As an Orthodox Christian, I do not specifically believe in the Purgatory, but our theology is not that far from the Catholic concept of this stage of the life of a soul. We also believe that there is a "third" place in which the soul is purified before ascending to heaven. We do not believe in "real" fire of the Purgatory, etc.
However, the concept of an intermediate state during which the soul is purified is a pretty much universal belief in most religions, monotheistic as well as pagan.
So ... what has the soul in purgatory lost ?
If I may jump into this interesting discussion of yours, to answer your question "So ... what has the soul in purgatory lost?" I would say impurity.
Yours is an extremely insightful response ... in that it places God's desire to bring His children to spiritual maturity ... above all other considerations.
Just a question to clarify for me. As an Orthodox Christian, you are not REQUIRED to formulate Purgatory as a dogmatic teaching, but you can CHOOSE to believe it, correct? I am not sure on the levels of teaching that exist within Orthodoxy, but there is nothing that states one CANNOT believe in Purgatory, correct? Am I correct to say that the Orthodox do not have a rule that states that any Latin-only doctrine cannot be true?!
We don't believe in a "real" fire, but we do believe that "fire" is a form of suffering that IS real. How our souls will suffer during this purification! Better to take advantage of the time God gives us in this life!
Regards
I didn't realize the Orthodox church bought into this error. One more reason to thank God for the Reformation.
These are the greatest words that Jesus ever spoke. They are the words of God's grace to pardon from all evil in the blood of His Son, and to earn the right of eternal life in glory. There is really only one question above all others. That question is this: Am I one who belongs to Jesus Christ? That is the only important question at death. Then to hear Jesus say, "Verily I say unto you, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." Then all is well, no matter what... Those who die in Christ do not go to purgatory. There is no purgatory. Those who die in Jesus Christ do not die with a big question mark hanging over them. But those who die in Jesus Christ immediately are with Jesus in glory. Today, today shalt thou be with Me in paradise.Luke 23:43 -- "And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise."
and...
It was this conflict with the mediaeval message that occasioned the fivefold "only" in the slogans quoted above (Five Solas). Salvation, said the Reformers, is by faith (man's total trust) only, without our being obliged to work for it; it is by grace (God's free favor) only, without our having to earn or deserve it first; it is by Christ the God-man only, without there being need or room for any other mediatoral agent, whether priest, saint, or virgin; it is by Scripture only, without regard to such unbiblical and unfounded extras as the doctrines of purgatory and of pilgrimages, the relic-cult and papal indulgences as devices for shortening one's stay there; and praise for salvation is due to God only, without any credit for his acceptance of us being taken to ourselves. The Reformers made these points against unreformed Rome, but they were well aware that in making them they were fighting over again Paul's battle in Romans and Galatians against works, and in Colossians against unauthentic traditions, and the battle fought in Hebrews against trust in any priesthood or mediation other than that of Christ. And (note again!) they were equally well aware that the gospel of the five "onlies" would always be contrary to natural human thinking, upsetting to natural human pride, and an object of hostility to Satan, so that destructive interpretations of justification by faith in terms of justification by works (as by the Judaizers of Paul's day, and the Pelagians of Augustine's, and the Church of Rome both before and after the Reformation, and the Arminians within the Reformed fold, and Bishop Bull among later Anglicans) were only to be expected. So Luther anticipated that after his death the truth of justification would come under fresh attack and theology would develop in a way tending to submerge it once more in error and incomprehension; and throughout the century following Luther's death Reformed theologians, with Socinian and other rationalists in their eye, were constantly stressing how radically opposed to each other are the "gospel mystery" of justification and the religion of the natural man. For justification by works is, in truth, the natural religion of mankind, and has been since the Fall, so that, as Robert Traill, the Scottish Puritan, wrote in 1692, "all the ignorant people that know nothing of either law or gospel," "all proud secure sinners," "all formalists," and "all the zealous devout people secure sinners, in a natural religion," line up together as "utter enemies to the gospel..."