Having a Orthodox say a Divine Liturgy

[PopePiusXIISupp]

If I recall correctly, the Orthodox believe in a sort of intermediate state after death where no one is technically in heaven or hell. .

Wouldn’t it be like the aerial tollbooths?

 

[Cavaradossi]

Wouldn’t it be like the aerial tollbooths?

It depends. The aerial toll houses take a very specific form in the journey of St. Theodora, which is largely intended to be piece of devotional literature which nevertheless would be held to be in symphony with the greater teaching of the Orthodox Church. Earlier saints, especially, as well as the prayers we pray, mention several ideas, which ought to be held, namely that the soul after death undergoes some type of assault by demonic powers, that the saints and angels (especially the guardian angel) defend the soul against demonic assault, and that the soul experiences some form of consciousness after death and either experiences a foretaste of the blessedness to come, or experiences some form of darkened existence. Some take the idea of toll houses quite literally, while others read them as an allegorical affirmation that demons do in fact assault the soul after death, and that the intercessions of the saints and angels can ward them off.

Some interesting speculative thought on the subject of what happens after death but before the resurrection can be found in the writings of the fathers. One of my favorites is that the soul after death is essentially rendered incomplete because it no longer has sense-perception, and so its only mode of experience is through the intellect. One who lived a life of virtue can see the light of God and hence dwell on the blessedness which awaits in the age to come, but one who lived a life of sin has a darkened intellect and hence cannot see God. Such a soul descends into a sort of interior darkness, deprived of the light of God and tormented by the sins of its life. Such a state is what is called “hades” in the scriptures and in our prayers, and it is from this state that we ask God, in his mercy, to deliver the souls of the faithful departed, that they might not fall into despair, for despair is a sin from which none may be saved, as those who despair doubt even the forgiveness of God.

In general, it seems that the East and West developed divergent views on this. The West arrived to the conclusion that prayers for the dead must be towards the remission of the temporal penalty due for sins committed in life, because the concept of the particular judgment prevents prayers for the dead from being efficacious for anybody who is not already destined for Heaven after death. The Eastern Fathers in general though seemingly lacked both the concept of a particular judgment and of temporal penalty. Hence we find a divergent understanding of the purpose of prayers for the dead.