Dear Orthoman,
Thank you for your sincere, comprehensive reply that reflects not only your extensive knowledge of theology, but also your own deep spiritual thinking and life.
If the events at the Council of Florence can be used as a point of comparison between East and West on eschatology, then we see from the proceedings there that the Greeks did not share the Latins' view of different "compartments" in the afterlife before the Second Coming of Christ.
These compartments included heaven, hell, purgatory and limbo - limbo being a place for all those who never received baptism, such as unbaptised children and the millions of people who never knew Christ. Fortunately, RC theology has dropped limbo as an afterlife compartment!
Orthodox eschatology holds to a radically Patristic view here in seeing the human being as a whole/composite of soul, spirit and body. We are complete only as such and Christ saved and deified the complete "us."
This is reflected in the Orthodox (and Patristic) view that, prior to the Last Judgement, our fate is not completely sealed and we are neither totally in hell or heaven, but in their "forecourts" awaiting the Final Judgement when we will stand before Christ in the fullness of our being, soul, spirit and body.
The Orthodox view here is also rather dynamic. We not only pray for those who "need" our prayers but also for (and not only to) the Mother of God and the Saints (see the Priest's prayers in the Divine Liturgy following the Canon).
The truly brilliant aspect to Orthodox eschatology that speaks loudly is this precise notion of "forecourt" of both heaven and hell.
In the forecourt of heaven, souls can be prayed for to be "loosed from their sins." The souls here can see God and His love warms them and purifies them of imperfections and all that is not of Christ. This is truly what the current RC thinking is on purgatory.
Does the same apply to the forecourt of hell? I don't know, but I personally don't see why not. Certainly, if there is any sort of purification going on there for those who willfully refused God's Grace in life, then this must imply that there is also open to them the possibility to be freed of it at the Second Judgement. Again, I don't know, but certainly God could do something like this.
The Orthodox eschatology is truly part and parcel of our own Byzantine Catholic heritage of faith as a Particular Church.
Not only is there nothing in it that "contradicts" RC teaching, there is everything about it that brings out more fully and wondrously the love of God in relation to us in our repose in Him.
Alex
