TAX ID NUMBERS RAISE FEARS OF THE ANTICHRIST February 22, 2001

The London Daily Telegraph reports: “Senior clerics and theologians of the Orthodox Church met in extraordinary conclave yesterday to decide whether changes to Russia's tax system heralded the coming of the Antichrist. Held in one of Russia's most venerated monasteries, the conference sought to allay fears of an imminent apocalypse and prevent a schism over how to respond to the tax reforms. A row over the introduction of an individual number for each taxpayer has raged with such passion that thousands of believers have boycotted the codes and some dioceses have been paralyzed by panic over the changes.
The enemies of the reforms denounce the code as the mark of Satan and ‘a humiliation of man's dignity incompatible with the holy design of man in God's image and form’. They cite the passage in the Book of Revelation before the verse identifying the number of the beast as 666: ‘He causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand or in their foreheads.’

In the Russian provinces, many seem to believe that their individual tax number (INN) really will be engraved on their hand or on their face. Others have been ordered by their priests to resign their jobs and even move house to avoid having to sign up for an INN. The zealots, many of them senior monks or holy men from Russia's monasteries, have also appealed for a boycott of credit cards and smart cards of any sort programmed with individual codes.”