Do the Eastern Othodox churches have a doctrine on purgatory and if so what does it teach about purgatory ?
They do believe there is a third place for the decease because they do pray for the dead.
The Orthodox actually believe that people can be prayed out of hell, which is one of the main reasons that they pray for the dead. I personally think that their belief, when interpreted with a Catholic spin, can be reconciled with our belief in purgatory, as I explained in “Orthodox understanding of the afterlife” thread in the Eastern Christianity section (sorry, my computer won’t let me post a link right now, but you can do a search for it. It was pretty recent.)
Eric
Maybe you should post this in the Eastern Church forum. There are a lot of Orthodox Christians, including an Orthodox Priest who post there.
Thank you I was not thinking, I will do that now
Orthodox don’t believe in Purgatory.
Those over at orthodoxforum.com have confirmed this.
If the EO goes back into communion with the RCC, there will be a mass revolt here in the states. They can’t say the same for the rest of the world.