Revelation 9:1Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

According to some, the star that had fallen from heaven to earth, and to the Valley of Jehoshaphat appointed for judgment, should be understood as an angel of God sent for punishment. The pit of the abyss signifies Gehenna.

I think the star is an angel of God. By God's permission he will release from the abyss the condemned evil demons whom Christ, when He became incarnate, bound.

Thus, after doing what is theirs before the end, they will afterward be subjected to endless torments.

The abyss and the pit are people who keep the secret places of sins, that is, wickedness hidden in the heart, even while remaining in the Church. I think they receive that key to the pit by which they will open the wounds of their own heart and be openly exposed. For according to the apostle's word, "there must be factions among you, that those who are approved among you may be revealed" (1 Cor 11:19). When error is born, then truth is preached more fully. Hidden hypocrisy and error are more easily revealed, so that the purity of faith may be preserved. For schismatics and heretics often come forth from these fallen ones. Concerning them the Church rightly says in the Song of Songs: "The sons of my mother were angry with me" (Song 1:5).

The fifth trumpet speaks of the strengthening of hostility from the heretics, the forerunners of the antichrist.

From the smoke of scientific and technological progress, which darkens the sun and air to the point of ecological catastrophe, there comes forth a new ideology of technology, like the old Tower of Babel forgotten and then remembered again. It spreads across the whole maddened planet by means of the militant noise and clamor of the mass media. It exercises harmful dominion over the minds and hearts of men for a definite time, five months. This time is needed to prepare a generation incapable of being corrected or repenting from the coming admonitions. At the same time, its destructive nature is evident to all: to believers who speak the language of the knowledge of God, and to pagans who chiefly use the language of Hellenic wisdom.