Yes, there is such a church tradition. But I would draw a different conclusion from it. If at that time the Lord sent a vision to the Primate of the Church of the Second Rome, then why does God not give a similar sign and admonition to the Patriarch of the Third Rome today? Why did the Lord miraculously warn the emperor about the blasphemous joke[286], and why did the Lord not give news to the present Patriarch about a much more serious event – the beginning of a serious printing with the sign of the Antichrist? Has the Lord stopped caring for His people? Or does God's silence in this case mean that the measure of the threat is not so extraordinary as to require extraordinary (miraculous) measures?

Yes, I understand that the Innenists (people for whom all their churchliness has been reduced to a struggle against the INN) will object that the current Patriarch is unworthy of God's appearances. I do not dare to judge the personal qualities of Patriarch Alexy. But one thing is certain: he professes Orthodoxy, and by no means the Arian heresy... But the same Archbishop Eudoxius, to whom St. Theodore appeared, was... Arian. V. Bolotov characterizes him as follows: "an extremely unattractive man, who in his sermons reached the point of vulgarity and farce, who changed his convictions like no other" [287]. So, maybe, if today the Lord does not warn us about the most terrible threat, this threat does not exist today?.. [288]

Thus, if a Christian does not know about the secrets of the meal offered to him, it will not harm him. According to Chrysostom, Ap. Paul appeals to the Corinthians "so that by this fear (of conscious participation in the pagan mysteries – A. K.) not to lead them to the other extreme, lest they should be overly cautious in fearing such defilement in any way without their knowledge. If you eat without knowing or hearing that it is sacrificed to idols, then you are not subject to punishment, since this is a matter of ignorance, and not of intemperance... The Apostle grants them great independence and freedom: he does not even allow them to doubt, that is, to investigate and investigate whether it is sacrificed to idols or not, but commands them simply to eat everything that is in the marketplace" [289].

And even if the Christian himself knows that he is offered things sacrificed to idols, yet he is not warned about this circumstance by the treaters or sellers, even then, having protected himself with prayer, he has every right to "eat everything without examination" without confusion of conscience.

But the Apostle Paul could not have imagined the current situation: an atheist-minded host treats guests to some products, about which he himself assures that they are the most ordinary, and Christian guests repeat: "No, don't pretend! We know that you are actually giving us things sacrificed to idols." After all, it is impossible to seriously consider that all the employees of the tax inspectorate and passport offices are all secret Kabbalists and occultists, who secretly mark state documents with our names and these secret "sixes" in order to rededicate us to the service of Satan!

The assertion that a sign that is not perceptible to a person "spoils" the thing and the person who has come into contact with this thing contradicts the Orthodox theology of the image. In 1082, the Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus faced a decisive shortage of money while waging war. And then he ordered to pour the copper gates of one of the churches into coins, apparently similar to those that now adorn the gates of the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Savior). On these gates were poured out the icons of the Twelve Great Feasts. The Chalcedonian metropolitan Leo was indignant at the emperor's action, considering it blasphemous and iconoclastic. A council was convened to resolve the conflict. Leo defended the idea that the substance from which sacred images are made remains a sacred object even after the face of the saint or Christ is destroyed. The Council explained that honor is given not to the substance of the icon, but to its Divine prototype... [290] Church practice indeed commands the removal from prayerful use of icons on which the faces have been erased. A crumbling or hopelessly blackened icon can be burned – and this will not be blasphemy. "If someone wanted to kiss his image in the mirror, he would not kiss nature, but the likeness of himself reflected in it, so he clung to the substance. Of course, if he moves away from the mirror, then the image will recede with it, as having nothing in common with the substance of the mirror. In the same way with regard to the substance of the image: if the likeness which was visible on it and to which the veneration belonged is destroyed, then the substance remains without veneration" (St. Theodore the Studite)[291]. Therefore, the icon with a darkened and indistinguishable face was destroyed – without fear of desecration of the "grace accumulated in it".

Only as long as the image is visible to the person in front of him – the icon is able to serve as a combination of his mind with the Divine Prototype. If we say that a paper marked with a satanic sign that is invisible to a person captivates the mind of that person to Satan, then we attribute more to Satan than to God. In human language, strokes do not mean sixes.

Turning to the history of icon veneration reveals another facet of the controversy around barcodes... Some Russian schismatic sects refuse to worship icons on which some extraneous persons or objects are represented (for example, the iconographic depiction of the crucifixion, if the icon depicts soldiers-crucifiers). "You worship the tree," say the Ryabinovtsy, pointing to the image of the oak of Mamre on the icon of the Trinity, "you worship the stars, you bless the donkey when you depict the entry of the Lord into Jerusalem, you pray to the serpent and the horse when you glorify the feat of the Great Martyr George." Here is the same misunderstanding: it is not the presence of an image as such that introduces the one who is depicted on the icon into the world of people, but the prayerful naming of him as people that establishes a grace-filled connection between the person, the icon and the prototype. The Council of the Hundred Chapters, having considered the question of the permissibility of depicting non-holy persons and objects on veneration icons, came to the conclusion that this could be done.

Thus, the icon can depict the martyrdom of the youths in the Babylonian furnace. At the same time, an idol will be depicted in the background, which the youths refused to worship. The Christian who kissed this icon did not become a worshipper of the Persian gods. Although a vile sign is depicted on the object to which the Christian showed a sign of loving respect, but since there was no intention in his mind to worship the idol, and even, on the contrary, there was a completely conscious and even verbal, prayerfully expressed desire to honor the feat of those who trampled on this idol, then the Christian did not become an idolater...

Moreover, the presence of an idolatrous sign on a worldly thing, that is, on one that does not require any gestures of religious veneration, cannot make an apostate out of a Christian who uses the thing and not this sign.

And an even more difficult question. Can a Christian treat with religious reverence an object created by a Satanist and speckled with obvious satanic symbolism? Is it possible to kiss such an object? The answer seems obviously negative until the second you remember the knife with which the three Optina monks were killed. If I had the opportunity to make physical contact with this knife, I would cross myself and kiss it – like a shrine washed in the blood of a martyr. This is a trophy. As well as the Cross of Christ itself. What can be more blasphemous than the direct instrument of Godicide? And nevertheless, to touch a piece of the original Cross Tree is considered a joyful opportunity by Christians. For we do not kiss the evil intention that the crucifiers put into this Cross, but the Blood which Christ nourished the Cross and through which He received us into His Love[293].

And not every meeting with the "three sixes" is a meeting with the Antichrist[294]. Moreover, St. Irenaeus of Lyons believes that in the Scriptures the name of the Antichrist is concealed and replaced by sixes for pious reasons: "His name is silent, because it is unworthy to be proclaimed by the Holy Spirit" (Against Heresies, 5:30, 4). Does this not mean that if the very name of the Antichrist is a defilement, then the numerical combination by which he can be recognized is no longer something blasphemous in itself?

St. Victorinus of Petavia (born in 304 AD) suggests that the number 666 is God's providential hint addressed to Christians. In his opinion, the Antichrist is Nero. (In general, Nero is very significant in the historiosophical conception of St. Victorinus; for example, he believes that Christ, born in 9 A.D., lived 49 years and was crucified precisely during the reign of Nero in 58 AD. Killed in the middle of the 1st century, Nero "will be resurrected by God and sent as a worthy king to those who are worthy of him: the Jews and the persecutors of Christ; he will be such a Messiah, which the persecutors and the Jews have deserved"[296]. But since this time Nero himself will pretend to be Christ, he will take on a different, new name. And he will even try to live differently: "and he shall not know the desire of women" (Dan. 11:37 in Latin translation) – "the most abominable"! And so, lest Christians be deceived by his new name and image, Revelation warns that when this new name of Nero is written in Greek letters, it will give the number 666.

In this case, it turns out that the number 666 is not the vile energy of Satan stretched out to people, but God's help that helps to uncover the snares of the evil one ("The Holy Spirit says: "his number is 666"). As we can see, the Holy Spirit gives this number and He will not be defiled by touching it. Any number is from the Creator of all things. Including this. It is not the number that drives away grace, but the will of man, the "reason" in which he accepts the dark reality revealed by this number. Number.