afterlife in eastern Orthodox Theology

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aussie_melkite

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hi everyone i was reading a previous thread from months ago about Heaven and Hell from a catholic wondering about what Orthdodox believe about the afterlife…alot of things were said, some good and some bad, and some just downright stupid…so I thought id offer my 2 cents worth and offer everyone a link to Ancient Faith Radio (which has a podcast expalaining the Orthodox Position much better than what I could ever hope to)

Firstly it must be said that Heaven and Hell in the Bible is not entirely accurate…alot of words domnt translte very well from the original Greek to Latin and of course English…

The biggest problem is “Hell”.
in the Greek Scriptures Hell can mean either one of three things “Hades”, “Tartarus” or “Gehenna”…all of these places are different and are used in different ways…

lets starts with Hades…hades is the abode of the Dead, where all who dide from Adam until Christ rested waiting the Lord Decent to lead them to “Paradise” (not heaven)

Tartarus is a greek word for prision; and accoring to the scriptures thats where the Devil and his Minions are bound by chains of darkness (not Hell)

and last is Gehenna, which is the true hell…which according to the scrpitures is the lake of fire which is opened up ONLY at the Last Judgment and which hades gives up her dead and the wicked (by their own desire) are cast into it

Unfourtunaly the problem is these palces are very specific in The Original Greek…not so in English…and unfourtinaly not even in Latin…before too long Hades, Tartarus, and Gehenna were all traslated as one word…HELL.

Now Lets focos on the other end of the Spectrum…Heaven,
the problem is the Word “heaven” is used similarly to the world Hell…In the Original Greek there are 2 words,
  1. Paradise, this is the place which identifed as an area of hades opened up to all the rightous after during Jesus Decent into hades…Paradise is where the souls of the saint and the rightous await the general reserction on the last day.
  2. Heaven this is the place where God Dwells (and nobdy is here yet…except for possiblily the Theotokos as she has already expericed a fortast of the general reserection)
…once again Paradise and Heaven are too seperate places in the Original Greek, howver very early on in the Latin West they became interchangable.

Now then weve got the defination of what Hades, Tartarus, and Gehenna , Paradise and Heaven are all about so now we need to put actually put it all togehter…
Once a soul Dies he decends into Hades (the abode of the dead) and there recieves some kind of temperal Judgment in which the soul is either expereinces a fortaste of Gehenna (hell, suffering etc) or a fortaste of the rewards of Heaven (Paradise)…howver neither of these states are fixed…they remain movable until the Last Judgment…hence why Eastern Christian like or Western Brothers pray for the dead, we believe our prays can transfer those who arre experiencing a foretaste of Gehenna to a place of Light, peace and joy (Paradise)

the reson why Western People dont understand the Christian easts understanding of the afterlife is cause they have fused all these diffent words with all there diiffent meanings and fused them into one word i.e Hell
this also led to the development of the Doctine of Purgotory (of which I stongly disagree with)

here is quote from wikipedia (not the most accurate of rescources i know but in this does the job)

*Among the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Catholics, there is no doctrine of Purgatory, and the doctrinal teaching remains as it was in the early church, simply being “prayer for the dead” in hades. Specifically how the prayers of the Church help the departed is not elucidated; Orthodox simply believe that tradition teaches that prayers should be made for the dead.[6]

Saint Basil the Great († 379) writes in his Third Kneeling Prayer at Pentecost
" Christ our God…(who) on this all-perfect and saving Feast, art graciously pleased to accept propitiatory prayers for those who are imprisoned in hades, promising unto us who are held in bondage great hope of release from the vilenes that doth hinder us and did hinder them … send down Thy consolation… and establish their souls in the mansions of the Just; and graciously vouchsafe unto them peace and pardon; for not the dead shall praise thee, O Lord, neither shall they who are in Hell make bold to offer unto thee confession. But we who are living will bless thee, and will pray, and offer unto thee propitiatory prayers and sacrifices for their souls*

well theres my explination…alos if ud like to hear more there are 4 programs on Anceint Faith Radio which deal with his topic far better I could. Here is the link…ancientfaith.com/podcasts/carlton/P35/
the program u will be wanting are “Hell: a Modest propsal”, “Purgatory” “He shall come again in Glory” and “eternal Memory”

each postcast is about 10 mins long…and im sure ull agree that hes makes more sence than I ever could 🙂
 
I just want to point out that there are a lot of problems with the radio broadcast on Purgatory, some fairly serious. For example, he says that the idea of Purgatory was developed in the Medieval West, when in fact it can be found fully expressed by common Church Fathers like St. Ambrose during the Patristic period.

He also says that the West lost the distinction between different kinds of “Hell”; this is verifiably false. The Catechism of Trent says this:
Different Abodes Called Hell"
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These abodes are not all of the same nature, for among them is that most loathsome and dark prison in which the souls of the damned are tormented with the unclean spirits in eternal and inextinguishable fire. This place is called gehenna, the bottomless pit, and is hell strictly so*called.
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Among them is also the fire of purgatory, in which the souls of just men are cleansed by a temporary punishment, in order to be admitted into their eternal country, into which nothing defiled entereth. The truth of this doctrine, founded, as holy Councils declare,’ on Scripture, and confirmed by Apostolic tradition, demands exposition from the pastor, all the more diligent and frequent, because we live in times when men endure not sound doctrine.
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Lastly, the third kind of abode is that into which the souls of the just before the coming of Christ the Lord, were received, and where, without experiencing any sort of pain, but supported by the blessed hope of redemption, they enjoyed peaceful repose. To liberate these holy souls, who, in the bosom of Abraham were expecting the Saviour, Christ the Lord descended into hell.
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So the distinction has ALWAYS been maintained in the West, at least in the Catholic Church, though the word Hell was used for all of these things. The Protestants certainly confused the matter by dropping the different meanings of Hell, but the Latin Church maintained them.

Purgatory, then, is the state in which people can be prayed for and be brought into Salvation. While there are technical aspects in Latin theology that aren’t translatable to Eastern theology, those aspects are not required for the doctrine. The only defined thing about Purgatory is that there is a place for the dead where they are not in Heaven, and are comforted by our prayers and can attain Salvation from there. This Purgatory is part of “Hell”, but is not the place of the eternally damned.

I’m not sure why this gentleman, who is apparently a scholar and PhD, overlooked these very basic things in Latin teaching when speaking on it. It’s certainly a troubling oversight that he says the Latin Church conflated these meanings of “Hell”, when the primary clerical teaching document explicitly distinguishes them. :hmmm:

I have difficulties with the Latin emphasis on “temporal punishment”, or penances, after death, but I recognize that there is no fundamental difference between that and us praying for the salvation of our dead relatives. It’s simply the Latin gloss put on the shared Apostolic practice, IMO.

Peace and God bless!
 
I am also puzzled by the artificial distinction drawn by the EO between their categories of the afterlife with those of the RCC. I can and do readily accept that there are different abodes within Hades/Hell. Why? Well, because that is the theological expression of the Latin Church:

Hell (infernus) in theological usage is a place of punishment after death. Theologians distinguish four meanings of the term hell:
Code: 
* hell in the strict sense, or the place of punishment for the damned, be they demons or men;
* the limbo of infants (limbus parvulorum), where those who die in original sin alone, and without personal mortal sin, are confined and undergo some kind of punishment;
* the limbo of the Fathers (limbus patrum), in which the souls of the just who died before Christ awaited their admission to heaven; for in the meantime heaven was closed against them in punishment for the sin of Adam;
* purgatory, where the just, who die in venial sin or who still owe a debt of temporal punishment for sin, are cleansed by suffering before their admission to heaven. [newadvent.org/cathen/07207a.htm](http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07207a.htm)
It may surprise many in the East to know that dogmatic truths in the RCC pertaining to the final things is fairly limited. If these discussions began in the spirit of finding commonalities between our theological expressions, I think we would find that very little, if anything, separates us on the issue of heaven and hades.
 
tdgesq said:
I can and do readily accept that there are different abodes within Hades/Hell.
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Are you using “different abodes within Hades/Hell” interchangably with “different meanings of the term Hades/Hell”?
 
as catholic we need hear this guy given the definition of Church. and how he speaks about pope BXVI.

this is really a good one.

:bowdown: :knight2:
 
Truth is, I asked that question for years, and never received a consistent answer from Orthodox theologians.

I decided to become Catholic.
 
I think that if 1 billion people were wrong about Heaven and Hell and the Pope was wrong, then Jesus would come down and tell us now. I trust in the Catholic possition and I think even most Orthodox believe in the Catholic possition except for Purgatory, in which case my understanding is there is some sort of transitionary period that they believe in which is similar to Purgatory but not really defined as a place and why they pray for the dead.
 
aussie_melkite,

This whole discussion is for the most part, unfortunately, the result of a failure to draw the clear connections between eastern and western Theology. Most concepts, in my experience, have an equivalent.

Regarding Paradice and Heaven, the RCC teaches that those who are saints die and go to Heaven. By Heaven we mean what you mean by Paradise, ie: a place of bliss but not perfect as a perfect bliss cannot exist until God’s plan for the universe is consummated after the final judgement for one in heaven would A) need his body and b) need to share in God’s joy at his plan consummated for Heaven to be complete. It i just that the East has easier terminology for this.

Regarding Hell, I think that Ghosty made a good explanation of this earlier. The west says that “Tartarus” and “Gehenna” are “Hell” as such, Hades is ‘The Limbo of the Fathers’ and what we call ‘Purgatory’ is what you call temporary “Gehenna”. The reason why we split “Gehenna” between temporary and eternal is simply due to the western use of logic. Because there is no time after death there is only Eternity. Now in Eternity all acts are one, they cannot be changed for change requires time to happen. Thus the west rejects the idea that those in Hell can ever be saved. When we die we can either choose Christ or choose ourselves (ie Hell) we cannot revoke that. Thus those who reject Christ and are damned and that is that. What of those who tradition teaches us are saved but need post-mortem purgation? Well they can’t go to the Hell of the damned or “gehenna” as they cannot ‘spend time in eternal agony’. That is in every way absurd. Thus they must go to there own Hell which has time. There they can spend there allotted time and them be freed. We call that place Purgatory. All fairly logical from our perspective.
 
Reactionary said:
aussie_melkite,

This whole discussion is for the most part, unfortunately, the result of a failure to draw the clear connections between eastern and western Theology. Most concepts, in my experience, have an equivalent.

Regarding Paradice and Heaven, the RCC teaches that those who are saints die and go to Heaven. By Heaven we mean what you mean by Paradise, ie: a place of bliss but not perfect as a perfect bliss cannot exist until God’s plan for the universe is consummated after the final judgement for one in heaven would A) need his body and b) need to share in God’s joy at his plan consummated for Heaven to be complete. It i just that the East has easier terminology for this.

Regarding Hell, I think that Ghosty made a good explanation of this earlier. The west says that “Tartarus” and “Gehenna” are “Hell” as such, Hades is ‘The Limbo of the Fathers’ and what we call ‘Purgatory’ is what you call temporary “Gehenna”. The reason why we split “Gehenna” between temporary and eternal is simply due to the western use of logic. Because there is no time after death there is only Eternity. Now in Eternity all acts are one, they cannot be changed for change requires time to happen. Thus the west rejects the idea that those in Hell can ever be saved. When we die we can either choose Christ or choose ourselves (ie Hell) we cannot revoke that. Thus those who reject Christ and are damned and that is that. What of those who tradition teaches us are saved but need post-mortem purgation? Well they can’t go to the Hell of the damned or “gehenna” as they cannot ‘spend time in eternal agony’. That is in every way absurd. Thus they must go to there own Hell which has time. There they can spend there allotted time and them be freed. We call that place Purgatory. All fairly logical from our perspective.
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This explanation and the one that Gosty gave are dead on. I have tried to explain this numerous times in discussions with the Orthodox, but I always seem to fail miserably.
 
If the EO do not believe in any form of purgatory, then what is their belief about tollhouses all about?
 
Sepharad said:
If the EO do not believe in any form of purgatory, then what is their belief about tollhouses all about?
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It is an opinion, much like limbo in Latin theology, except not nearly as widely accepted as limbo is/was.
 
I certainly accept Limbo and it is a far more respectable idea than the ‘Tollbooths’ which has always been a lightly crack-pot minority opinion. Not only is Limbo supported by tradition (as the original post, Ghosty’s and my posts all show) it is also a very charitable view. It is, in the opinion of the vast majority of theologians for the whole of history, not possible to say that all dead baby’s go to Heaven because that makes a mockery of the doctrine of Original Sin.
Thus if there is no Limbo all the unbaptised dead go to the Hell of the damned and are tortured for all eternity! Limbo is both in accordance with Tradition and a merciful doctrine.
 
Reactionary said:
I certainly accept Limbo and it is a far more respectable idea than the ‘Tollbooths’ which has always been a lightly crack-pot minority opinion. Not only is Limbo supported by tradition (as the original post, Ghosty’s and my posts all show) it is also a very charitable view. It is, in the opinion of the vast majority of theologians for the whole of history, not possible to say that all dead baby’s go to Heaven because that makes a mockery of the doctrine of Original Sin.
Thus if there is no Limbo all the unbaptised dead go to the Hell of the damned and are tortured for all eternity! Limbo is both in accordance with Tradition and a merciful doctrine.
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Personally as a non-Catholic, I always liked the idea of Limbo. I was sad when the church abolished it. I felt it gave Catholic parents of babies who died unbaptized some degree of comfort, because that way, they could see their babies as being in a state of “natural happiness,” even if they were denied the “beatific vision”.

To me, that sounds a lot better than thinking they could be burning in hell just because they died before they could be baptized (something which would not have been their fault!)
 
Sepharad,

That is quite true and don’t worry the Church never abolished it. That was a misrepresentation of the media. A particular theological commission suggested that the Church stop supporting it as the ‘most likely’ possibility. This advice was not in any way acted upon thus the Church still supports the theory. Even if it stopped supporting the theory that would not matter too much as all that would mean is that all the different theories are considered equally useful. It is not so much a de-motion of Limbo as a pro-motion of the other theories.
 
Reactionary said:
Sepharad,

That is quite true and don’t worry the Church never abolished it. That was a misrepresentation of the media. A particular theological commission suggested that the Church stop supporting it as the ‘most likely’ possibility. This advice was not in any way acted upon thus the Church still supports the theory. Even if it stopped supporting the theory that would not matter too much as all that would mean is that all the different theories are considered equally useful. It is not so much a de-motion of Limbo as a pro-motion of the other theories.
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That’s a relief to hear! I had read in the papers that they got rid of it, and I’m thinking, “Well, what happens then to the babies who are there? Are they promoted to heaven or cut loose in space?” (sorry, its just a silly way I thought about it!)
 
Peter_J said:
Are you using “different abodes within Hades/Hell” interchangably with “different meanings of the term Hades/Hell”?
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I didn’t see that this thread had been moved to the non-Catholic forum or I would have responded sooner.

The short answer to your question is “no.” What I am saying is that the abodes that exist in “Hades/Hell” as used by the EO are consistent with the Latin notion that there are different levels of hell, purgatory being one of them.
 
Sepharad said:
That’s a relief to hear! I had read in the papers that they got rid of it, and I’m thinking, “Well, what happens then to the babies who are there? Are they promoted to heaven or cut loose in space?” (sorry, its just a silly way I thought about it!)
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That’s mostly because the liberal media likes to twist what the Church says in order to make it look like Catholics are reversing their teachings. It’s kind of sad.

I don’t have the actual document handy, but if you can locate it online you should read it. Not only does it not say anything about abolishing Limbo, it very plainly states that it is an acceptable theory.
 
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