The Abomination of Desolation - St. Marys Coptic Orthodox Church

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THE UNHOLY TRINITY
fiery furnace, but the Lord sent His angel to save them. In the last
days, an image of Antichrist will be set up and “as many as would
not worship the image of the beast should be killed.” (Rev 13:15)
Christians who will refuse to follow Antichrist or worship his
image will be thrown into the fiery furnace (the Great Tribulation)
but as in the times of old, they will be saved from the Tribulation by
the Lord even as He saved the Three Children from the fiery
furnace. The size of the image that Nebuchednezzar had set up
bears semblance to the number of the beast (Rev 13:18):
For that image which was set up by Nebuchadnezzar had indeed a
height of sixty cubits, while the breadth was six cubits; on account of
which Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, when they did not worship it,
were cast into a furnace of fire, pointing out prophetically, by what
happened to them, the wrath against the righteous which shall arise
towards the [time of the] end. For that image, taken as a whole, was
a prefiguring of this man's coming, decreeing that he should
undoubtedly himself alone be worshipped by all men. Thus, then,
the six hundred years of Noah, in whose time the deluge occurred
because of the apostasy, and the number of the cubits of the image
for which these just men were sent into the fiery furnace, do indicate
the number of the name of that man in whom is concentrated the
whole apostasy of six thousand years, and unrighteousness, and
wickedness, and false prophecy, and deception; for which things'
sake a cataclysm of fire shall also come [upon the earth]. 2
Note the symbolism that the destruction of the world in the time of
Noah bears to the destruction of the world under the reign of
Antichrist; only those inside the Ark (the Church) will be saved
from the destruction in the “cataclysm of fire which shall come upon
the earth.” (II Thes 1:7-8, II Pet 3:6-10)
The fourth head represents the Persians which followed the
Babylonians.
The fifth head is the Greek tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes who
destroyed the Temple built by Ezra.
2 Irenaeus: Against heresies, book V