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Orthodox and Catholics alike would do well to recall that in the early Church, well before the Great Schism, it was perfectly routine for penitents to have substantial tasks imposed on them as a condition of restoration to communion.

Hermann, I'm glad you referenced the Catholic Encyclopaedia article on Atonement, because I too found it most useful. As I recall however, it does not side definitively with Anselm. Notwithstanding the infinite merit appertaining to even the slightest suffering on the part of Christ, God in his perfect freedom, the article points out, is eternally capable of pardoning all human sin by a gratuitous act of mercy, without any need for the Crucifixion. In my opinion, the Sacrifice of Christ acting as Mediator for the sin of the world is not legal satisfaction but the very overthrow of that concept. God being perfect, He is insusceptible of injury and thus can never suffer any "lack" needing to be repaired or restored. As Logos Christ restores the world to right order. As Mediator, Christ intercedes for us with the Father; and being perfect Mediator, his perfect and complete intercession implies perfect and complete gift of self. It's in this sense that the Crucifixion is truly a sacrifice, not in the sense that it satisfies a debt. The Crucifixion is not restitution; it's revelation. By his kenotic Passion, the Son reveals the same unrestricted, loving gift of self that characterises the inner life of the Trinity: the Son's obediance of the Father and complete gift of self for love of the Father's created images and likeness is a window into the Trinitarian life that we're all called to share.

To my Orthodox friends, I want to point out that the Catholic Catechism is very clear on the nature of sin as not so much legal transgression as alienation. Conversion, not effective restitution, lies at the heart of our sacrament of reconciliation, for the plain reason that like the Eucharist, Pennance is a sacrament of communion. It's an ecclesial event, not a legal event; and though penitential acts are imposed on the penitent as a condition of his forgiveness, these exist not for God's sake (who needs nothing from us), for for the sinner's, whose need is to cooperate with the grace restoring him to communion with the Body of Christ.

Orthodox and Catholics alike would do well to recall that in the early Church, well before the Great Schism, it was perfectly routine for penitents to have substantial tasks imposed on them as a condition of restoration to communion.

Historical documents from Byzantium say otherwise.

for for the sinner's, whose need is to cooperate with the grace restoring him to communion with the Body of Christ.

A quite agreeable view....imo.

From somebody on the sidelines.... Pergatory is such a false doctrine... just like indulgences.