That Chicagoan Antichrist

May 2025

By dr Adi Schlebusch

There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ. Nor can the Pope of Rome, in any sense, be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalteth himself, in the Church, against Christ and all that is called God.

- Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 25

Robert Prevost from Chicago, Illinois has been elected as the new Pope. He will be known as Pope Leo XIV.

During the twentieth century, the Reformed world largely forsook the doctrine of the pope being antichrist, but this was a belief historically universally adhered to in Reformed circles. One of the reasons for this modernist shift was the rise of dispensationalism, which began speaking of the antichrist as an individual person rather than as a representative of an antichrist system like Protestants historically did.

Let us take a look at what some of the Reformers had to say in this regard:

The pope is the real Antichrist who has raised himself over and set himself against Christ, for the pope will not permit Christians to be saved except by his own power, which amounts to nothing since it is neither established nor commanded by God.

- Martin Luther, Smalcald Articles (1537), Part II, Article IV.

Some persons think us too severe and censorious, when we call the Roman pontiff Antichrist. . . . And in the Pope of Rome, all the characteristics of that Antichrist are so marvelously answered that if any who read the Scriptures do not see it, there is a marvelous blindness on them.

- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV.2.12.

Rome [is] the seat of Antichrist, and the pope very antichrist himself. I could prove the same by many other scriptures, old writers, and strong reasons.

- Thomas Cranmer, The Works of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, edited by John Edmund Cox (Cambridge: Parker Society, 1844–1846), vol. 2, p. 46

As for antichrist occupying the papal chair, it is evident that a pope living contrary to Christ, like any other perverted person, is called, by common consent, antichrist.

- John Hus, The Church (De Ecclesia), translated by David S. Schaff (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1915), p. 192.

Antichrist is not one man only, but a kingdom, and the Pope’s kingdom is the very kingdom of Antichrist.

- William Tyndale, The Works of William Tyndale, vol, 3, p. 171.

The Pope is that Antichrist, who has exalted himself above all that is called God, sitting in the temple of God, and showing himself as God.

- Heinrich Bullinger, Decades, edited by Thomas Harding (Cambridge: Parker Society, 1849–1852), vol. 4, p. 305