"Souls are immortal."
Kalomiras would disagree as would Fr. Stephen Fraser, a noted theologian of the Antiochian Church:
"Of the immortality of the soul, the Church teaches that man’s soul is not immortal by nature. The gift of immortality was given by God as a free expression of His love for man, so that man, if he so chooses, may be able to share in the bliss of his creator. In all of creation, only man, as far as we are able to know, was endowed with this most sublime gift."
I've read other pieces which claim that the idea that the soul is immortal is a minority view in Orthodoxy. I must admit I always have been taught, I think, that the soul is immortal, but maybe that's a Greek/Serb concept. I'm pretty sure the Latins believe it too.
The human soul certainly is immortal, but only, as your quotation says, by the grace, gift, and power of God. Only God is immortal by nature -- or at least that is what I have always been taught in my life as an Orthodox Christian. I think that there is a strong strain within the Catholic church of saying that the soul is immortal, and Protestantism got it from there. Catholic theology, however, may have the same caveats of by grace vs by nature that we have.
We have clear statements in Scripture that indicate that the gift of immortality that God has given to our souls (and that he will restore to our resurrected bodies) will not be revoked at any point in the future, so in *that* sense, we can say with confidence that the soul is immortal.
Whenever we colloquially talk about "caring for our immortal soul," I look on this as a practical way of impressing on us that what we do here on earth inn preparation for the next life is, to put it mildly, important -- since the consequences will last for eternity...
When we talk about the soul as not being immortal (by nature), it is to emphasize that it is created, that it is not self-existing or pre-existing, and that we are not divine by nature in the way that God is.
That is news to me too, Kolo. For if a soul dies, what's the point of sending a dead soul to hell, after its body has been resurrected? I believe there is some confusion as to how the word soul and death are treated.
For starters, Genesis 2:7 says that man became a living soul. The word used in LXX is "yuchn" (or "nephesh" in Hebrew or "душа" in Slavonic), all three being derived form the word "breath."
The KJV translates it as "soul" but the newer bibles, NAB, NIV, translate it as "a being."
So, the word soul is really understood to be a human being, and not the Platonic essence separate, or indwelling, in the body. As such, the Orthodox Church teaches that the this man or "soul" was created neither mortal nor immortal in a physical sense.
Yet we are taught without any confusion that, after physical death, the "soul," in this case our anima or essence, continues to exist and feel and even psosess consciousness, and therefore lives — in an unnatural state but lives nontheless without the body (which is completely alien to Aristotelian philosophy).
In the concept of our salvation is the idea that our souls will be reunited with our (new) bodies and the saved shall live in bliss thereafter and that "God's Kingdom shall have no end." [does it now?]
So, as you can see, some of the wording that we are all familiar with seem somewhat "sloppy" in that the "soul" sometimes means a human being, sometimes a breath, soemtimes our essence, or life (anima).
Likewise, death sometimes means physical death (i.e. separation of body and soul, expiration, the last breath), and at other times it referes to the death of our essence, vanishing from existence completely, oblivion.
Obviosuly, the scribes were not always careful (especially those who made copies that we read today as 3rd century "originals," or how else could someone say that Christ's "Kingdom shall have no end" as if it does now?)
Likewise, if we are to assume that the souls of the sinners will simply perish, what will happen to their resurrected bodies? And where exactly will such "people" abide; after all Hell is not a "place" we would agree, yet we are told that at the Second Coming every soul shall be given a body, and those of the unrepentant shall be cast into the eternal fire where there will be "gnashing of the teeth" forever.
Surely, if there will be gnashing of the teeth and eternal torment, there must be "life" in those condemned souls or else torment and gnahsing teeth would be meaningless. The condemned souls must therefore "feel" as much as the saved ones, but in the extreme opposite way, therefore both must be "alive" in order to experience the after-life. So, if all this is true, how can souls then be mortal?