Posted on 09/22/2004 11:38:26 AM PDT by Vicomte13
Christ prayed for the unity of His Church. Collectively, we have made quite a hash of it. What divides us? How far are we apart, really? Is reconciliation and reunification really impossible? I don't think so.
Doctrinally, there is more that separates the liberal and conservative wings of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches than separates Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Many of the doctrinal differences that there are date back to the early centuries, but were not a bar to us all being One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church for more than half of the history of Christianity.
Historical missteps, and more than a little stubbornness, divide us, but this division is unnatural and indeed unholy. We cannot simply ACCEPT it as a given. It is not what Jesus wanted of us, and we have a duty to try and put back together what He made whole but what we have sundered.
But how?
For starters, look at how very much unites us still. The Orthodox Church is Holy. The Catholic Church is Holy. Both are apostolic, in unbroken lineage back to the apostles. We share the same sacraments. We believe the same things about those sacraments. In extremis, we can give confession too and take extreme unction or viaticum from one another's priests. Because somewhere, at the bottom of it, we each really do know that it's the Latin, Russian, Greek, Syrian and Coptic rites of the same Holy catholic Church.
Indeed, within the Catholic Church proper, in union with Rome, are Byzantine and other Eastern Rite churches that are for all appearances Orthodox. That the Orthodox Liturgy of St. John Chysostom is beautiful, and sonorous, and long, should be no barrier. There is no reason that the Orthodox rite should not remain exactly as it is. Indeed, there is a very good reason to revive, in the West, the old Latin Rite of the Catholic Church: many people want it back. Why should they be denied it? The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and the Liturgy of the Tridentine Mass were Holy and are Holy. There is no reason at all they they cannot all be practiced within a reunited Church. There is no reason for Russian Orthodoxy to cease using Slavonic, and Greek Orthodoxy to cease using Greek, just as there is no reason that Latin Rite Churches should not be able to reassume Latin if their parishoners desire it. For over a thousand years the different parts of the Church used different languages, and yet we were all one Church. Today, with the vernacular, the Catholic and Orthodox Churches use many, many, many languages. None of this diminishes their Holiness. Latin, Greek and Slavonic are not holy, they are old. And there is nothing wrong with old.
So again I ask: what really divides us? There is nothing of the liturgy of either Latin or Greek or Russian rite that would need to change were the Churches to come back into unity.
All that divides us, really, is the question of authority. It is a political question, about the office of the Pope. Cut through it all, and that is what is at the heart of it.
And this can be resolved. Indeed, the tension ALWAYS existed, and flared up at different times during the long millennium of Church unity. Our spiritual ancestors had the wisdom to settle for an arrangement of metropolitans and patriarchs, with the Bishop of Rome considered one of them, but primus inter pares at the "round table". Like the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, he sets the agenda and "assigns cases", but each preserves his dignity as a co-equal justice. In order to maintain Christian unity, it was necessary for the Pope to exercise discretion in this role. And most handled it well. It also required discretion on the part of the Eastern Patriarchs. And most handled it well. It is the contrivance of the Devil that the time arose whereby stubborn (and corrupt) Pope encountered stubborn (and beleaguered, by the Muslim invasion) eastern Patriarch, and the Schism erupted.
Surely we can repair this wound in the visible Body of Christ on Earth. Indeed, it is not really optional. It is our DUTY to attempt it.
What is it that the East wants? Surely it is not to compel the Cathedral of Notre Dame to start conducting masses in Slavonic! No. It is to be recognized in its liturgy and in its territorial area. Should Latin Rite missionaries be attempting to sieze Russia for Catholicism? No. Russia should be under the Russian Rite, subject to the Metropolitan of Moscow, sovereign in his sphere, who is in union with the Bishop of Rome. I should be able to give confession and take absolution in a seamless Church from Gibraltar to Vladivostok.
What is it that the West wants? Too much, probably. At the Council of Florence, the last moment of unity in the Church, the West acknowledged the customs of the East, and the East acknowledged "the traditional privileges of the Bishop of Rome", which is to say, primus inter pares.
Now, if there were deep and abiding spiritual and doctrinal divides, such as there are between the Catholic Church and, say, the Anglican Communion or the various Protestant Churches, reunification would be out of sight. Primus inter pares would lead directly to Papal interference. But the Orthodox and the Catholic are each so doctrinally close that there need not be ANY real interference in the West by the East, or the East by the West. Indeed, it would immeasurably help the post-Vatican II Western Church to have a Vatican III at which the Metropolitan of Moscow and the Patriarch of Constatinople and their affiliated Bishops, and the Eastern Cardinals, sat, spoke, voted. The Church needs the counterweight of Orthodox Tradition to offset some of the less propitious "modernizing" elements that have run unchecked in parts of the West.
For its part, much of Eastern Orthodoxy is subject to, and under the thumb of, Islam. And abused. We see this right now even in secular Turkey. There is no religious voice on earth more powerful than Rome. And no other religion has its own seat in the United Nations. The lot of Eastern Christians would be bettered by having the full weight of Western Christianity brought to bear within the Church.
I do not believe that this is a pipe dream. Reuniting the Pentecostals and Rome might be, but bringing Moscow, Constantinople and Rome together again at the same round table should not be. It is what Jesus intended from the beginning. What God has joined, let no man sunder. With God, everything is possible. There is nothing that goes on in Orthodox Churches that would not be able to continue in unity with the West, and nothing that goes on in Latin Churches that would have to stop to be in Union with the East.
Perhaps the fears of the East would be quelled if the Patriarchs were favored for election to the Papacy.
Just a thought.
Hey, don't mention it. I'm just filling in for MarMema (she's got graphic posting down to a science). As you can see, this one varies a little from the one Kolokotronis explained, but that's not uncommon in the world of iconography.
I just love it. I am the one on rung #2 ;-D
Showoff! How's the view up their, by the way? :)
kosta50 wrote: "Since the 16th century the Catholic Church officially teaches that the departed stand in need of purification ... what is being described is a state of the soul, not a place
I never implied that the Purgatory is a "place" any more than to imply that Heaven or Hell is a "place." The important thing is that the Church didn't teach it as dogma for fifteen centuries. So, that means that the early Church teachings were either deficient and incomplete or that somehow the state of lesser knowldge of the world did not necessitate such teaching."
Ok, let's talk about Purgatory. I can only give you my impression of this doctrine, where it came from and why. And as I have said before, I have no religious training and have never been "catechized", so understand that whatever I say here is the opinion of an American Catholic, and not the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. Tantumergo is an ordained minister of the Church, and it is to him, especially, that we can turn should what I have to say here stray far off the reservation of orthodoxy.
The starting point for my understanding of the idea of "Purgatory", which I agree with you, Kosta, is a state of the soul and not a place as such, is our most ancient tradition of all: the Jewish Scriptures. Specifically, to a passage in a book of those Scriptures in the Septuagint Canon which Catholic and Orthodox share, but which Jews later abandoned, followed even later by the Protestants.
The text that gives rise to the concept of a cleansing of the souls of the dead is found in the histories, specficially 2 Maccabees 12:39-46.
I quote here the New American Bible:
"On the following day, since the task had now become urgent, Judas and his men went to gather up the bodies of the slain and bury them with their kinsmen in their ancestral tombs. But under the tunic of each of the dead they found amulets sacred to the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbids the Jews to wear. So it was clear to all that this was why these men had been slain. They all therefore praised the ways of the Lord, the just judge who brings to light the things that are hidden.
Turning to supplication, they prayed that the sinful deed might be fully blotted out. The noble Judas warned the soldiers to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened because of the sin of those who had fallen.
He then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view; for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death. But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought.
Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin."
Now, let's think about what this ancient part of our written Scriptural tradition says here. And as we think about it, we will realize why it is that Jews and "Grace Alone" Protestants centuries later both had powerful theological reasons to get rid of this book of the Septuagint canon.
The dead in this passage are already dead. They aren't passing away. They've been dead for a couple of days. The living discover, in preparing them for burial, that they are all guilty of idolatry, a sin that doomed them to die and, in the context of a belief in the afterlife and the judgment of God, damned them as well. Being dead, there is nothing more that any of these dead soldiers can do, in life, to expiate their sins. But note the thing that Judas Maccabeus does: he prays for the dead. He collects alms for the dead so that rites of atonement will be performed for their souls, and their sins will be blotted out and not held against them. This presents a real theological conundrum...one so severe that the "One conversion, one grace, one salvation, one judgment to eternal life or eternal hellfire" crowd at the onset of the Protestant Reformation SO objected to that they solved the problem by simply discarding this book from the Bible. But, of course, we Roman Catholics and Orthodox cannot do that. The Septuagint is the very oldest part of our Tradition. It is not optional, but binding upon us. It is the inspired Word of God, and we have to accept its implications. And the implication here is that with death already past, that the condition of the souls of the dead in the afterlife can be ameliorated by the pious acts of the living. If one thinks of the implications of this, they are that perhaps there is one death and one judgment, but that judgment by God is not a simplistic "pass/fail", eternal life/eternal damnation, all in one shot. Even our earthly judges are much more sophisticated than that. A man may be condemned to life in prison, and yet our judges modify life sentences with the possibility of parole, with time off for good behavior. The sentence is binding, and is a permanent judgment, but the judge himself often adds different stages of punishment, with punishment intended as correction.
Indeed, the whole concept of gradations of sin is exemplified by Jesus' comments that 'all blasphemies of men will be forgiven, but those who blaspheme the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven.'
There is something going on in 2 Maccabees 14:39-46 that cannot simply be ignored. The dead are gone, but the final outcome for those dead souls can still be modified by atonement made for them by the living. That implies that all of those souls that died in a state of blasphemous sins had the trajectory of their afterlife altered, because their sins were helped to be blotted away by the pious prayers of others. And that inexorably implies a purification. A soul that dies dirty with blasphemy and goes to God covered in that sin has its status changed afterwards. That is not the full grown doctrine of "Purgatory", but certainly there is a purgation going on.
If one did not have this passage of Maccabees to be concrened with, one reads some of things that Jesus said very differently. I will not dwell on all of the passages of which Maccabees inflects our understanding, but will focus on one important example, at Matthew 18:23-35. Again, I quote Jesus from the NAB:
"That is why the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants.
When he began the accounting, a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount.
Since he had no way of paying it back, his master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of the debt. At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.' Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan. When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, 'Pay back what you owe.' Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'
But he refused. Instead, he had him put in prison until he paid back the debt. Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened, they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master and reported the whole affair. His master summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?'
Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt.
My heavenly Father will treat you in exactly the same way unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart."
Alright, now, here Jesus' point here is clearly one of forgiveness: as you forgive, so shall you be forgiven. But what if a man is not so forgiving, or imperfect in his forgiveness? What if he falls under the last sentence of Jesus' warning. It is easy to read this parable as saying that the unforgiving man is sentenced to Hell. And that is how Protestants read this too. But if you read it very closely and think about it, that is NOT what Jesus says. Jesus says his heavenly father will treat YOU just like the king treated the merciless creditor. But how was that? The king did NOT sentence the merciless creditor to death. He sentenced him to be tortured in the dungeon UNTIL HE PAID BACK ALL HE OWED.
Now, again, the Protestants will gloss that since the dead can repay nothing, and nobody can repay a debt to God, that means Hell, and that's an easy enough thing to accept if one has no 2 Maccabees 12:39-46 in one's Bible. But we Orthodox and Catholics DO have that book and that passage, and in that passage, men go to God with a terrible debt, but are redeemed by the atoning prayers on their behalf made by other men.
In other words, those souls that died with the amulets went "unshriven" to the dungeon and the torturers, but not forever, and were pardoned.
What the passage I have cited in Matthew, taken in juxtaposition with the passage from 2 Maccabees, is that the afterlife is more complex than the simplistic Heaven/Hell dichotomy of the Protestants. There may indeed be but one judgment, but the implication of these two texts read together is that God's judgment can be at least as nuanced and sophisticated as our simple human judgments are: we do not sentence every heinous criminal to death. We sentence most to periods of penitentiary and labor, followed by gradually lessening restrictions. And Jesus' parabolic king, the type of God in the parable, did NOT sentence the merciless creditor to death (Hell). He sentenced him to a period of torture UNTIL HE HAD PAID BACK ALL HE OWED.
Without Maccabees, that could be allegory for Hell.
But given Maccabees, it implies a period of repayment for the debt of sin. In other words, Purgatory.
I would challenge the assumption that this was all made up as a Catholic doctrine in the 1600s. No. It is in a book of our Bible that predates Christ by over a Century, and in the Gospels themselves.
Of course, the hows, whys and wherefores of all of this are pretty vague in the Bible. That there is an implication of some sort of progressive purgation of sins is there from the passages I have cited and more. The exact structure of how it all works is not laid out. And OF COURSE the relentlessly rational West put its mind to the subject with a will, putting a forbidding non-Biblical and non-traditional name on what is in truth a Tradition of the Bible. What the Catholics, at a certain point, started calling that process of "repaying every last debt" for the unshriven and the unatoned for, was "Purgatory". In the same epoch, of course, the Western Church drove the logic of 2 Maccabees to the nth degree, as rationalistic Westerns will, and started calculating the effect of indulgences with (pretended) mathematical precision, and selling them. "For every pence dropped in the plate, a soul is released from Purgatory" and all of that spurious nonsense.
Those excesses are embarassing, because they exceed what the written Tradition can say with any certitude.
That there IS a purgation we can read from the Gospels and the Maccabees. That we do know. The parameters of it we don't, and we needn't vex our minds with the problem if we remain shriven of our sins through regular Confession and the Eucharist, and avoid sin.
At least we can be comforted that if our state is impure at death...as many if not most people are...there is authority in the written tradition called the Bible that suggests that the game is not over and lost, but that God still provides a saving catchment.
...of course there is ALSO authority in the written Tradition called the Bible that implies that is not the case, so one cannot come to any conclusion based on Scripture alone. That is why God left a Church during his sojourn here, and not a Bible dispensary.
That said, we CANNOT take the Renaissance Church's mathematical precision on sold indulgences seriously. Indeed, it is an embarassment. Of course God never let the Church state that this was a doctrine of faith and morals that could not be challenged, thereby allowing the embarassing episode to pass without permanently marring the future doctrines of the Church. It DOES mar our history, and warns us of the tendency of even the most pious to become presumptuous.
Spelling out the boundaries of Purgatory and selling tickets for early release was presumptuous. But reading the Bible and seeing that the bare bones of a Purgatorial STATE are indeed there in the most ancient tradition is not only not presumptuous, it is necessary. The Bible implies some sort of Purgatory. We need not call it that, although there is nothing wrong with calling it that either. We need to not attempt to speak authorititatively about the boundaries of this state or place that amounts to an "equitable power of God" (to put it in legal terms).
Instead, we need to speak authoritatively about the Sacraments God instituted, of Confession and Reconciliation and Communion and Extreme Unction so that nobody has to become a Pharisee and start counting his "get out of jail" chits for the afterlife.
Purgatory was not made up out of wholecloth by the Catholic Church in the 1600s; it's been in the Bible since 100 BC. The Catholic Church did go overboard in applying mathematical rationality to something that, if we listen to Jesus and the Apostles, we ought not to have to spend time worrying about anyway. (But of course the Western mind, being relentless calculators, had to seek the loopholes and attempt to develop them.)
I'll leave it at that.
Thanks for the welcome back. What a great find this thread had been on my return.
At the time SS Cyril and Methodius created Church Slavonic (liturgical Slavic language which is in perfect agreement with the koine Greek, unlike Latin), the Slavs spoke the same languge -- old Slavonic. The brothers used the language of the Slavs living in or near what is presently Southern Serbia and FYR Macedonia, and intended it for the Moravian (Czech Republic) converts -- which is leaps and bounds away from the Balkans. The Slavic language did not begin to separate into regional dialects until about tow centuries later.
Of all the Slavic languages in the Balkans, Serbian is the only one that has retained all seven cases (as opposed to Greek and Macedonian both of which have only four), and even Russian (non-Balkan Slavic language) which has six. The significance of this number is in tracing the roots of the Church Slavonic, whose infinitive form (i.e. spasiti) and the number of cases (seven), and palatalizations (i.e. sveshtenstvo vs. sveshchenstvo) corresponds perfectly with modern Serbian.
The freezing of the Russian liturgy in Church Slavonic represents a phenomenon similar to that found in Greek
The Church Slavonic is the language of the Orthodox Liturgy of Orthodox Slavs -- it is not just Russian. The three so-called "reductions" of the Church Slavonic (Serbian, Bulgarian and Russian) never ceased to be one and the same language, but by a set of circumstances in the mid 18th century the Serbian orthodox Church adopted the Russian reduction of church Slavonic as its liturgical language. I can go to Bulgarian, Russian, Ukrainians or Serbian orthodox Church and understand each and every word, because it's in Church Slavonic.
That being said, it is also true that many Slavic Orthodox worship in modern vernacular and that it is perfectly legitimate. The problem is with presentation: the melodic chants and opera-like singing were composed with Church Slavonic intonations and vocabulary which is slightly off-note with modern vernacular. Still, very close agreement can be achieved.
At the time SS Cyril and Methodius created Church Slavonic (liturgical Slavic language which is in perfect agreement with the koine Greek, unlike Latin), the Slavs spoke the same languge -- old Slavonic. The brothers used the language of the Slavs living in or near what is presently Southern Serbia and FYR Macedonia, and intended it for the Moravian (Czech Republic) converts -- which is leaps and bounds away from the Balkans. The Slavic language did not begin to separate into regional dialects until about tow centuries later.
Of all the Slavic languages in the Balkans, Serbian is the only one that has retained all seven cases (as opposed to Greek and Macedonian both of which have only four), and even Russian (non-Balkan Slavic language) which has six. The significance of this number is in tracing the roots of the Church Slavonic, whose infinitive form (i.e. spasiti) and the number of cases (seven), and palatalizations (i.e. sveshtenstvo vs. sveshchenstvo) corresponds perfectly with modern Serbian.
The freezing of the Russian liturgy in Church Slavonic represents a phenomenon similar to that found in Greek
The Church Slavonic is the language of the Orthodox Liturgy of Orthodox Slavs -- it is not just Russian. The three so-called "reductions" of the Church Slavonic (Serbian, Bulgarian and Russian) never ceased to be one and the same language, but by a set of circumstances in the mid 18th century the Serbian orthodox Church adopted the Russian reduction of church Slavonic as its liturgical language. I can go to Bulgarian, Russian, Ukrainians or Serbian orthodox Church and understand each and every word, because it's in Church Slavonic.
That being said, it is also true that many Slavic Orthodox worship in modern vernacular and that it is perfectly legitimate. The problem is with presentation: the melodic chants and opera-like singing were composed with Church Slavonic intonations and vocabulary which is slightly off-note with modern vernacular. Still, very close agreement can be achieved.
An Orthodox ping to anyone who might be missing out on this very interesting thread.
" Of all the Slavic languages in the Balkans, Serbian is the only one that has retained all seven cases (as opposed to Greek and Macedonian both of which have only four), and even Russian (non-Balkan Slavic language) which has six."
I'm sure you meant it as a compliment, but Greek isn't a Slavic language.
"Yes ... but "how" were the translations arrived at and who approved the translations? Are they the same in each English speaking church? Here is one problem facing the Catholic Church, post Vatican Council II."
A committee of the Archdiocese did it. It is quite good and they worked hard to make the English fit the chant tones of the Liturgy. For you RCs who don't know, all Orthodox Liturgys are "High" and sung. No low masses for us. At any rate, this translation is used in all GOA parishes. The book in the pew is set up like the old Roman missals with Greek on one side and English on the other.
Kolokotronis: "You know, if the Church were all about me, I would have it all in Greek, but it isn't and that frankly would be un Orthodox and wrong."
NYer: "That response makes perfect sense. In fact, this is how the catholic traditionalists feel about the use of Latin in the RC liturgy. At one time, catholic school students studied Latin. In fact, it is making a comeback in the public schools."
I think you misunderstood me. I think it is Orthodox (orthopraxis) to pray the Liturgy in the language of the people in the pews. To do otherwise would be wrong, though I personally prefer Greek.
Apologies, I meant Bulgarian, of course (so-called [Slavic] Macoodnian being closely related). I have no idea how Greek "snuck" in there. How many cases are in Greek anyway?
Good guess! We were there when the Councils decsided to call anything other than One Person, Two Natures heresy. But somehow your sconsciousness is not ready to accept that yet. Or maybe it slipped your mind that we are (still) the Church of the Seven Councils?
"How many cases are in Greek anyway?"
Four, nominative, genitive accusative and vocative.
kosta50 wrote: "Good guess! We were there when the Councils decsided to call anything other than One Person, Two Natures heresy. But somehow your sconsciousness is not ready to accept that yet. Or maybe it slipped your mind that we are (still) the Church of the Seven Councils?"
I respond: You weren't just "there", you weren't even a "you", nor were we Catholics a "them", we were all "us" back then. And we should be again.
Agree, but our brother Cronos wasn't sure.
Yes, the Orthodox also use 2 Maccabees from the Septuagint (12:43b-45) as Scriptural justification for our commemoration of the dead. St. John Crysostom (one of the Eastern Patriarchs who was a strong advocate of Papal primacy) notes that the prayers for the dead are not without purpose but are intended only for those who "departed in faith."
The Church teaching is that if you believe, you repent, if you repent in faith, God saves your soul not by any merit (for we can never earn salvation) but by His mercy.
It is the earth, and life on it, not the purgatory, that is a "testing" place of repentance. According to the Church teachings, the souls are either punished or perfected. Prayers for the dead are expressions of gratitude for His compassion and mercy, and are not intended to "pay" for the departed's soul, by earning favor with God, or increasing God's "satisfaction" with the departed. By the same token, the good works of the living are, a witness of faith and not means of "benefits" for the sins (Luke 17:10). It is only by God's mercy that the "just" are saved. We therefore pray for the dead out of gratitude to God for having saved the souls of the departed.
Bottom line is: justification by repentance is not a judicial act, as it is not done out of "satisfaction" for divine righteousness. Justification and sanctification are by God's Grace alone.
Thus, the Church of the Seven Councils, both Latin and Greek, did not in its first one thousand years of life find a need to define a dogma by which the Church suddenly "learned" that the prayers for the dead are not simply an expression of gratitude for God's mercy, but are intended for the unfortunate who are sent to God's torture chamber where the less than perfect Christians are tortured and flamed to God's satisfaction.
Needless to say the Church of the Seven Councils (the Greek side) to this day does not find a need to define such a dogma.
In all honesty, I thought you would know that the issue of the Person and natures of Christ were subjects of the early Councils and that the EOC is the still the Church of the Seven Councils wehn we were "one" as Vicomte says.
Kosta has correctly stated the Church's position on Purgatory and why we do what we do, but there is a different way of looking at our prayers for the dead, which is completely consistent with what Kosta has written, but may evidence some of the roots of the Purgatory theory which arose in the West. This is from a Greek Orthodox theological source:
"The Greek Orthodox Church believes that after death the Soul enters what is called the intermediate or transitional stage. While in this stage the Soul, if destined for Paradise, foretastes its happiness as it awaits the final Judgment. If the Soul is destined for hell, then it foretastes the suffering which it will receive in full at the Final Judgment.
Our prayers, which are offered for the departed, are expressions of love, devotion and a continuous association with them. Through these prayers, we beseech merciful God to forgive our departed brothers so that on Judgment Day their state may improve."
Kolokotronis wrote (citing a Greek Orthodox theological source): "Our prayers, which are offered for the departed, are expressions of love, devotion and a continuous association with them. Through these prayers, we beseech merciful God to forgive our departed brothers so that on Judgment Day their state may improve."
I observe that it is in that last sentence "We beseech merciful God to forgive our departed brothers so that on Judgment Day their state may improve" that lies the concept fleshed out in the West as Purgatory and Indulgences.
There are two ways to go with this: (1) to leave it as a mystery and not try to flesh it further out, and focus on the Sacraments in the here and now, or (2) to try to flesh out our understanding more fully.
I think that (1) is the more prudent option for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that it avoids bruises and abrasions from each other on a subject whose full structures and ramifications are not revealed to us with great clarity. If we are striving for Christian unity, then we need to avoid creating controversies by asserting that a particular interpretation of what is really a mystery is Right (and by extension, every other interpretation is Wrong). We've said before that the primary difference between East and West is not the Sacraments, and is barely theological, but is primarily ecclesiological, and specifically the question of authority.
If communal Sacraments are desireable as Jesus' prayed-for unity, then we need to studiously and diplomatically avoid creating arguments that will invariably result in appeals to the ecclesial authorities that divided us in the first place. The Greek Orthodox believe that prayers for the dead change the status us of the dead. That is what that last sentence cited above means. But to what degree? How? We don't know, and can't know, but we can certainly fight with each other and sow division trying to assert more than we know on an ancillary subject. Instead, a redirect is in order: stay close to the Church, recieve the Sacraments, confess your sins and be reconciled to God. These are the things we share and that can keep us united. Determining exactly how many angels can dance on the head of a pin can only divide us, and can only lead, in about one and a half quick steps, to frank appeals to ecclesial authority...and division, while the Devil snickers.
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