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To: Vicomte13; Kolokotronis
I think that you are probably close to the mark in positing that the incorrect aspects of the Roman doctrines regarding purgatory are the result of over-dissection and speculation. This is typically the history of all incorrect doctrine.

One thing that certainly doesn't appear anywhere in Orthodox writings that I have encountered is the Roman pugatorial idea that a "purpose" of the intermediary state in which we find ourselves between death and the final judgment is to undergo some sort of burning and cleansing us from sins.

Orthodox teaching seems to be that the critical thing for all of us is the overall disposition of our soul at the time of death: are we turned toward God and become like him, or are we turned away from him and such that "I never knew you."

As to the "toll-houses," much ink has been spilled on that in Orthodox circles, but the important thing to remember is that they are and always were a metaphor, an imperfect description of what the soul experiences after death.

We have memorial services for the departed on the 3rd, 9th, and 40th day of their repose. The Church has given us some explanations as to why these are important times of transition for the soul, and there are too many experiences that Orthodox Christians (including me) have had surrounding those days to treat this lightly.

But what is described by the Fathers who describe what happens after death is the soul being confronted with his sins. What seems to be happening is not "payment" for sins or "purification" from sins, but rather a revealing to the soul the implications of how one has spent ones life.

There just isn't found in Orthodox thought the idea that every sin has to be legally accounted for in one way or another. There are certainly stories of those who were lost because of a single sin, but the point to the stories generally is that the secretly harbored sin was reflective of the person's true disposition toward God, which he had hid from the world, and perhaps from himself.

456 posted on 02/16/2005 3:45:16 PM PST by Agrarian
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To: Agrarian

I suppose there are some corners of Catholic thought, especially back in the bad old pre-Tridentine days of the sale of indulgences (which, in fairness, was a period of naked abuse that lasted perhaps a hundred years, and was associated with the takeover of the Italian Church by frank privateers) that really made an accounting system for getting rid of this sin and that.

Trent got rid of that, and good riddance.

Certainly it isn't what I believe.
I think it's all a mystery, but I just don't think that God damns everyone - which would just about be the effect of an "any sin, no salvation" approach.


458 posted on 02/16/2005 4:23:25 PM PST by Vicomte13 (La nuit s'acheve!)
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To: Agrarian; Vicomte13

"We have memorial services for the departed on the 3rd, 9th, and 40th day of their repose. The Church has given us some explanations as to why these are important times of transition for the soul, and there are too many experiences that Orthodox Christians (including me) have had surrounding those days to treat this lightly."

We've had experiences alright, all of us so far as I know!


459 posted on 02/16/2005 4:26:47 PM PST by Kolokotronis (Nuke the Cube!)
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