No, it is not a rose by any other name. Purgatory is completely alien thing to Eastern theology.
I’m not saying you’re wrong about that, Constantine. I’m just saying that what I - in my young, limited life - have been taught in the Latin Church about “purgatory” is essentially what I’ve seen Orthodox Christians themselves say on the very subject.
Maybe you’ll say this indicates merely that the Latin Church has begun shedding the distinctly Latin components of the doctrine and, in many quarters, chosen to begin viewing and teaching this sort of thing from an eastern lens. Maybe that’s entirely true.
All I’m saying is, my experience has, on this matter, been uniform: (1) Orthodox say they don’t believe in purgatory. (2) When asked, they explain why they pray for the dead. They take care to avoid giving the impression that they teach or believe any definitive details beyond what they actually do. (3) And when they’re done explaining, I nonetheless find myself thinking, “that’s exactly what I was taught throughout my life in the Latin Church that ‘purgatory’ is.”
Yes, there is prayers for the dead, but that is where the similarities begin and end. There is no purgatorial fire,
That’s just an image, a metaphor.
no process of getting to heaven,
Definitive Catholic teaching doesn’t articulate any particular “process” either…
The symbolic afterlife depicted in C.S. Lewis’
The Great Divorce doesn’t include any “third state” either, and yet it unquestionably includes purgatory.
Roman Catholics believe that when you are in purgatory, you are guaranteed to be in heaven at some point. That concept doesn’t exist in the East.
Again, this reminds me of Lewis’
The Great Divorce. What seems like a contradiction - are souls in purgatory guaranteed a “spot in heaven,” so to speak? - isn’t really one at all. If you’ve read the book (you probably have, I think), you know what I mean.
The fact that there are three paragraphs. You can say the same of many teachings in Roman Catholicism that is mentioned a few times only in the CCC. That doesn’t make it any less important or any less true.
Indeed.
If purgatory isn’t that specific or that important, I’m sure the Roman Catholic Church could have just trashed the idea at the Council of Florence to reunite with the Orthodox.
I didn’t say it wasn’t important. What I have been and am trying to say is that the implication often given in these discussions - that the Catholic Church has dogmatized an extraordinarily articulate, exhaustive, literal, juridical, and temporally bound description of the experience of souls undergoing purification after death - is just not true.
One can die, not be in heavenly glory, yet have hope of getting there. Orthodox agree with that. As I said above, the rest - purifying fire, toll houses, temporal “punishment” - is window dressing.
Same comment as above, if it isn’t what it is, why didn’t the Roman Church give way at Florence?
I recall reading something from Florence that would be useful in this discussion, but I can’t find it now.
I did, however, find this very Roman Catholic-sounding quote from the entirely canonical and accepted - for the Orthodox, that is - Orthodox Synod of Jerusalem (1672):
“[Some] depart into Hades, and there endure the punishment due to the sins they have committed. But they are aware of their future release from there, and are delivered by the Supreme Goodness, through the prayers of the Priests, and the good works which the relatives of each do for their Departed; especially the unbloody Sacrifice benefiting the most; which each offers particularly for his relatives that have fallen asleep, and which the Catholic and Apostolic Church offers daily for all alike.” -
Synod of Jerusalem (1672)
(
Source, which also cites the print source from which it got this translation)
Now compare that with the Tridentine quote provided by dvdjs:
“Whereas the Catholic Church, instructed by the Holy Ghost, has from the Sacred Scriptures and the ancient tradition of the Fathers taught in Councils and very recently in this Ecumenical synod (Sess. VI, cap. XXX; Sess. XXII cap.ii, iii) that there is a purgatory, and that the souls therein are helped by the suffrages of the faithful, but principally by the acceptable Sacrifice of the Altar; etc.”
Pretty similar. And Gary Taylor found this quote from Mark of Ephesus:
“But if souls have departed this life in faith and love, while nevertheless carrying away with themselves certain faults, whether small ones over which they have not repented at all, or greater ones for which - even though they have repented over them - they did not undertake to show fruits of repentance: such souls, we believe, must be cleansed from this kind of sins but not by means of some purgatorial fire or a definite punishment in some place.” (
Source)
What Mark of Ephesus and I have in common, Constantine, is that neither of us believes that purgatory includes literal fire or is a place. When my Latin Catholic bishop excommunicates me for holding this opinion, I’ll let you know.
East and West have completely different understanding of completely different viewpoints. One case in point, some people will ask if Orthodox Churches think that Roman Catholic Sacraments are valid or not. Orthodoxy doesn’t view Sacraments in terms of validity or not.
They don’t use the word, but they do indeed have the concept. The question of whether any particular non-Orthodox group’s Mysteries “have grace” is the exact same thing.
Of course, the big difference there is that they don’t concern themselves with the status of other churches’ Mysteries, nor would their way of deciding be based on the same principles even if they did decide to come to a decision.
They don’t even have the same formulation as Roman Catholics do on what determines validity or not.
True, I wouldn’t think to deny that.
The very question of whether the Orthodox “believe in Purgatory” is a flawed one. I might as well ask if Catholics believe in grace (the meaning of which differs between Latin and Eastern theology). The word became specifically attached to certain Latin teachings concerning Purgatory as a place where people are cleansed by painful fire. The proper answer is no, we do not believe in Purgatory as it historically has been taught by the Latin West, but we do believe in some form of cleansing after death.
Now that’s a very reasonable response. Thank you, Cavaradossi. What you said makes perfect sense.
Correct. St Mark rejected the Latin concept of the temporal punishment of sin. Once sin has been forgiven, there is no further need for punishment.
Contemporary Catholic versions of purgatory appear to approximate the Eastern understanding of post-mortem purification; but this question still remains: “What precisely is the temporal punishment of sin, and if this punishment is identical to sanctification, how can it be remitted by ecclesially sanctioned indulgences?”
Interestingly enough, our contemporary Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of temporal punishment itself as “an unhealthy attachment to creatures” which every sin entails, and it states that this punishment “must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin” (CCC 1472).
My recollection of St. Mark’s point of argument was the idea of a different fire than the fire of hell, and that independent of a fire, that the foretaste of eternal damnation would involve suffering beyond earthly understanding. I may be wrong about this and would enjoy scholarly (name removed by moderator)ut.
I would also like to learn more of Florentine ideas on temporal punishment. The idea that once sin is forgiven there is nothing else to forgive, misses the point entirely. The fact that a sinful act has been forgiven in no way implies that the inclination to the sin has been eliminated; we still need to be purified of such disordered inclinations - typically using penance and asceticism to continue to purify ourselves. The image of a refining fire has been constantly used in this context.
I think that it is only in modern times is there a perceived, by some, dichotomy between pain and gain. But I don’t get it. Therapeutics can and often are painful and punishing. Ascetic regimes are punishing. Punishment had always been seen as a paternal responsibility. Although such ideas may seem dated, we have precious little to show for more indulgent means of child rearing. So, I am not sure why the idea of a punishment from the Father - so well-rooted in scripture - is now seen as suspect.
Great point. In fact, another eastern Catholic made the same point on another forum I was reading: therapeutic vs. punishment is a false dichotomy, spiritually speaking. Facing the consequences of our sins (punishment) helps us shed our attachment to them (healing).
I agree, the Saint made the point that forgiveness and punishment were opposing. I can remember where I read it.
