I *think* the Orthodox teach that when we die we go to a holding area where we wait until the end of time to be judged. At the end of time we are judged *then* we enter heaven (or go to hell).

Contrasted to that, I think Catholic theology says that we can enter heaven before the end of time and aren't left waiting in such a state.

Are the positions outlined above accurate representations of what both communities believe? If so, then I'm a bit surprised as people (like my priest) often say there are few differences between Catholic and Orthodox.

Eric, I am simply a layman, but I will add what is my understanding.

I believe the afterlife would normally not be described in spatial terms, i.e. as a place or holding area that we go to. What I believe is the most basic belief is that after death we come in to the presence of God (there are different views of how this happens) as our soul is separated from our body. In this particular judgment we experience God relative to how we related to him in life, so we experience the energies of God in ways that either move us towards or away from God. The particular judgment is just a foretaste of the final judgment when soul and body are united.

Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos has written a book called "Life After Death" and there are excerpts available here and that may be of interest to you.

Andrew

Some time ago, I read a book by the Old Calendarist Orthodox priest-monk Seraphim Rose on this topic. He explained that, based on patristic writers, he held to a belief that the soul is in a state of travel to places on earth, then to Heaven, and then to Hell, with the particular judgement occurring on the 40th day after death. Thus, the commemoration of the deceased in many Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches on the 40th day after death. He also elaborated quite extensively on the notion of the "tollgates" through which the soul must pass on it's way to it's destination. If a soul is in an unrepentant state while approaching the "tollgate", it will be presented, by the demons, with a temptation to sin according to the passion to which it was enslaved on earth, and when it succumbs to the passion, the demons seize it, and toss it into Hell. On the other hand, if the soul is in a state of friendship with God, it will not be lured into Hell, but will pass on to it's God-intended destination, Heaven. This latter view has been condemned by many writers from "canonical" Orthodox jurisdictions, as representing Gnosticism. Fr. Seraphim, also, while condemning the notion of Purgatory, did hold to the idea of a "temporary Hell", and also the possibility that souls in Hell can be helped by our prayers (i.e. their torments can be lessened). I don't remember him making a distinction between helping those in the "temporary" Hell, and those in the Eternal Hell.

With all due respect, if you read 'Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future', which Fr. Seraphim widely promoted, I think it's easy to see that Fr. Seraphim and his ilk were extreme reactionaries, and do not represent mainstream Orthodox thought on the matter.

While acknowledging the apostolic succession and the promulgation of the first 7 ecumenical counsils by contemporary Orthodox scholars, there isn't really any room for authoritative interpretation on this subject. The Catholic perspective of Purgatory as the state after death for the purging of an individual's sins (assuming that their basic disposition was toward God), is the result of hundreds of years of reflection on the matter by many theologians, popes, and saints. I daresay that we Catholics have perhaps a better understanding of the subject because of the Deposit of Faith as delivered to the Successor of Peter.

I'm NOT trying to slam Orthodox Christians on this matter - I think that it may perhaps be more accurate to say that there is no consensus on the state of the soul after death, rather than the definitive statements of a priest of the fringes of Orthodoxy. Fr. Seraphim's writings and statements strike me as reactionary and highly defensive.

Just MHO,

Slainte Mhath,

Daibhibh

As a Byzantine Catholic, I think that Purgatory, or the purification of souls after death, is very defendable, even when viewed from an Eastern perspective. Aside from implied references in Scripture (i.e., Machabees), we also have the writings of some of the Fathers over the centuries. I do remember reading some quotes from Eastern Fathers which would tend to support such a notion, especially in the context of the desirability of praying for the deceased at the Divine Liturgy.In addition, one of the recent "classics" on spirituality from an Eastern Orthodox perspective, a book entitled "Orthodox Spirituality" by Fr. Dmitru Staniloae, details the progression of the soul on it's journey toward union with God. It is somewhat similar (but not completely) to many RC writings on the same topic, in that we see that a soul must go through the stages of purification, and illumination, before attaining union with God, or Theosis/Divinization. The question to ponder is: what happens to the soul of the person who dies in the process of purification? The Catholic answer is easy-the purification continues beyond the grave.

How much authority can the church claim in defining a mystery like the state of the soul after death? It seems like very little to me, and what I think Metropolitan Hierotheos does is expound on the best source we have and that is Holy Scripture. What has been revealed to us about the state of the soul after death is found primarily there in the words of Christ. That is the baseline of our understanding.

Perhaps, but frankly the Latin understanding of Purgatory seemed both odd and problematic to me. Consider the words of Florence

the suffrages of the faithful still living are efficacious in bringing them relief from such punishment, namely the Sacrifice of the Mass, prayers and almsgiving and other works of piety which, in accordance with the designation of the Church, are customarily offered by the faithful for each other.

Or Trent

But let the bishops take care, that the suffrages of the faithful who are living, to wit the sacrifices of masses, prayers, alms, and other works of piety, which have been wont to be performed by the faithful for the other faithful departed, be piously and devoutly performed, in accordance with the institutes of the church; and that whatsoever is due on their behalf, from the endowments of testators, or in other way, be discharged, not in a perfunctory manner, but diligently and accurately, by the priests and ministers of the church, and others who are bound to render this (service).

Or the words of various western saints on the matter

"No tongue can express, no mind can understand, how dreadful is Purgatory…And be assured that the souls have to pay what they owe even to the last farthing. This is God’s decree to satisfy the demands of justice" -St. Catherine of Genoa.

'The same fire torments the damned in hell and the just in Purgatory. The least pain in Purgatory exceeds the greatest in this life." - St. Thomas Aquinas.

"My God, what soul would be sufficiently just to enter heaven without passing through the avenging flames' - St. Teresa of Avila.

And compare all of those to what’s printed in the CCC now, and to be honest with you I think all of the reflection the RCC may be doing now is really moving away from these viewpoints and towards a more Eastern understanding.

Personally, I don’t see the purification that occurs after death as one of God meting out punishment and vengeance, which all of the quotes above would lead me to believe (and I have to wonder if the quotes above or the belief of St. Robert Bellarmine that purgatory is just under the crust of the earth wouldn’t now be considered “extreme” opinions).

I think purification is a reaction to God’s love, not his anger. The mechanics of that process are a mystery, be they the telonia or some other means. Those means are not a matter of doctrine, but theologumenon. That does not seem to me to be a matter of lack of authority to understand the issue, but recognition of where our authority and understanding ends.

No, that is not true. There is agreement that there is a particular and a final judgment and that the process of theosis continues in the next stage of our existence. The rest may be a matter of speculation, but it is not dogma. I don’t consider your comments a slam, I don’t think you really understand the Orthodox view.

Andrew

I was explained that when we die, we arrive to a stand-by state where there is no time or space as it's seen on earth. That's when the purification comes, when the soul faces loneliness or pain (in the case of those who died in sins) or the happy thoughts of someone who's going to meet God very soon in the case of those who were good in life.

I am taught that after this state the Resurection and the Final Judgement come, and it joins those who were alive during the Second Coming as well as those that resurrected and were previously dead.

Then people go to heaven or hell.

Dear Daibhibh,

Forgive me, Celtic brother, but you've given a particular, RC "Slainte" to your understanding of this issue!

One could argue that it was not the Popes of Rome that gave us "Purgatory" - but the scholastic RC theologians who originally concocted it along the lines of "it would appear appropriate that."

It also reflects the Western scholastic preoccupation with trying to define things in minute detail on the basis of scriptural-traditional data that just doesn't support it when one comes right down to it.

But Purgatory itself is not the issue - it is what the West exactly MEANS by it.

And again, as with the Immaculate Conception, the West today seems quite adept at moving about all over the place whenever it perceives that contemporary sensibilities are offended by theological definitions that appear in need of "updating."

So today one will come across the notion of Purgatory being not a "place" but a "state." I was taught in my RC catechism classes when I attended RC schools that Purgatory was a "place."

In fact, at the Council of Florence, what shocked the Greek Orthodox, with Markos Eugenikos, Archbishop of Ephesus at their head, was that the Latin Church actually saw the afterlife defined in three (or even four at the time, if you include "Limbo") separate "places."

The Greeks just couldn't figure out at what point the Latins had departed from what they always believed was the general Patristic consensus otherwise.

For Eastern Christian eschatology, the afterlife is not to be fully consummated or finally determined for us until the Second Coming of Christ, when we will stand before the Judgement Seat of OLGS Jesus Christ in the fullness of our being - body and soul.

Before that time, when the soul is ripped from the body in death, it experiences a forty-day "transition and revelation" period which is why the Church prays for the soul in an especially assiduous manner for the forty days after the soul's repose.

The Church and the Fathers have always believed and taught that only a completely sanctified soul may enter Heaven (or, prior to the Second Coming, Heaven's "Foregate").

Thus, the soul with sins that lead not "unto eternal death" or that has yet to bring forth in a comprehensive manner and fulfill the fruits of repentance and penance is completed goes to Hades until such time as its purification is completed and it is then released from there, especially at the prayers and Divine Liturgies of the Church on earth, to Heaven.

We cannot know the Mercy of God and to whom, no matter how sinful individuals appeared to us on earth, it is demonstrated and so we pray for all to be "loosed from their sins."

God is also the Just Judge and those who died in the state of unrepentant sin that leads "unto eternal death" face the consequences of that as well in Hades for eternity.

That is how the East views it while "Purgatory" with "indulgences" appears to us to be a form of spiritual legalism.

Alex

Alex

I believe what St. Mark of Ephesus, one of our three latter day pillars of Orthodoxy, also objected to was the idea of created grace as it relates to this topic.

Andrew

It is my understanding that there are two beliefs that must be held by Catholics about purgatory.
#1. That purification happens after death.
(Be it a place or state)
#2. That we can help the dead by our prayers and works of charity.

Other beliefs about Purgatory are theological speculations.
Stephanos I

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Rilian:
[QB] [QUOTE]
And compare all of those to what’s printed in the CCC now, and to be honest with you I think all of the reflection the RCC may be doing now is really moving away from these viewpoints and towards a more Eastern understanding.[QUOTE]

You will note that the official teachings outlined by Florence and Trent say nothing about the details of purification.

Dear Andrew,

Yes, St Mark is also one of my pillars too! I have his icon.

St Mark actually came to Florence as a unionist who believed, as he arrived, that unity with Rome can be accomplished if only the Latins remove the Filioque from the Creed.

He believed it to be an heresy but that God would heal it in time - they just had to remove it first and union with the Orthodox Church would do the rest in time.

He was to discover some other aspects of the Latins' doctrine that he didn't know about beforehand and that he found incompatible with Orthodoxy.

This is why he delivered a "non possumus" to the whole unity idea at Florence.

I like him anyway . . .

Alex

Indeed. Well said. The importance of the teaching, therefore, is to (1) improve our purification / theosis here and now -- instead of leaving it for the afterlife and (2) to pray for those on the other side who are still being purified.

-- John

Dear John and Andrew,

However, the Orthodox Church HAS defined the issue of where a soul goes for purification after death.

It goes to "hades" from whence it is released after its purification.

And, as for Theosis, this is something that continues EVEN AFTER souls have reached Heaven, in Orthodoxy and Eastern Christianity.

This is why we actually PRAY FOR the Mother of God and the Saints during the Divine LIturgy.

The prayer doesn't "bring them to heaven" because they're already there . . .

Alex

Dear Alex you said:

"And, as for Theosis, this is something that continues EVEN AFTER souls have reached Heaven, in Orthodoxy and Eastern Christianity."

I say:

Yes according to the Fathers, the soul is in constant movement and goes from 'glory' to 'glory. A lack of movement and growth would be considered hell...or so I believe.

That movement of the soul towards unity with God, in itself would be a form of purgation, since the soul would be continuously purifying itself...or so I believe.

I guess this is my 'theologoumena'.

Zenovia

Alex, one of the best treatments on this subject I have run across is written from a scholarly perspective and was put out with the Dumbarton Oaks Publications from their department on Byzantine Studies. It's called “To Sleep, Perchance to Dream”: The Middle State. of Souls in Patristic and Byzantine Literature. A link to the paper is here . It is in PDF format BTW.

Andrew

Dear Andrew,

Thank you - it is EXCELLENT!

And it connects purification of the soul after death with the experience of Theosis - very good.

Alex

I will quote a few things here from the book "Saint Gregory Palamas as a Hagiorite", by Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Hierotheos. Although these quotes are not about hell, hades or purgatory, but about heaven:

"The whole text, (in the Bible), that describes the Transfiguration of Christ, but also all that preceded the event point out to us the path of deification, which is also the path to vision of the uncreated Light..."

"There is need for confession of Christ, certainty and confession the He is the one and only Redeemer. It is within the unshakeable faith in Christ that the prerequisites for the vision of God are created..."

"Basically it is a struggle for purity, which proceeds through patience, perseverance and hope in God..."

"...that the uncreated Light is the mystery of the age to come, and it is also the Kingdom of God."

"Man was made in the image and likeness of God. In the teaching of the holy Fathers the likeness is equivalent to the deification of man. Therefore the purpose of man is to attain deification."

When a person attains the vision of the uncreated Light in the Person of the Logos, he is deified. The vision of the uncreated Light is "union and deification" of a person, 'participation and deifying communion". During deification a person is united with God."

"There are many degrees of vision of the Light..."

"But here we wish to add that there is no ending to this perfection. In patrisitic theology standing still is regarded as *falling*."

"St. Gregory Palamas writes about this point: 'This vision of God has both a beginning and things after the beginning, varying in darkness and clarity; but there is no end at all, for its progress is infinite, like tht of the ravishment in revelation". So there is no end to this vision of God, but an endless progression."

"Vision of the uncreated Light has many degres. It depends on the person's spiritual condition and God's gift. The experience of God's purifying, enlightening and deifying energy operates in accordance with the degree of one's participation in divine Grace."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Just a few quotes.

Zenovia

Thank you, Zenovia, and may God bless you for psoting those quotes.

-- John

I do beg to fiffer with you. Fr Seraphim Rose of Blessed Memory only put down in English the teachings of the Church Fathers. Where do you get that they are reactionaries and in the fringes of Orthodoxy? Was St John Maximovitch a reactionary and on the fringe of Orthodoxy? He was the source for most of Fr Seraphims work. http://www.orthodox.net/articles/life-after-death-john-maximovitch.html
Was St. John Damascene a reactionary and on the fringe of Orthodoxy? http://www.geocities.com/orthodoxmonastery/WRITINGS.html
You can go with the hundreds of years of interprative thought. I'll stick to the Church Fathers.

Dear Slavipodvizhnik,

Somehow or other, I was dissapointed with Father Seraphim Rose's view on the afterlife. I am waiting to read Metropolitan Hierotheos' book on 'Life After Death'. I find him an exceptionally blessed and enlightened 'theologian'.

As for the various interpretations througout the ages in the RCC of purgatory, heaven and hell as being a defined place rather than a state of being, one has to realize that to understand the 'undefinable' it must be presented in a way so that it can be comprehended by the listeners.

The West on a whole, is very structured, and that includes it's perception of the after life...thus the differences. I am sure the differences are minimal, and am positive they make no difference to God.

Zenovia

Try St. Ignaty Brianchaninov's "Homilies on Death" or "Cобрание Cочинений" Vol III.

Alexander

I have read Metropolitan Hierotheos' book and basically it reaffirms Fr Seraphim's writings, but in more "politically correct" terminology. One of the best easy language books that I've read is "Eternal Mysteries Beyond The Grave" Jordanville Press, 1968. Written by Archmandrite Panteleimon, who, incidently, was Carpatho-Russian, from near Presov, it puts things into a very simple, almost childlike perspective. It is the first book I give to people who ask about this subject.

Alexandr

I just read The Mountain of Silence: A search for Orthodox spirituality by Kyriacos Markides (GREAT spiritual reading, btw). In this book, the author befriends an Athonite monk, Fr. Maximos.

He and Fr. Maximos at one point are discussing prayers for the dead, and according to what Fr. Maximos says, the Orthodox don't believe that we must wait until the end of time to enter heaven or hell. He describes some of the holy elders on Mount Athos who have had visions of people who had passed on who were in hell.

Here's something interesting that I didn't know, btw... according to what Fr. Maximos says in this book, the Orthodox don't teach that people in hell are necessarily there for eternity. Their view of hell is actually more like purgatory... it CAN be permanent for those who won't repent, but it doesn't have to be. They believe that through the prayers of the living, the damned can be rescued from the state of hell. Fr. Maximos in fact places great importance on praying for the dead.

Perhaps hell isn't a permanent place for the damned until AFTER the final judgement? That it's really more of a purgatory, giving those souls the opportunity to repent and be saved before then?

I do know that some of the holy elders of the Orthodox Church have taught that it's possible for even Satan and his demons to turn back to God, but I don't know about that...

Good post, MzByz..thank you for it!

Yes, it is intrinsic to Orthodox belief, though without definitive proclamation, that our prayers can help some souls which are not in that forecourt of Heaven and yes, I do think of it like purgatory.

There are so many situations where those that have died are not as fully prepared, as let's say, an elderly person in a nursing home who has confessed all his/her sins, is too frail to really entertain much of the sins we are accosted by every day, and is awaiting their death without fear.

So many persons who die suddenly may have fallen from the faith, or have had unconfessed sins, and were not malicious monster human beings...and they deserve our petitions in love for the mercy of God to help purify their souls and bring them closer to Him....

'The Mountain of Silence' was indeed a great book. I hope that you enjoyed it.

I can't wait to get the second one which I believe you mentioned that you are now reading.

Is it just as good?

In Christ,
Alice

Thank you. Thank you, Zenovia, for saying that so well. The differences between Eastern and Western descriptions of this are, in my opinion, the outgrowth of two different attempts to describe what is indescribable in this life.

On a related note, I object when people say that eternal punishment is not eternal . . . in contrast to the explicit teaching of Jesus. (among others, Matthew chapter 25).

But, how does God purify the souls of people who are too good for hell but not pure enough for Heaven? I don't know. How *can* we know when the afterlife is in a mode of existence that is so different from ours? (How to explain the world to a baby in the womb?)

The afterlife --including the purification of souls-- is a mystery. I am content to leave the mystery to God. Here and now, there is work to be done. We are to live righteously. And that includes praying for the dead.

-- John

Hi Alice,

Glory to Jesus Christ!

I honestly don't know much about Orthodox eschatology... just what I've read and heard from Orthodox.

And yes, the "sequel" Gifts of the Desert is just as good. It's actually a little deeper... Father Maximos has been elected Bishop of Cyprus, and it's much harder for Kyriacos to get to talk to him-- he has to find out Maximos' schedule ahead of time and "ambush" him, ha. And this time Kyriacos gets the benefit of talking with another spiritual giant, Bishop Kallistos Ware. :-)

Thanks MizByz!

I will try to get my hands on 'Gifts of the Desert' before Lent is over...

In Christ,
Alice

This is a nice discussion, but it is all sheer speculation. All I can say is that God will be just, and "mercy triumphs over judgment." James 2:13.

What does this mean? I don't know, and nobody else does either. God is just and merciful to all of His creatures. Why do His creatures continue to question or ponder about their future?

Give praise and thanks to God for creating you and giving you what you now have, knowing that He will take care of your future justly and mercifully.

God loves you, so you do not have to worry about anything else.

JP

Hi John,

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Amen... I like the way you put that. It's interesting to speculate about the exact nature of heaven and hell and purgatory, but we really won't know till we get there, which will be soon enough. As you said, God's judgement is perfect, and we only have to trust in His mercy.