TIA,

I pulled this from an internet search of the subject of this :

"I'm afraid this "prophesy" is a forgery. And yes, I'm aware that it appeared in the previous edition of the "Athonite Gerontikon", but monks make mistakes too! Several things give it away as a forgery:

1. No one heard of this prophesy prior to the 1990's.
   
   
2. The first versions of the "prophesy" which appeared began with the words: "After the year 1900, towards the middle of the 19th century..."- which of course is AD 1850! The forger couldn't even get that right!
   
   
3. In the supposed "original" Greek versions, the "prophesy" uses the word "homophilia" (the adjective of "homosexual"), but the words "homophilo" and "homophilia" (the noun and adjective of "homosexual") were not coined in Greece until after AD 1896- two hundred years after St. Nilos the Myhrrgusher died.
   
   
4. The first versions ascribe the "prophesy" to the St. Nilus who died in AD 430 (St. Nilus of Sinai). And even then, the forger didn't get his dates right, calling him a "4th century Saint" when he was in fact a "5th century Saint"- which of course is the same mistake he or she made by ascribing the words "towards the middle of the 19th century" to the Saint.
   
   
5. Some versions add the words "with few exceptions" to the prophesy after the part which says that the Church will be deprived of "God-fearing and pious pastors".

It is time to relegate this "prophesy" to the realm of urban legends and "spooky-doxy" as Fr. Joseph Huneycutt does in his blog.

     P.M.V.

Dear Sir,

You seem to be promoting the so-called Prophesy of St Nilus to Catholic Traditionalists.

When someone asked for the source you wrote this reply

We contacted the priest who had forwarded the prophecy of St. Nilus to us, but he did not have a source for it. However, a reader from Brazil, Mr. P.H.M., who had sent us the same prophecy in Portuguese was able to provide the due source. According to Mr. P.H.M. the original source is:

Biblioteca Sanctorum, volume IX, page 1008.

We checked the texts in both English and Portuguese and they match in almost everything with only some few differences, which is understandable given that both texts seem to be translations from Latin.

I have found the Biblioteca Sanctorum (published in Italian not Latin as you assumed). Volume IX page 1008 does indeed have an article about "Nilo il Sinaita, asceta di Ancira, santo", however there is no prophecy described there. The only thing I can see that relates the text of this "source" to the "prophecy" is the phrase "Fino all'inizio del XX sec. egli era noto sotto il nome di N., asceta del monte Sinai." (where the bold part seems to mean "until the beginning of the 20th century" cf. the prophecy "in the middle of the 20th century").

The information that "Mr P.M.H" has provided is therefore false.

The real source for the "prophecy" seems to be Eastern Schismatics

This article http://www.holy-transfiguration.org/library_en/mod_endtimes.html containing the "prophecy" seems to have been written by ROCOR Archbishop Averky about 1957 (deduced from the phrase "for forty long years Satan's faithful servants - the godless Communists - have been trying to eradicate God from the soul of this people" on the 2nd page http://www.holy-transfiguration.org/library_en/mod_endtim;es1.html).

On the first page Averky claims the prophecy comes from: The Russian translation of the book published on Mt. Athos back in 1912, "The Posthumous Predictions of St. Nilus the Myrrh-streaming,"

Assuming this is correct then it is likely that the "prophecy" was fabricated by a Greek Orthodox monk ~1912, and translated/published by a Russian Orthodox Monk on Athos in 1912. In 1912 the early women aviators (wearing a bizarre adaptation of "mans clothes") were in the newspapers. An Athos monk pretending to adopt the persona of the obscure St Nilus might have reacted with "it will be impossible to distinguish men from women due to their shamelessness in dress and style of hair" ... "men will also fly through the air like birds," etc.

By 1912 intercontinental telephone conversations, and submarines were already history.

Once people have swallowed this kind of "prophecy" you can get them to believe almost anything. For instance Archbishop Averky (2nd page of his article) introduces more untraceable "prophecies" as follows:

Recently, during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, by the grace of God I became acquainted with new, hitherto unknown prophecies, which shed a new light on Russia's destiny.

These further "prophecies" seem to have been fabricated (presumably between 1917-1957) to lead members of ROCOR to believe they were the chosen remnant of the "third chosen people" - the Russians supposedly.

If you are honest you should issue a statement saying that the "Nilus prophecy" you have promoted is probably a non-Catholic fabrication dating from 1912.

Since I doubt you will do anything with this information (except ignore it), I will be forwarding this to other people also.

     Regards

     D.E.

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