The World’s Next Superpower

Tracking the rise of the European Union to global dominance—the final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire! By Ron Fraser

As 2009 drew to a close, our editor in chief announced to the world that “In the next two months the Holy Roman Empire is going to be official in Europe!”

From its earliest beginnings, the Trumpet has watched and reported on this rising European imperial power, now in its guise as the European Union.

Why is that so? Why such a strong focus on the European Union?

Seizing a Lost Opportunity

The Trumpet looks upon Herbert Armstrong as its prime mentor. Mr. Armstrong published the Plain Truth magazine and was the voice of the World Tomorrow radio and television program, both serving international audiences numbering in the millions.

Europe’s unification was the key prophecy Mr. Armstrong highlighted over the years. So well known was he for this forecast that in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, a news station in Seattle called the Plain Truth’s headquarters to ask for a statement on the event—after all, Mr. Armstrong had been saying this would happen for over 40 years. Sadly, Mr. Armstrong had died a few years before, and those in his place offered only the weakest, vaguest statement of the significance of this prophetically electrifying event.

The Trumpet has seized that lost opportunity and, as resources have permitted, sought to provide an ongoing educational service in the public interest exposing the truth about the dramatic turn of world events introduced by the fall of the Berlin Wall. Thus we have worked to expose the true nature of the imperial power that is readying itself to burst onto the world scene, for a brief period in time, as a superpower of frightening strength!

After Germany’s reunification, we declared in the first year of the Trumpet’s publication, “The Holy Roman Empire is almost resurrected as Bible prophecy said it would be (see Revelation 13 and 17). Here is what Otto von Habsburg of the European Parliament recently had to say: ‘The [European] Community is living largely by the heritage of the Holy Roman Empire, though the great majority of the people who live by it don’t know by what heritage they live’” (December 1991).

In May of 1992, the Trumpet warned: “Recent political events happening within Germany and Europe should cause alarming concern for people within the United States, England and even the rest of the world. But most do not know the true meaning behind all of these events.

“A major political, economic and religious conglomerate of nations is poised ready to burst onto the world scene. Historically, this union of nations was known as the Holy Roman Empire.”

First the Balkans—Then the Rest!

Up to the Berlin Wall’s fall, the project to unite Europe—church and state—into what Otto von Habsburg described as a union reflecting the “heritage of the Holy Roman Empire” had stalled at the Iron Curtain separating Europe’s western democracies from the Communist states of the Soviet Union. European elites had long planned to fix that after what they saw as the inevitable reunification of Germany. When Germany reunited in 1990, it did not take long for that plan to emerge. It all began in the Balkan Peninsula.

Prophesying of the expansion of the final resurrection of this empire, the Prophet Daniel was inspired to write that it would wax “exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east and toward the pleasant land” (Daniel 8:9). Any Bible commentary will confirm that “the pleasant land” is the land of Israel.

Thus, for 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, we have anticipated and reported on the southern and eastern expansion of the European Union. We have especially watched for a multi-nation EU “peacekeeping” force to eventually surround Jerusalem (Luke 21:20).

From 1991 we tracked German hegemony as it began expanding south and east.

In our September/October 1995 edition, our editor in chief reported, “In December 1991, some politically serious events began to take shape within Germany and Eastern Europe. Strongly opposed by the European Economic Community, the United States, and the United Nations, Germany recognized the ‘breakaway’ states of Croatia and Slovenia. The pope very quickly followed Germany by also recognizing these states. This was not by coincidence; the people of these two states are very loyal to the Roman Catholic Church. … There is something very dark and sinister stirring in Europe.” Gerald Flurry then prophesied, “What is now happening in Croatia is only a small sample of what is about to spread over the entire continent! This is the ‘straw that is going to stir the drink’ to unify all of Europe. It will not be long until Europe is reunited as the Holy Roman Empire.”

Four years later, as attention in the Balkan wars shifted to Kosovo, we forecast, “America (and almost the whole world) strongly opposed Germany’s plans in the beginning. But the U.S. weakened and then even decided to support Germany in their war to control the Balkans! Then the civil war spread into Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Serbs lost control of a large portion of this republic also. Now the Serbs see Germany supporting a guerrilla army of Albanians. … The only real winner in our war with Yugoslavia will be Germany. America and Britain will be the great losers. They will grow weaker as Germany grows in power” (May 1999).

In the same edition we commented, “This spring has been a monumental time for Germany. Not only has the Luftwaffe gone to war for the first time since World War ii [in the Balkan wars], but the official opening of the Reichstag in Berlin has brought a visionary parliament together in a building 66 years after a fire there ushered in Hitler’s dictatorship and the Third Reich. … [A] European empire is to revive one last time in Western and Central Europe. Germany will spearhead this revival. The Reichstag’s reopening is yet another indicator that ‘classic Europe,’ as historians call it, is not a thing of the past.”

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