ to earth, the Church was formed, and into it entered not only Jews, but also many gentile nations. In the Church, and even more so in the heavenly future Kingdom, true peace reigns, not a fragile earthly peace, but an eternal, spiritual peace.

For us Orthodox Christians the prophecy of Saint Zephaniah is very relevant. We, like the Old Testament Jews, often consider ourselves to be the Lord’s chosen people. In certain ways, this really is the case, but unfortunately we are also like the ancient Jews in that we sometimes forget our Creator and begin to serve and worship our passions. Let each of us hear the prophet Zephaniah’s call to repentance, so as to escape spiritual destruction and eternal enslavement to the devil.

priest Alexis