Heaven and Hell

Today, Orthodox theology increasingly has to deal with the "theology of indefinite concepts." For a person accustomed to calling everything by their proper names, it is difficult to get used to strange judgments about the absence of reward and punishment from God, as well as God's providence and judgment. Well-established concepts such as Paradise and hell... These places, the modernists assert, are not places, but only a different way of perceiving God's love, which torments sinners and pleases the righteous. ... Paradise and hell, therefore, differ in the experience of the same uncreated energy of God. For the righteous, it will be ineffable light and peace, and for sinners, fiery hell. This implies that God does not cease to love those who rejected Him and sheds the light of His love on those to whom he brings the most severe torments. This curious view of divine love compels us to take a closer look at this question.

The god of the modernists faces a big problem: having omnipotence, he can only act out of love, but this strange love has no opportunity to show his attitude towards man. The limitation of such a god is surprising: he cannot judge, that is, dispose of the fate of creation, over which he has full power, is afraid to reward and punish, so as not to incur a reproach for the legal nature of the relationship. He cannot treat a person the way a person deserves, but he can only be hypocritical, portraying anger, since all the same love does not recognize the existence of any other properties besides love. The human right to infinite divine love, as well as the right of those who do not want this love, baffle this god. He cannot send sinners to hell, since this will be the most punishment, and he cannot make sinners righteous, who could be blissful, because he greatly respects the rights of sinners. In order to formally observe these two conditions, such a god has only one thing left: to leave sinners to himself, so that they do not forget about respect for their rights and remember about absolute love, which is not capable of punishment. However, let us turn to Holy Scripture.

When the owner of the house gets up and closes the doors, then you, standing outside, will knock on the doors and say: Lord! God! open for us; but He will answer you: I do not know where you are from. Then you will begin to say: We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets. But He will say: I say to you: I do not know you, where you are from; depart from Me, all workers of unrighteousness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God, and yourself driven out.(Luke 13: 25-28)

From this passage of the Gospel, every open-minded reader can draw for himself several simple but important conclusions.

Modernists tend to understand such a dialogue in some allegorical sense unknown to believers. Often, in support of their words, modernists cite the words of St. Isaac the Syrian, who writes:

“I say that those who are tormented in hell are struck by the scourge of love! And how bitter and cruel is this torment of love! For those who have felt that they have sinned against love, endure the torment that brings all fearful torment; the sadness that strikes the heart for sin against love is more terrible than any punishment. It is inappropriate for anyone to think that sinners in Gehenna are deprived of the love of God. Love is a product of knowing the truth, which (in which everyone agrees) is given to everyone in general. But love by its power works in two ways: it torments sinners, just as here it happens to a friend to endure from a friend, and it rejoices those who have observed their duty. And so, in my opinion, the torment of Gehenna is repentance. Love revels in the souls of the sons of the mountain with its joys "(Venerable Isaac the Syrian. Ascetic words. Reprint, M. 1993, p. 70)

Venerable Isaac speaks of those tormented in Gehenna who are struck by the scourge of love. Does this mean that speaking of Gehenna, St. the ascetic did not mean a specific place, but only one state of torment from God's love? If you think so, you get a tautology: "tormented in love, who are struck by the scourge of love." Venerable Isaac speaks of the inappropriateness of the idea that sinners in Gehenna are deprived of the love of God and adds: "love is a product of truth, which is given to everyone in general." These are very important words that shed light on the essence of the issue under consideration. Everything created, including Gehenna, exists due to the will of the Creator and does not have an original beginning in itself. In each of the intelligent creatures, there is love, which manifests itself in the form of a voice of conscience. Conscience can be called that product of truth, which is present only in people and determines the degree of responsibility of human actions. In the case of unreasonable creatures (animals, plants, etc.), we have the fact of the presence of God's love as the cause that gives rise to their existence. If we talk about the torment of Gehenna, then the presence of Divine love as generating the eternal existence of hell and sinners is at the same time for the latter and infinitely manifested in its entirety Truth, which was rejected by them on earth. This endless denunciation of the Truth rejected on earth will generate fruitless repentance and bring untold torment, which is "more terrible than all kinds of punishment." But this does not at all speak of the energetic nature of hell and heaven. To these pangs of fruitless repentance, hellish torments will also be added, according to the degree of sinfulness: total darkness (Matthew 8, 12), fiery hell (Matthew 5:22), gnashing of teeth (Matthew 13, 42), unrelenting worm (Mark 9 48), etc. In this regard, it is appropriate to give two examples that clearly illustrate the otherness of the state in heaven and hell.

“Here is a story about two friends, one of whom went to a monastery and led a holy life there, while the other remained in the world and lived sinfully. When a friend who lived in sin suddenly died, his monk friend began to pray to God to reveal to him the fate of his comrade. Once, in a dream, a deceased friend appeared to him and began to talk about his unbearable torment and how an unbroken worm was gnawing at him. Having said this, he raised his clothes to his knee and showed his leg, which was all covered with a terrible worm that was eating it. Such a terrible stench emanated from the wounds on his leg that the monk immediately woke up. He jumped out of the cells, leaving the door open, and the stench from the cells spread throughout the monastery. Since the stench did not diminish from time to time, all the monks had to move to another place. And the monk, who saw the hellish prisoner, all his life could not get rid of the stench that clung to him "(from the book" Eternal Secrets of the Underworld ", publication of the St. Panteleimon Monastery on Mount Athos).

From this description we see that the torments described here are created and, accordingly, inherent in the place in which the sinner is. Let us now turn to the opposite experience.

From the life of St. Andrey the Foolish:

“Once, during a harsh winter, Saint Andrew was lying in the street and was dying of the cold. Suddenly he felt an extraordinary warmth in himself and saw a beautiful youth with a face that shone like the sun. This young man took him to paradise, to the third heaven. That's what St. Andrey told, returning to earth:
"By Divine will I stayed for two weeks in a sweet vision ... I saw myself in paradise, and here I marveled at the ineffable charm of this beautiful and wondrous place. There were many gardens filled with tall trees, which, swaying with their peaks, amused my eyesight, and a pleasant fragrance emanated from their branches ... These trees cannot be compared in beauty to any earthly tree, In those gardens there were innumerable birds with golden, snow-white and multi-colored wings They sat on the branches of the trees of paradise and sang so beautifully that from their mellifluous singing, I did not remember myself ... "

A sensual description of paradise reminds us of the Lord's words: In the house of My Father there are many abodes. If it were not so, I would have told you: I am going to prepare a place for you.(John 14: 2). But the presence of visible beauties in paradise does not deprive its inhabitants of the joy of spiritual consolation. It would be strange to believe that heavenly bliss concerns only the spiritual side of human nature. After the general resurrection all people will put on imperishable bodies. The righteous will experience bliss with all their being: spirit, soul, and body. Sinners will experience torment that also extends to all of human nature. But at the same time it is necessary to realize that there are many degrees of hellish torment, and it is quite possible to admit that the "lightest" of torments will be the languor of spirit and body due to the impossibility of staying with God in heavenly abodes.

Summing up this rather strange teaching, it is safe to say that the modernist understanding of heaven and hell proceeds from the concept of the uniqueness of the property of Divine love. The sensibility of heaven and hell seems somewhat crude to modernists, since it reminds them of reward and punishment, the concept of which they diligently distort. Posthumous private and terrible courts, consist only in the registration of those who arrived at a certain (place?) Of divine love. It is to such an absurd conclusion that the speculations of new theologians who reject the reality of places of afterlife and try to introduce elements of afterlife pantheism and Buddhist nirvana can lead.

“From the patristic tradition it is clear that heaven and hell cannot be regarded as two different places but God Himself is a heaven for the saints and a hell for sinners. " Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos). Heaven and Hell. with. eight.

Talking about heaven is difficult for several reasons. One of them is that there are no suitable words in our ordinary language, and we do not know the Heavenly language. We have words for tables and chairs, computers and telephones, stairs and elevators - things we deal with all the time. But heaven is beyond our experience; it is difficult for us to talk about it, as, for example, it is difficult for those born blind to talk about color, and babies in the womb (if they could talk) would find it difficult to reason about the world that awaits them after childbirth. We believe that we are about to see the light, to be born into another life, but it is difficult for us to understand what kind of world awaits us. But does it make sense in that case to start this conversation at all? Yes. This is not to say that we do not know anything at all - both Scripture and Tradition tell us about paradise, and we must pay attention to these words and try to understand them. When it comes to spiritual realities, language inevitably becomes figurative, metaphorical; and Scripture speaks of paradise using familiar imagery.

Home, Garden, City, Kingdom, Wedding Feast

Our word "metaphor" is often associated with something vague and unrealistic. In fact, we are talking about things that are highly concrete and real. You cannot explain to an African what snow is like without resorting to allegories, but you (unlike your interlocutor) know that snow is absolutely real, you remember how it melts in your hands and crunches under your feet. Paradise is absolutely real, elongated, undoubted - more real than the world in which we live now - but we can only speak about it allegorically. Various metaphors can be useful because in our world, in our experience there are reflections of paradise - we live in a fallen world, but not in hell, and those good and good things that we know can serve as pointers to us.

For we know, - says the apostle, - that when our earthly house, this hut, collapses, we have from God a dwelling place in heaven, a house not made by hands, eternal. That is why we sigh, wanting to put on our heavenly dwelling(2 Cor 5 : 1,2). Paradise is our home; we are for him, and he is for us. We do not go to a distant country; on the contrary, we are returning home. Sergei Yesenin has the famous lines: "If the holy army shouts: /" Throw you Rus, live in paradise! " / I will say: "No need for paradise, / give me my homeland." It may be great poetry, but it is a misconception about heaven. Paradise is our true Motherland, and the fact that there is a saint in holy Russia carries within itself the reflections of paradise, points to paradise and will definitely be in paradise. It may be recalled that at the other end of Christian Europe, in the Celtic world, holy places such as the famous monastery of Aion were called "thin" - places where the heavens "shine" through the earthly landscape - for those who have eyes to see them. The beauty of the universe - like the beauty of the Church - helps us, albeit “fortuitously, as through a dull glass,” to see the reflections of paradise.

Scripture calls paradise a city - heavenly Jerusalem. I must say that the “city” in biblical times was not like a modern metropolis, where people, even squeezed in a subway car, remain strangers to each other. The city was an organism, a unity in which people were linked by bonds of mutual fidelity, shared memory and shared hope. Saved, as the prophet says, entered in the book for living in Jerusalem(Is 4 : 3). By entering the Church, we gain heavenly citizenship; we have hometown where, as the apostle says, we are no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens of the saints and our own to God(Eph 2 :19).

Another image of paradise is the image of the Kingdom. In our time, "kingdom" is often understood as "country", "territory". In gospel times, it was about something else — dominion. We belong to the Kingdom of God if our King is Christ. As He himself says, the Kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21). It is a reality in which Christ is the Lord and lawgiver, a reality in which His love rules.

Christ speaks of paradise as a wedding feast. For the modern reader of Scripture, it can be difficult to understand the meaning of these two images - feast and marriage. Let's start with a feast. In 1st century Palestine, people perceived the value of food very differently; they ate in moderation — often forcedly, due to lack of food, sometimes voluntarily, taking over the fast. Now, when food is sold on every corner, we have lost consciousness of its value, and only church fasts can return us to an understanding of what a feast is, a joyful acceptance of the abundance of God's gifts.

But the food had another one, lost in modern society, function. Today we live in a fast food culture, we often eat alone or on the go, and we don’t care about the person with whom we accidentally shared a table at a fast food cafe. But for people of that time, having someone together was the deepest manifestation of human communication and community. Something similar has survived in our time, when the family gathers at one table. We all gathered at the table - family or close friends, share not only food, but also each other's life. Feast was the opposite of not only hunger, but also loneliness, it satisfied the need not only for food, but also for human brotherhood.

This was especially true of a wedding feast, when the love of a young man and a girl united not only them, but also their families - people became relatives to each other. Marriage was a manifestation of what the biblical Hebrew called “hesed” - faithful, unchanging love. The vague yearning of first love, the expectation of something great came true when the lovers became spouses, started a family. A happy family, full of love and worries, - the image of paradise; the closeness and understanding that exists between relatives is an image - albeit imperfect and damaged - of that love, which will be the air and light of the century to come.

You can starve and thirst not only for food and drink, but also for love, truth, beauty, meaning. The Lord Himself uses this image of thirst and hunger when He says Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied(Mt 5 : 6). In Paradise, the deepest thirst of the human heart will be quenched - we will come to the very Source of all goodness, beauty and truth, so that we will never leave Him again.

For they will be comforted

Paradise is a place of comfort; Lazarus, who suffered grievously in earthly life, is comforted in paradise; The Lord promises comfort to those who weep, and the Revelation of John says that God will wipe away every tear from their eyes(Open 21 :4). This doctrine was (and remains) the subject of especially fierce attacks: some say that people simply invented paradise in order to somehow comfort themselves in the face of pain, hunger, cold and unbearable cruelty of the world around them; others - that this invention was a completely deliberate attempt to distract the working people from the struggle to improve their position on earth.

Both of these objections are guilty of the same obvious logical fallacy - the fact that a certain doctrine brings consolation in no way implies its falsity, just as from the fact that a certain doctrine brings despair in no way follows its truth. We can assume that people who live with hope are fools, but a sober approach to life is hopelessness. It can be considered that a martyr who gives his life in the hope of eternal life is in captivity of illusions, but a suicide looks at life realistically, but there is no logical reason to believe so.
Another objection is more serious: there are things after which consolation is impossible. A child who has lost a toy will be comforted if he receives another; an adult who has lost a child will never be comforted - he will learn to live on, but grief will remain with him forever. You can compensate for material damage, such as a broken laptop, but you cannot compensate for genuine grief. As the prophet says - and the Evangelist quotes him, talking about the beating of infants by Herod - The voice in Ram is heard, weeping and sobbing and crying great; Rachel weeps for her children and does not want to be comforted, for they are not there(Mt 2 :eighteen). There is pain that leaves in human soul ulcers too deep for anything to fill them. This world has nothing to offer as a consolation - and the very attempts to offer seem almost blasphemy. But heaven is not this world.

In the prophecy of Isaiah, which tells about the suffering of the Savior, there are amazing words: He will look at the feat of His soul with contentment(Is 53 :eleven). Usually, when people experience something really terrible - like torture - they then do not remember it "with contentment." Consciousness tries to supplant unbearable memories, but they still remain a source of pain, poisoning the rest of your life. Crucifixion is an inexpressibly terrible and painful death, the details of which are terrible to read; but Scripture says that Christ, who has entered the glory, looks at her "with contentment." Something similar is said about the suffering of Christians, which produces eternal glory in immeasurable surplus(2 Cor 4 :17).

The Holy Apostle Peter says that how you participate in Christ's sufferings, rejoice, and even in the manifestation of His glory you will rejoice and triumph f (1 Peter 4:13). Suffering will not only remain in the past - it will turn into glory and triumph. The terrible wounds that cover the bodies of the martyrs will be transformed into signs of heavenly glory; unbearable sorrow will turn into eternal joy, families will be reunited in one great family, whose Father is God. Looking back on their earthly path, the saved will see all - including the most difficult and painful - days of their lives, and especially them, flooded with that heavenly light that will reveal to them the true meaning of everything. God will cast a mortal shadow on a clear morning (Am 5 : 8) general resurrection and on the necessary day eternal life.

And no one betrayed to abomination and lies

The doors of Paradise are wide open; we are all strongly invited. Both Scripture and Tradition constantly assure us that any person, no matter how sinful he may be, can repent, believe and be saved. The first to go to heaven was the robber, crucified at the right hand of the Lord.

But what if we refuse to enter? The answer is obvious both from the point of view of Scripture and from the point of view of common sense: if we refuse to enter the door, we will remain outside the door, in outer darkness. And nothing unclean will enter into it, and no one who is devoted to abomination and lies, but only those that are written by the Lamb in the book of life.(Open 21 : 27), says the very last verse of the Bible. A paradise into which something unclean would enter, a paradise in which abomination and lies were possible, would no longer be paradise. We are firmly promised that if we surrender to the Lord, He will cleanse us and bring us into His city.

But we can resist, not want to, love the darkness, not the light, moreover, we can stagnate in this state forever. Then - the Scripture warns - we will remain in outer darkness. The "undying worm" and "unquenchable fire" that the Lord speaks of can be regarded as allegories, and bright images medieval iconography - as conditioned by the era and culture. But in any case, we cannot deny - the Lord persistently warns us about something unspeakably terrible.

People often do not want to hear these warnings, and sometimes they directly challenge them: there is nothing to worry about, God is too good to condemn and reject anyone. Their mistake is not at all that they affirm the goodness of God; “His goodness is immeasurable and philanthropy is inexpressible” is a deeply traditional and orthodox doctrine proclaimed at every Liturgy. Their mistake is that they deny human freedom. God so desires to save every person that "He put on flesh, was crucified and buried for us, ungrateful and malevolent." But man has a genuine, real choice - he can say no to God.

I once saw a documentary about the partition of India in the late 1940s (and the massacre that took place at the same time). There was an interview with a Sikh, already a very old man, who, lovingly stroking a crooked saber, boasted that then not a single Muslim left him alive. When asked if he regretted the murders he had committed, he replied indignantly: “And why should I regret? These damn Muslims slaughtered half of our people! "

What will happen to this soul on the other side of death? How can a person enter heaven who vehemently insists that he is right and does not think to repent of his sins? Where will he end up? There are many examples of how human pride and anger turns the earth into hell - what will it turn eternity into? What can the love of God do for those who have ultimately chosen the path of opposition? God provides a "great gulf" between the saved and the lost, so that evildoers can no longer harm the innocent. And God gives them as much knowledge of the truth as they can accommodate - and this knowledge turns into suffering for them. On earth, villains can revel in evil and receive perverse joy from the torment of others; in hell, sin and evil turn out to be what they ought to be - a pain.

But the warnings about hell do not only apply to some strangers from a distant land, like this Sikh from the above example. And not only to unrepentant murderers.
There are only two paths - ascending or descending, to or from God. You can grow in love, knowledge and disclosure of your God-given destiny. You can - in pride and hostility. We inevitably choose one way or another, and when our choice multiplies for eternity, it will inevitably lead us to this or that destination.

The Christian life is not a life in fear of hell; we rely on our Savior to be able and willing to deliver us from this fate. On the contrary, Christians live "thinking of things above," and with a heartfelt hope awaiting eternal salvation. But we are called to remember the reality of our choice and its consequences - and remember our responsibility for ourselves and our neighbors.
The way of salvation

Talking about heaven and hell is by no means an abstract theorizing. We rush to this - or that - place at a staggering speed of sixty seconds a minute, constantly, day and night, and cannot stop or even slow down. The great French thinker Blaise Pascal was extremely surprised that people are worried about anything except their eternal salvation: “The same person who spends so many days and nights in frustration and despair over losing his job or some imaginary insult to his honor, - the same person knows that with death he loses everything, and this does not bother or excite him. It is an ugly phenomenon that in one and the same heart, at the same time, such sensitivity to the smallest things and such indifference to the most important is found. " The most important thing in our life path- this is where we end it. When a person realizes this, he asks the question: “How can I be saved? How can I reach heaven? "

And Scripture gives the answer to this question: believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you and all your house will be saved(Acts 16 : 31). Believing means submitting to Jesus Christ as Lord and trusting Him as Savior, accepting Baptism, approaching the Sacraments of the Church, as He commanded, sincerely striving to keep His commandments. Faith means new life perhaps a rejection of something we are used to, a break with old sins and old attitudes. But when we see the goal in front of us, when the light emanating from paradise illuminates our path, we understand how little is actually required of us, and how much we will gain.

Material illustrated with paintings by Mikalojus Čiurlionis

The word "hell" (Greek. κολασε - flour) comes from the verb κολαζο and has two meanings. The first meaning is “to cut off the branches of the tree”, the second is “to punish”. This word is used mainly in the second sense. Moreover, in the sense that he does not punish a person, but a person punishes himself, because he does not accept the gift of God. Breaking communication with God is punishment, especially if we remember that man was created in the image and likeness of God, and this is precisely the deepest meaning of his existence.

Hell in Scripture

Two scriptures clearly speak of hell.

One of them is found in the Gospel text, where Christ speaks of the future judgment. Christ said:

“And these shall go away into eternal torment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25, 46).

If this verse is connected with the previous one “Depart from Me, cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for him” (Matthew 25, 41), then it becomes clear that hell is identified here with the eternal fire, which was prepared not for man, but for the devil and his angels.

The second passage of Scripture, which contains the word hell, is found in the message of the Evangelist John: “Perfect love casts out fear, because there is torment in fear ( κολασε ). He who fears is imperfect in love ”(1 John 4:18). Of course, here they speak of hell not as a way of existence for sinners after the Second Coming of Christ, but as a state of torment, which is alien to love and therefore associated with fear.

In addition, the state of hell is conveyed in the Holy Scriptures in the following words and expressions: “eternal fire” (Matt. 25, 41), “outer darkness” (Matt. 25, 30), “Gehenna of fire” (Matt. 5, 22) and so on. However, the analysis of these expressions is not our task now. We will return to them in another chapter when we consider the conclusions to be drawn from the teachings and the Fathers about heaven and hell.

Holy fathers about hell

We should start with the Monk Isaac the Syrian, who very clearly shows that there is heaven and hell. Speaking about paradise, he says that paradise is the love of God. Naturally, when we talk about love, we mainly mean the uncreated energy of God. The Monk Isaac writes: "Paradise is the love of God, in which the enjoyment of all the blessedness." But speaking about hell, he says almost the same thing: hell is the scourge of divine love. He writes: “I say that those who are tormented in Gehenna are struck by the scourge of love. And how bitter and cruel is this torment of love! "

Thus, hell is torment from the influence of the love of God. The Monk Isaac says that sorrow from sin against the love of God "is more terrible than any possible punishment." Indeed, what a torment it is to deny someone's love and go against it! What a terrible thing to behave inappropriately towards those who truly love us! If what has been said is compared with the love of God, then it will be possible to understand the torment of hell. The Monk Isaac considers it inappropriate to assert that "sinners in Gehenna are deprived of the love of God."

Consequently, people in hell will not be deprived of divine love. God will love all people - both the righteous and the sinners, but not everyone will feel this love to the same extent and in the same way. In any case, it is inappropriate to say that hell is the absence of God.

Hence, it is concluded that the experience of experiencing God is different for people. Each will be given from the Lord Christ "according to merit," "according to his valor." The ranks of teachers and students will be abolished, and in each will be revealed "the sharpness of all striving." One and the same God will equally give His grace to everyone, but people will perceive it in accordance with their “capacity”. The love of God will spread to all people, but it will act in two ways: it will torment sinners, and it will delight the righteous. Expressing the Orthodox Tradition, the Monk Isaac the Syrian writes: "Love by its own power acts in two ways: it torments sinners, just as here it happens to a friend to endure from a friend, and rejoices those who have observed their duty."

Therefore, one and the same love of God, one and the same action, will apply to all people, but it will be perceived differently.

Hell in Church Life

The writings of the Holy Fathers of the Church (we have analyzed the testimonies of some of them above) are meaningful to us only within the framework of church life... After all, the holy fathers are not just thinkers, philosophers, reflecting on doctrinal topics. No. They express the experience of the Church, interpret the Revelation entrusted to her.

I will bring two simple examples to show that the above teaching is the belief and experience of the entire Church.

The first example is the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ. Divine Communion acts in accordance with the state of the person. If a person is unclean, it scorches him, but if he strives for his purification, or even more so is already in a state of deification, it acts in a different way.

The Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians about this: “Whoever eats this bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty against the Body and Blood of the Lord (1 Cor. 11:27)”. Below he confirms his thought: “For this reason many of you are weak and sick, and many die” (1 Cor. 11:30). And this happens because “whoever eats and drinks unworthily, he eats and drinks condemnation to himself” (1 Cor. 11:29). The communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, becoming life for people who have been purified and deified, for the unclean is condemnation and death, even bodily death. Many diseases, and sometimes death, as the Apostle Paul asserts, are caused by the unworthy Communion of the Honest Gifts. Therefore, the Apostle gives this advice: “Let a man test himself, and in this way let him eat of this bread and drink from this cup” (1 Cor. 11:28).

The apostle Paul's phrase “let him test” should be compared with the spirit of all his Epistles. According to them, the grace of God should enlighten the heart of man, which is confirmed by the following quote: “For it is good to strengthen hearts by grace” (Heb. 13: 9). Hence, it is obvious that, when approaching divine Communion, a person must experience what kind of spiritual state he is in. For for those who purify themselves, the Sacrament becomes a cleansing, for those who are enlightened, it becomes illumination, for those who are deifying, it becomes deification, and for the unclean and unrepentant, it becomes judgment and condemnation, hell.

That is why in liturgical he implores God that Divine Communion was not for judgment and condemnation, but for the remission of sins. The prayer of Saint Chrysostom is very indicative: “Grant us to partake of Your heavenly and terrible Mysteries, sowing sacred and spiritual meals, with a clear conscience, for the remission of sins, for the forgiveness of sins, into the communion of the Holy Spirit, into the inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven, into boldness, hedgehog not to court or condemnation. "

We see the same penitent spirit in the prayers "Follow-up to Holy Communion."

With the manifestation of God at the time of the Second Coming, the same will happen that is already happening now during Holy Communion. For those who are cleansed and repented, God will become paradise. For those who are not cleansed, God will become hell.

Another example is from, which, of course, is a visible expression of the teaching of the Church. In the image of the Second Coming, as it is presented in the vestibules of churches, we see the following: from the throne of God comes a light that embraces the saints, and from the same throne of God comes a river of fire that scorches unrepentant sinners. The source of both light and fire is one and the same. This is a wonderful expression of the teaching of the Holy Fathers of the Church, - the teaching we have considered above about two actions of divine grace - enlightening or scorching - depending on the state of a person.

From the book of Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) "Heaven and Hell"

Death and hell

After the fall of the first man and his rejection by God, and in him the whole human race, all men, having finished their earthly wanderings with the death of their bodies, descended into the underworld of the dungeon of hell. Hell is in the bowels of the earth. There is burning eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his aggels(Matthew 25, 41), which, therefore, by their fall, preceded the creation of the material world. There is pitch darkness, there is tartare, there is gnashing of teeth, there is a worm that never sleeps, there is crying without consolation, uninterrupted and in vain.

Descent of Christ into Hell

There are various torments for the variety of sins; there are different degrees of torment, respectively varying degrees sinfulness. Mental death, substantial death, which struck the human race in its ancestors, expressing its power over the body of an earthly wanderer during his earthly wandering with ailments and other countless sufferings, at the end of earthly wandering expresses this power in the most terrible phenomenon: the separation of the soul from the body.

Upon the separation of the soul from the body, the power of death over a person is fully developed (it speaks of the times that preceded the Redeemer): the decaying and stinking body is buried in the bowels of the earth, and the soul of every person, both the wicked and the Old Testament righteous, descends into hell. The souls of the wicked were thrown into eternal fire, as ultimately belonging to eternal death; the souls of the righteous descended into hell, into its less deep and terrible dungeons, where they dwelt, languishing with life in hell and together being comforted by the hope of redemption. All the circumstances of earthly life prove to man that he is an exile on earth for a terrible crime; but death proves it most of all. She shows neither respect nor regret for anything lofty and important human. It strikes youth, beauty, genius, power, and wealth. In nothing man can avert the inexorable death, which serves for the human race as an experimental proof of his fall, his sin before God, his execution. It testifies before men that man is a creature and a slave who rebelled against his Creator and Lord, that the most famous and most important deeds of men for the earth mean nothing for eternity, that the lofty human is an abomination is before God(Luke 16:15). Death is an execution. Striking every person, she proves that every person is a criminal; striking all people without exception, it proves that mankind is punished for a crime common to all mankind. Death is in awe of piety alone, and the prayer of a righteous man can sometimes stop the ax of death, and postpone its hour (Isa. 38, 5).

The first two days after death

During the first two days, the soul enjoys relative freedom and can visit places on earth that are dear to it, but on the third day it moves to other spheres.
Here Archbishop John simply repeats the teaching known to the Church since the 4th century. Tradition says that the Angel who accompanied St. Macarius of Alexandria, said, explaining the church commemoration of the dead on the third day after death: “When on the third day there is an offering in the church, the soul of the deceased receives from the Angel guarding it relief in sorrow, which it feels from separation from the body, because it receives praise and the offering in the church of God was made for her, which is why good hope is born in her. For during two days the soul is allowed, together with the Angels who are with it, to walk on the earth wherever it wants. Therefore, the soul that loves the body sometimes wanders near the house in which it was separated from the body, sometimes near the coffin in which the body is laid; and thus spends two days like a bird looking for a nest for itself. And the virtuous soul walks to those places in which it used to create the truth. On the third day, the One who rose from the dead commands, in imitation of His resurrection, to ascend every Christian soul to heaven to worship the God of all. "
V Orthodox rite burial of the deceased St. John Damascene vividly describes the state of the soul, parted from the body, but still on earth, powerless to communicate with loved ones, whom it can see: “Alas, it’s a deed for me to have a soul that is separated from the body! Alas, then koliko tears, and have mercy on you! they lift up their eyes to the Angels, idly prays: they extend their hands to people, do not have a helping hand. By the same, my beloved brethren, having contemplated our short life, we ask for repose from Christ, and great mercy for our souls ”(The succession of the burial of worldly people, stichera is self-consistent, voice 2).
In a letter to the husband of her aforementioned dying sister, St. Theophan writes: “After all, the sister herself will not die; the body dies, but the face of the dying person remains. It passes only into other orders of life. She is not in the body lying under the saints and then carried out, and they do not hide her in the grave. She is elsewhere. As alive as now. In the first hours and days, she will be near you. - And only he won't say, - but you can't see her, and then here ... Have this in your mind. We, who remain, cry for those who have departed, but it is immediately easier for them: that state is gratifying. Those who died and were then introduced into the body found it a very uncomfortable habitation. The sister will feel the same. She is better there, and we are mortified, as if some kind of trouble happened to her. She looks and, probably, marvels at that "(" Soulful reading“, August 1894).
It should be borne in mind that this description of the first two days after death gives general rule , which by no means covers all situations. Indeed, most of the passages from Orthodox literature cited in this book do not fit this rule - and for a completely obvious reason: the saints who were not at all attached to worldly things, lived in constant expectation of a transition to another world, do not even be attracted to places, where they did good deeds, but immediately begin their ascent to. Others, like K. Ikskul, begin their ascent earlier than two days by the special permission of Divine Providence. On the other hand, all modern "posthumous" experiences, no matter how fragmentary they are, do not fit this rule: the out-of-body state is only the beginning of the first period of the disembodied wandering of the soul to the places of its earthly attachments, but none of these people have been in a state of death long enough to even meet two Angels to accompany them.
Some critics of the Orthodox teaching on the posthumous life find that such deviations from the general rule of "posthumous" experience are evidence of contradictions in Orthodox teaching, but such critics take everything too literally. The description of the first two days (as well as the subsequent ones) is by no means some kind of dogma; it is just a model that only formulates the most general order posthumous experience of the soul. Many cases both in Orthodox literature and in stories about modern experiences where the dead were instantly alive on the first day or two after death (sometimes in a dream), serve as examples of the truth that the soul really remains near the earth for some a short time... (Genuine appearances of the dead after this short period of soul freedom are much more rare and always happen by God's Will for some special purpose, and not by someone's own will. But by the third day, and often even earlier, this period comes to an end .)

Ordeals

At this time (on the third day), the soul passes through legions of evil spirits who block its path and accuse it of various sins, in which they themselves have involved it. According to various revelations, there are twenty such obstacles, the so-called "ordeals", on each of which one or another sin is tortured; after going through one ordeal, the soul comes to the next. And only after successfully passing all of them, the soul can continue on its way without being immediately plunged into hell. How terrible these demons and ordeals are, can be seen from the fact that the Mother of God Herself, when the Archangel Gabriel informed Her about the approach of death, prayed to Her Son to deliver Her soul from these demons, and in answer to Her prayers the Lord Jesus Christ Himself appeared from heaven accept the soul of His Most Pure Mother and take Her to heaven. (This is visibly depicted in the traditional Orthodox icon of the Assumption.) The third day is truly terrible for the soul of the deceased, and for this reason, prayers are especially needed.
The sixth chapter contains a number of patristic and hagiographic texts about ordeals, and there is no need to add anything else here. However, here, too, we can note that the descriptions of ordeals correspond to the model of torture that the soul undergoes after death, and individual experience can differ significantly. Insignificant details such as the number of ordeals are, of course, secondary in comparison with the main fact that the soul is really subjected to judgment (private judgment) soon after death, which summarizes the “invisible battle” that it waged (or did not wage) on earth against the fallen spirits ...

Continuing the letter to the husband of his dying sister, Bishop Theophan the Recluse writes: Have those who have departed soon begin the feat of passing through the ordeal. She needs help there! - Then stand in this thought, and you will hear her scream to you: "Help!" “This is what you must direct all your attention and all your love to her. I think - the most real testimony of love will be - if from the moment the soul departs, you, leaving the worries about the body to others, step aside yourself and, retiring, where possible, immerse yourself in prayer for it in its new state, for its unexpected needs. Having begun this way, be in a constant cry to God - for her help, for six weeks - and so on. In the legend of Theodora - the meshes from which the Angels took to get rid of the tax collectors - these were the prayers of her elder. The same will be your prayers ... Do not forget to do so ... Behold and love! "
Critics of the Orthodox teaching often misunderstand the "bag of gold" from which the Angels "paid for the debts" of Blessed Theodora during ordeals; sometimes it is mistakenly compared to the Latin concept of the "supreme merit" of the saints. And here, too, such critics read Orthodox texts too literally. Here we mean nothing more than the prayers for the departed of the Church, in particular, the prayers of the holy and spiritual father. The form in which it is described - there is hardly even a need to talk about it - is metaphorical.
Orthodox Church considers the doctrine of ordeals so important that he mentions them in many (see some quotes in the chapter on ordeals). In particular, the Church sets forth this teaching in a special way to all her dying children. The Canon for the Exodus of the Soul, read by a priest at the bedside of a dying member of the Church, contains the following troparia:
"An airy prince, a rapist, a tormentor, a terrible way of standing and a vain tester of these words, help me to pass unrestrainedly departing from the earth" (Canto 4).
"Offer the holy Angel to the sacred and honest hands, O Lady, as if you have covered yourself with krillas, I do not see the dishonorable and stinking and gloomy image of demons" (Canto 6).
"Who gave birth to the Lord Almighty, take away the bitter ordeals of the chief of the world ruler far from me, always I want to die, and I praise Thee for ever, Holy Mother of God" (Canto 8 ).
Thus, a dying Orthodox Christian is prepared by the words of the Church for the upcoming trials.

Forty days

Then, having successfully passed through ordeals and worshiping God, the soul for another thirty-seven days visits the heavenly abodes and the hellish abysses, not yet knowing where it will remain, and only on the fortieth day a place is assigned to it until the resurrection of the dead.
Of course, there is nothing strange in the fact that, after going through ordeals and ending forever with the earthly, the soul must get acquainted with the present. otherworldly a world in one part of which she will abide forever. According to the revelation of the Angel, St. Macarius of Alexandria, a special church commemoration of the dead on the ninth day after death (in addition to the general symbolism of the nine ranks of angels) is due to the fact that until now the soul was shown the beauty of paradise and only after that, during the rest of the forty-day period, it is shown the torment and horrors of hell, before, on the fortieth day, she will be assigned a place where she will await the resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgment. And here, too, these numbers give a general rule or model of the post-death reality and, undoubtedly, not all the dead complete their path according to this rule. We know that Theodora really ended her visit to hell exactly on the fortieth day - by earthly standards of time - day.

State of mind before the Last Judgment

Some souls after forty days find themselves in a state of anticipation of eternal joy and bliss, while others - in fear of eternal torment, which will fully begin after the Last Judgment. Before that, changes in the state of souls are still possible, especially due to the offering of the Bloodless Sacrifice for them (commemoration at the Liturgy) and other prayers.

The Church's teaching on the state of souls in heaven and in hell before the Last Judgment is set forth in more detail in the words of St. Mark of Ephesus.
The benefits of prayer, both public and private, for souls in hell, are described in the lives of the holy ascetics and in the patristic writings. In the life of the Martyr Perpetua (III century), for example, the fate of her brother was revealed to her in the form of a reservoir filled with water, which was located so high that he could not reach it from that dirty, unbearably hot place where he was imprisoned. Thanks to her fervent prayer throughout the whole day and night, he was able to reach the reservoir, and she saw him in a bright place. From this she understood that he was spared punishment.
There is a similar story in the life of the ascetic nun Afanasia (Anastasia Logacheva), who died already in our 20th century: “At one time she undertook a prayer feat for her brother Pavel, who strangled himself in a drunken state. Initially I went to Pelageya Ivanovna blessed, who lived in Diveyevo monastery, to consult what she would do to alleviate the afterlife fate of her brother, who unhappily and wickedly ended his earthly life. At the council, it was decided to shut up Anastasia in her cell, fast and pray for her brother, read the prayer 150 times every day: Mother of God, Virgin, rejoice ... After forty days she had a vision: a deep abyss, at the bottom of which lay like a bloody stone , and on it were two men with iron chains around their necks, and one of them was her brother. When she reported this vision to blessed Pelageya, the latter advised her to repeat the feat. After another 40 days, she saw the same abyss, the same stone, on which there were the same two faces with chains around their necks, but her brother got up, walked around the stone, again fell on the stone, and the chain was around his neck. Upon the transmission of this vision to Pelageya Ivanovna, the latter advised to carry out the same feat for the third time. After 40 new days, Anastasia saw the same abyss and the same stone, on which there was only one person unknown to her, and her brother walked away from the stone and disappeared; the one who remained on the stone said: "it is good for you, you have strong intercessors on earth." After that, blessed Pelageya said: "Your brother was freed from torment, but did not receive bliss."
There are many such cases in the lives of Orthodox saints and ascetics. If someone is inclined to excessive literalism in relation to these visions, then it should probably be said that, of course, the forms that these visions take (usually in a dream) are not necessarily "photographs" of the position of the soul in a different the world, but, rather, images that convey the spiritual truth about the improvement of the state of the soul through the prayers of those who remained on earth.

The prosperity of evil on earth

When the human race spent many millennia in cruel enslavement to a fallen angel, then the Redeemer promised by God appeared on earth. Before we start describing this greatest and most wonderful event, let us also look at the state of the ill-fated world, while the Lord descended to earth and became human for the renewal and salvation of mankind. The world was immersed in all its space in idolatry. People, hating each other, envying each other, poured their blood over the entire surface of the earth in fierce battles, in which numerous peoples were exterminated and disappeared, gripped by the sword and deprived of nationality by slavery and selling in the markets of the universe like cattle or soulless goods. The calamities and destruction of mankind are recognized as the greatest glory for mankind, and the conquerors, stained with the blood of their brethren, were declared their gods during their lifetime. Other villains, distinguished by vile vices, were given divine honor after their death. The gratification of the most shameful passions was considered the highest pleasure. Some of the most rejected people entered into open intercourse with Satan, putting on his strength, helped to strengthen his dominion over the earth and mankind. This domination has reached full development. The chosen people of Israel also bowed under this dominion. Having been extremely diminished in number and having fallen in civil relation, this people fell under the rule of idolatrous peoples. His inner, essential strength, which consisted in communion with God through the knowledge and fulfillment of His will, was exhausted. Life according to God, which forms in a person a purity of mind and heart, which is overshadowed by Divine Grace, enlightening a person with true spiritual reason and theology, was replaced for the most part by school study of the Law, combined with neglect of a godly habitation, which the scribes and Pharisees - this was the name of the Jewish scholars of that time - tried to replace with pretense and hypocrisy. These scholars darkened with satanic pride, filled with contempt and hatred for all other classes of the people, slaves of passions, incapable of faith due to their unlimited and frenzied attachment to earthly glory and earthly advantages, capable of this attachment to all kinds of crimes, the perpetrators of these crimes, captured power their creed, rejected from it the commandments of God, introduced into it their absurd traditions, themselves striving in their blindness to perdition, attracted to it and the people led by them. Few, very few people have remained faithful to God by their very life and from such a life dependent and shining true knowledge of God. Their holy names are in the Holy Gospel.

Now we turn to the most gratifying spectacle. Let us prepare, cleanse ourselves with tears of repentance and, distracting our minds and hearts from all earthly concerns, join the hosts of Holy Angels in order to indulge with them in the sacred contemplation of the incarnation of God the Word, so that together with them in sacred wonder and joy we can sing: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill in men(Luke 2:14).

For what reason does hell exist if God is Love?

Many people prefer to think of their relationship with God in terms of reward and punishment and agree that God can condemn a person to eternal destruction for not loving Him.

Without going into details, let's take a critical look at the above. What is hell? Literally translated from Greek, this is a place devoid of light, that is, God, since Light is one of His most common names.

Thus, hell is nothing more than a state of being forsaken by God, the alienation of a creature from its Creator.

A distinctive feature of love is the desire for unity, the reunification of the divided.

The legacy of the Kingdom of Heaven, understood as overcoming spiritual death, i.e. decay and loneliness, we find in striving for God, who is this all uniting Power.

Therefore, salvation itself in patristic thought is associated rather with the restoration of a person to his original dignity, his recovery, rather than with deliverance from condemnation, i.e. the very same "sending to hell", about which the slogan, made in the title of our conversation, speaks.

To be saved means to be together with God, and hell is so terrible precisely because it is as far away from Him as possible.

So how can we explain the popularity of the opposite, seemingly, deliberately distorted model of the relationship between God and man? Probably because such an understanding to some extent corresponds to the religious expectations of the majority of believers who need a set of very specific things from God, among them invariably: health, success, well-being, posthumous guarantees, etc.

The slogan "Love me, or I will send you to hell" offers a linear logic of salvation, a kind of contract, observing the terms of which, a person receives guarantees of his posthumous well-being.

The goal of religious activity in this case is not union with God, but the acquisition of this well-being, understood in a “spiritual” way.

This is coupled with the desire to protect oneself from God, to protect oneself from His interference in our life, since God all the time wants from a person what the person himself does not need. As if each of us owes something to Him. And that “love” that a person squeezes out of himself is a kind of tax, payment for those guarantees, without which he cannot overcome anxiety and fear of death.

Orthodox teaching about Paradise and Hell. Details for "physicists"

Perhaps there is not a single person, even one far from faith, who would remain indifferent to the question of his posthumous fate. Someone decides this question for themselves on a purely materialistic level: I will die, a burdock will grow - and nothing else. Another cannot be satisfied with such a decision: why then do I live, why am I given creative abilities, why do I strive for good? Something must be behind the coffin lid?

The Orthodox doctrine tells us about two possible forms of a person's being after death: stay in Paradise or in hell... These states are directly related to the concept of communion with God and the manifestation of a person's free will.

Where are heaven and hell?

So, where does a person go after death? Where are these places? According to the patristic teaching, there are no special places in space that limit “heaven” and “hell” in our understanding. The realities of the spiritual world are inexpressible in terms of the categories of the earthly world. The most objective reality that awaits us behind the grave is the reality of God's love. Therefore, God himself is a heaven for the righteous and a hell for sinners.

The essence of heavenly bliss and hellish torment

But how can one and the same good God be both a source of bliss and torment? One can try to understand this paradox if we consider that the experience of experiencing God is different for people. As when exposed to the same sun, wax softens, and clay becomes hard, so the action of God's love will be bliss for some, and torment for others. The Monk Isaac says about paradise: "Paradise is the love of God, in which the enjoyment of all the blessings", and about the essence of hellish torment he writes the following: “I say that those who are tormented in Gehenna are struck by the scourge of love. And how bitter and cruel is this torment of love! "

Thus, for God who is Love, Paradise and Hell do not exist, they exist only from the point of view of man .

Details for "physicists"

The opponents of God have come up with new questions to which it is impossible to formulate convincing or even understandable answers. For example.
The Kingdom of Heaven and Paradise are the same thing? If yes, and the Kingdom of Heaven, as you know, is inside us, then where is the prudent robber now? Inside me? I don’t watch. To this robber Christ Himself said today you will be with Me in Paradise (Luke 23:43). He did not say "in Me", but "with Me." Why did it become necessary to understand His words allegorically? And how exactly allegorically? How many storytellers, forgive me, so many understandings. Maybe the Kingdom of Heaven and Paradise are just different realities?

Satan was expelled from Paradise, but despite this he seduced Eve, as a result of which the ancestors were expelled from Paradise. How did Satan manage to get back to Paradise to do his dirty deed? Was it badly expelled, did God allow it, or was it not expelled from paradise? And right there related question: where were they expelled? Is it really in Paradise, since Satan found himself there?

Before their fall, Adam and Eve lived in Paradise (well, since they were expelled from there, it means they were there after all): then Paradise and Eden are the same thing? If so, why do the righteous who have successfully passed the ordeal stay in some third “place of anticipation of future blessings,” and do not return to Eden? If not the same thing, then what is the fate of the uninhabited and uninhabited Eden after the end of the Last Judgment, when the righteous will gather in the heavenly Jerusalem? Will Eden be destroyed as unnecessary? Why destroy one Paradise in order to immediately create another? Looks silly. Or are Eden and the high Jerusalem the same thing? But this is not possible as the Lord said "Behold, I create everything new"(Revelation 21: 5), not "Behold, I am restoring everything old." Anyway, it turns out that Eden is “idle” for nothing. Who needs it, without people?

The Church teaches that the Savior destroyed hell, but at the same time warns that we would not get into it due to our sins - where is the logic? If hell was destroyed only by Christ, millennia after Abraham, then where was Abraham's bed, the place where the Old Testament righteous lived? Is it really in hell, in fiery hell? After all, if the Savior brought the Old Testament righteous out of Hell, then they were there.

The Old Testament is very reluctant and veiled to speak of the posthumous fate of the righteous, and only the Gospel teaches about this clearly and definitely - why is this so, why the doctrine of Paradise is included in the New Testament, what is the need for such a division? Really, people before Christ did not need the consolation of the future paradise reward? Unlikely. Maybe the later teaching is wrong, and it's time to finally return to the concepts of hell and Sheol of the period of the second Jerusalem temple? And there is no Kingdom of Heaven inside of us, but we just need to honestly and to the best of our ability to fulfill the understandable Old Testament decalogue?

Usually, to questions of this kind, even the most restrained priests give approximately the following answer: “According to the patristic teaching, there are no special places in space that limit heaven and hell in our understanding. The realities of the spiritual world are inexpressible in terms of the categories of the earthly world. The most objective reality that awaits us behind the grave is the reality of God's love. " As if we were asking about places in space, or doubting the reality of God's love. Even now it is the most objective reality, and not only beyond the grave it will become.

Now judge for yourself. Here we have a modern questioning person who wants to understand. Not stupid, brought up on trust in science, with repeatedly justified successful application of rational thinking and logic. On the one hand, he has vague explanations for cosmological questions from Orthodox priests: they say, "understand spiritually." On the other hand, there is the usual, consistent logic of Jews and Gentiles. Which side will the human mind take? It is known which one. So is it really impossible to help the mind? Is it really impossible to gain experience, before acquiring personal blessed knowledge (and we are all in this deplorable state), to give understandable answers and thus clear the way for life-giving faith through the obstacles of the mind?

We believe that it is possible and necessary. So let's try.

Notes on terms .

About space .

The impossibility of giving the usual physical spatial indications of a particular place (coordinates) does not mean the absence of a place as such or a difference between places. Only God is unlimited , Who is everywhere, and His creation is limited: if the creation (man, Angel) is in one place, it (them) is not in another. The Holy Prophet Daniel waited for three weeks for the Angel sent to him, who was prevented from passing by the satanic army, and who passed in the end only with the help of the Archangel Michael (Dan. 10: 12-13). This means that although we are talking about "spiritual realities" to which "our concepts are not applicable", it nevertheless took the Angel three weeks to get where he needed to. The angel could not be in two "places" at the same time, he needed to "come" from one place to another.

Therefore, when the word "place" is used further, this term will be taken in a broad sense. Whether in a five-dimensional space, parallel, spiritual, whatever you like and it doesn't matter, but this is precisely the place that is; place as a concept that characterizes the limitation of a creature and is inextricably linked with this limitation.

About the time .

The absence of time is not the absence of processes and cause-and-effect relationships. We know that there was a "time" when there was no time, and there will come a "time" when there will be no time. This biblical knowledge necessarily implies that neither God nor His creatures need any time to live (and not freeze).

It is even difficult to assume that after the creation of the new earth and sky, all processes will stop. At the very least, it is known that the righteous in the heavenly Jerusalem will praise God - in the absence of processes, this would be difficult.

The man in the high Jerusalem will dwell in the body, just like our Savior. Returning to the body (renewed, spiritual) means for a person the return of the possibility of creativity. The incorporeal Angels are fundamentally deprived of this opportunity. And what, creative person will live and not create?

When did time appear: before the creation of the world or after? And what is the cause and effect: God's plan for the world and man and, as a consequence, the creation of the world, or vice versa? Cause and effect, despite the lack of time, exist.

In short, lack of time does not mean absence of events, lack of life and creativity .

Most likely, time is a service parameter of the damaged Universe characterizing the non-decrease in entropy (the increase in decay up to death - the so-called "arrow of time"). Or maybe time is a category necessary for the implementation of the process of changing a person's state from falling to non-falling (I can sin, I can not sin, I can not sin). Unfortunately, we have not yet been able to find unambiguous indications in Scripture and Tradition.

Significant events in world history .

For our consideration, they are recognized: (1) creation of the world , (2) creation of angels , (3) human creation , (4) Dennitsa's fall, (5) the fall of the forefathers, (6) death of Adam, (7) Resurrection of Christ, (8) The last judgment. Each of these events significantly changed the composition of the universe and established new connections (and / or changed old ones) between its constituent parts.

If we try to consistently comprehend the cosmology of the created world from a Christian point of view, but not as extensively as Fr. Vasily Zenkovsky, we get the following picture.

Phased structure of the universe .

1. Creation of the world.

We know that the world, visible and invisible, was created out of nothing. Before the creation of the world, we reliably know only the phenomena of the absence of time, the existence of God and His plan of economy.

2. Creation of angels.

It happened before the creation of man , which is indicated by both the angelic destiny and the general logic of the creation of the world. Let's remember the biblical definition: the dwelling place of the Angels is heaven (and not "paradise" at all, whatever is meant by it).

3. Creation of man.

Created man dwells in Eden - and this is also a strict biblical term. He does not dwell in Paradise, but in the Garden of Eden, which, with its beauty, has earned the sublime metaphor of the "Garden of Eden". But this is not a garden in paradise, it is a metaphor. Paradise in the proper sense does not yet exist.

A heaven exists (place of residence of the Angels) and Eden(person's place of residence). Angels freely travel from heaven to Eden (Dennitsa is the guardian angel of the Earth) and back, a person is able to communicate with God. It is not said about communication between people and Angels.

4. The fall of Dennitsa.

According to Tradition, the fall of Dennitsa was a consequence of the creation of man. Basically, Satan's feelings are clear: "How it is! I, a planetary angel of the cherubic order, must serve this shabby former monkey, who, you see, possesses the gift of creativity? Yes, no way, I myself am a god! " Whether this was true, we do not know, and it does not matter.
What is important is that Satan was driven out of heaven. That is, they stopped Satan and the Aggels from his free access to heaven. AND he was able to be only in Eden (and not in paradise), where he successfully seduced our foremother .

5. The fall of the ancestors.

The fall of Satan did not have any influence on the ontological (existential, physical) basis of material Eden, did not make any change in it. Another thing fall of man , a spirit-bodily being. Eden underwent catastrophic changes as a result of his fall. : the basic law of our world arose - entropy (decay), the food chain (all creature groans and suffers), the earth grew thorns and thistles, animals turned away from man, death appeared . Eden was damaged because a spiritually corporeal person violated the main spiritual law of the universe and through his dual nature damaged material Eden, which turned into the cosmos observed now with ugly stars scattering from each other. It is reliably known that starting at the latest from this stage, in the created world there is time .

As a result, we have heaven as the abode of Angels , and familiar to us in the scientific sense The Universe, i.e. former Eden, as the residence of man and fallen angels.

To prevent free communication between man and demons, the Lord mercifully and providently dresses us in "leather vestments"(from which every psychic seeks to jump out so much). Thus, although we live in the same universe with demons, we do not see them and do not directly feel them ... Truth, demons see us perfectly, but they cannot directly influence us.

At this stage of the development of the world there is no paradise yet ... As, however, and hell.

6. Death of Adam.

Death is the separation of soul and body. Naked the soul, left without the protection of leather vestments, immediately becomes available to Satan and his demons, since the soul is "one-bodied" to the angels in general. In the afterlife the soul retains memory, consciousness, the ability to desire ... In a word, personality remains, but its will completely disappears, understood as the ability to act.

What would Satan want to do when he has a weak-willed and helpless Adam in his hands? And other demons, finally reaching out to the human race? Alas, there is no need to guess for a long time. For the dead, a real hell begins. Lord of this did not create hell ... The place of torment is our Universe (formerly Eden), but the living in their leather vestments do not see what is happening. Where the place of torture is located is unknown and uninteresting. According to the Tradition of the Church - in the center of the Earth (the earthly firmament for non-corporeal, other-material souls and demons is not denser than air, which the deceased no longer needs for life). Attention, restoring the biblical definition: this place of torment is called sheol . This is not hell yet. This is the place of waiting for the final decision of their fate at the Last Judgment.

Sheol is simply a part of the Universe "equipped" by Satan and demons for torture chambers. Are there boilers and pans there? Maybe there is, I haven't heard of it. Numerous testimonies of those returning from the afterlife indicate that Satan's fantasy is richer. In any case, some church intellectuals who agree to experience the maximum torment of conscience in their afterlife will be cruelly and palpably disappointed. The soul feels the same as the body , if you influence it with the appropriate co-bodily instrumentation: whether by "fire", "cold", or something else. Satan had plenty of time for experimentation and thoughtful choice (Sheol is a part of the Universe in which time passes), and he has something to surprise the sinner with. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

There is some good news, too. They are that as Satan is not the master of the universe, so he is not the master of Sheol ... We know that in "hell", i.e. in Sheol, there are "circles": from places where there is no torment, but no joy, to places where Judas is. If Satan were the master of Sheol, then he would torment everyone equally and as cruelly as possible, but the Lord does not allow this more than the unfortunate captive deserved during his earthly existence.

A characteristic and sad sign of the universe at this stage of history is the unconditionality of the posthumous fate from the degree of righteousness of earthly life. Whether you are a sinner or a righteous person, only Sheol is waiting for you behind the grave: the demons simply will not allow the soul of the deceased to go to heaven to the angels, and the universe has no other places. The Old Testament has nothing to promise its saints, and it is silent. The One for whom Job cried has not yet come: “My bones adhered to my skin and my flesh, and I was left only with the skin near my teeth ... But I know that my Redeemer lives, and He on the last day will raise up my decaying skin from the dust, and I will see God in my flesh. I will see Him myself; my eyes, not the eyes of another, will see Him "(Job 19: 20-27).

As a result, we have: heaven (the place of residence of the Angels), the Universe (the place of the inhabitants of living people and demons), and sheol (the place of residence of the dead people and the demons tormenting them). No heaven, no hell, in the proper sense of these words, still not .

7. Resurrection of Christ.

And finally, the Lord directly includes Himself in the destinies of the world He created, accepting human nature damaged by sin. It is important for us that after glorious Another “place” appears in the Universe of Christ's Resurrection: the place where the righteous wait for heavenly bliss, the anticipation of future blessings. Where exactly it is - God knows.

Maybe this is just heaven, the place of "registration" of angels? This is not revealed to us.

And structurally, the universe now looks like this: heaven, universe, sheol, a place of anticipation of heavenly bliss. And again, no heaven, no hell. The Lord did not create them.

In a place of anticipation, the soul is freed from torment by demons, but it dwells outside the body, and therefore is not a full-fledged person and does not live a full-fledged life.

The newly deceased have the opportunity to escape Sheol by successfully passing the ordeal.

Since the gates of Sheol have been blown up by the resurrection of the Savior, sinners have the opportunity, through the prayers of the Church, to switch to lighter circles of torment (if the direction of movement to Christ coincides with their desire, for the gospel of Christ continues in hell) and even completely leave Sheol. It would be an utter disgrace to leave your dead brothers without prayer.

8. The Last Judgment.

Everything is short and simple. The second act of God's creation: “ Behold, I create everything new "(Revelation 21: 5) and the heavens rolled up like a scroll and arose new sky and new earth ... The damaged Universe (formerly Eden) was destroyed, with it (as those who are in it) they found their end and Sheol, since there is a real hell ahead, and a place of anticipation of future blessings, since there is a real paradise ahead.

The heavens are also destroyed - as unnecessary.

The structure of the universe is being simplified. A new, high Jerusalem appears - the dwelling place of the righteous and ethereal. This is Paradise in essence.

However, it is desirable to separate Satan, his demons, and the goats of people from paradise, otherwise they will quickly defile him, as happened with Eden. AND Gehenna arises ... Highly good word chose the Lord to designate hell. Gehenna(Aramaic) is just a city dump on the leeward side of Jerusalem, where they took out unnecessary garbage, set it on fire, and it always burned and smelled. Gehenna is just a garbage dump. And this is a real hell - no one really needs you, no one brings you up or punishes you, no one expects or demands anything from you - you were thrown out. They were thrown out of life. You are excluded from communication even with the same sinners as yourself, you are surrounded by pitch darkness and icy silence. Absolute, eternal loneliness, in which your faithful friends will be "unceasing worm" and "unquenchable fire" (black non-luminous flame).

Gehenna is intended, that is, hell in the proper sense of the word, primarily for Satan and his angels, but people can easily get there. And if in Sheol the demons were "on horseback" and tormented the souls of people, then in Gehenna they are bound and tormented themselves.

The very absoluteness of loneliness is determined by the fact that there is no space (or place) in Gehenna; there is nothing, and there is no time either - you are simply indestructible as a person, and you are in your own personal hell, which does not have any extension that is not needed - you are connected. And so each of those who went to hell. No place was created for them, they are simply thrown out of paradise, from the place where there is a place. Perhaps the fathers spoke of the "crampedness" of hell in this very sense.

Note - Lord of hell again did not create - Gehenna is simply an "out of place" for those who are thrown out. The source of torment for the unfortunate inhabitants of Gehenna is divine love, which did not take away life, and their own hatred for it, combined with complete helplessness, absolute loneliness, and the absence of any hope of changing their state. There is nothing to wait - nothing will change.

The kingdom of God is the kingdom of light. Let's take wooden box, paint the inside with black paint and hammer. What will be in it? Darkness. And we will bring this box, full of darkness, into a bright room and open it. We will see that there is no longer any darkness, the box is full of light. So the darkness has disappeared. That's why a dark soul cannot enter the Kingdom of God - because it will have to disappear there. That's why before entering the Kingdom of God, you need to fill your soul with light. Light is akin to light. Therefore, if we become sons of light, then we will enter the Kingdom of God. (Archpriest Dmitry Smirnov, sermon for the celebration of Easter, Holy Cross Church, May 30, 1984).

The free choice of a free rational being, made in time, led to eternal consequences. Not to “temporary” consequences in “eternity”, as many would like, but simply to incessant ones. Warned the same.

The structure of the Universe is simple - only paradise, the heavenly Jerusalem.

Conclusion .

No wonder The Orthodox Church does not have a dogmatic teaching about hell. The Lord did not create it and will not create it.

No wonder instead of the doctrine of paradise, our Church predominantly has the doctrine of the Kingdom of Heaven, which is within each of us.

From the point of view of the Lord, there is no paradise either, but there is space for a normal life of not unlimited, created, free and reasonable.

It only remains to add that The Kingdom of Heaven is a state, and heaven is a place. It is those who reach the Kingdom of Heaven in their souls that will be able to get to that place, which at first will be called the place of anticipation of heavenly bliss, and then simply the heavenly (real, normal, righteous, correct) Jerusalem.

Amen.

Unknown Orthodoxy

Was hell created by God or where did it come from, is it possible in hell to pray, repent, and is there an opportunity to be saved from hell if you have already got there? Reasoning by Archpriest Georgy KLIMOV, lecturer at the Department of Biblical Studies at the Moscow Academy of Sciences.

The god of hell did not create

- Hell, or fiery hell, in Orthodoxy is opposed to the Kingdom of Heaven. But if the Kingdom of Heaven is eternal life and bliss, it turns out that hell is also eternal life, only in torment? Or something different?

- To answer this question, you need to agree on the terms, that is, what we mean by life. If we understand life as God, because He is Life and the source of life (John 1.4), then we cannot say that hell is life. On the other hand, if Christ Himself, pointing to those whom He condemns at the Last Judgment, says: “These will go into eternal torment,” and the word “eternal” is here meant to mean “never ending time,” or it may be “that something that goes beyond the bounds of time ", then we can assume that if a person is experiencing torment, suffering, it means that he is alive, his life goes on. Therefore, we can say that, indeed, hell is what the soul inherits after the Last Judgment, united with the body, forever.

The Orthodox understanding of hell was formulated quite fully back in the era of the Ecumenical Councils, when our great church teachers lived, and has not qualitatively changed since that time. The only question that worries Orthodox theology when we talk about hell is the question of apocatastasis, the possibility of universal salvation. The foundations of this teaching were formulated by Origen (III century).

However, it was never recognized as a doctrine. Orthodox theology... But in every generation the doctrine of apocatastasis finds its supporters, and the Church has to make constant explanations about its unfaithfulness. The difficulty in understanding this issue for many is due to the fact that the Holy Scripture clearly states: God is Love. And it is impossible to understand how Love can agree to send His creation, also called out of nothingness by love, to eternal torment. The doctrine of apocatastasis offers its own answer.

- In Psalm 138 there is a line: "If I go down into the underworld (hell), and there you are." Could there be somewhere in the world created by God where there is no Creator God?

- The Old Testament Jew had the feeling that God is everywhere and fills with Himself, with His presence everything, and the Christian also has it. According to the Apostle Paul, the creation or the eschatological accomplishment that we are waiting for is indicated very simply: "There will be God of all kinds in all" (1 Cor. 15:28) But then what question should be posed: God is everywhere, but how do I experience Him? and perceive?

If like Love, if I subordinated mine to His good and perfect will - not out of duty or compulsion, but out of desire and love, then my fellowship with Him will really be a paradise. After all, in itself, a state of bliss, happiness is experienced by a person only when what he wants is realized. In Paradise, only the Divine will will be carried out. Actually, paradise is also paradise because there will be only one divine will in it. And a person will perceive this place as paradise only in one case - if his will completely and completely coincides with the Divine will.

But if everything is not so, if my will does not agree with the will of God, if it deviates from it even one iota, then paradise for me immediately ceases to be paradise, that is, a place of bliss, pleasure. After all, there is something happening that I do not want. And, remaining objectively a paradise, and for others, for me this place becomes a place of torment, where it becomes intolerable to me from the presence of God, because His light, His warmth does not warm me, but burns me.

Here we can recall the expression of St. John Chrysostom: "God is good because he created Gehenna." That is, God, by his love for man and by the freedom granted to him, gives him the opportunity to be either with God or without Him, depending on the state of the soul, and for this in many respects the man is responsible himself. Can a person be blissful with God if his soul wants revenge, is angry, lusts?

But the God of Hell did not create, just as he did not create death. Hell is a consequence of the distortion of human will, a consequence of sin, the territory of sin.

How did the devil get to heaven?

- If to stay in paradise you have to agree with the will of God, then how did the serpent-devil get to paradise, which actually walked there (not yet damned to crawl on its belly), not even embarrassed by the presence of God?

- Indeed, on the first pages of the Bible we read about how Adam and Eve in Paradise converse with God, and this communication with Him “in the voice of the cold is thin” for our first parents was blissful. But at the same time in paradise there is one who does not perceive paradise as such - this is the devil. And in paradise he tempts Adam and Eve with evil.

Theology does not speak of how the devil got to heaven. There are suggestions that for the devil who possesses the serpent, perhaps this place was not yet literally closed, there was no finality in deciding his fate, the cherub did not stand for him with a fiery sword, as later, after the fall, he was placed for a person. Because God, perhaps, also expected correction from the devil. But deception of man by the devil entails the final curse of God against the devil. After all, before that, we never hear the words of a curse in relation to him. Maybe God, as a lover of his creation, still gave him the opportunity to stay in paradise? But the devil did not use this opportunity for good.

The fact that paradise is not a certain territory or an external state, objectively independent of a person, but a state directly related to his self-awareness and attitude, according to the interpretation of some biblical scholars, is said in the first chapter of the Gospel of John, in the prologue: “In Him there was life and life was the light of men ”(John 1: 4).

It was thanks to communion with the Lord, eating from the Tree of Life, that the forefathers felt paradise - paradise, that is, life and light, which were an integral part of their nature, that breath of life that Scripture speaks of. But the next verse: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1: 5), speaks already of the time after the Fall, when God, the Divine light, for man becomes an external object, since he left human nature: the Holy Spirit leaves the person. And man becomes mortal, because he is no longer able to contain God.

The darkness in this verse can also mean a place where there is no God, not objectively, but by perception. Here you can draw a parallel with another Gospel passage - from the Gospel of Matthew (6: 22-23): “The lamp for the body is an eye. So, if your eye is clean, then everything your body it will be light; If your eye is bad (dark), then your whole body will be dark. "

And then it was like this: "So, if the light that is in you is darkness, then what is the darkness!" What is Christ talking about here? Perhaps the same thing that heaven and hell, like light and darkness, begin in man himself here on earth. In the Gospel of Luke, Christ already quite definitely says that: “The Kingdom of God will not come in a perceptible way. For behold, the Kingdom of God is within you ”(Luke 17: 20-21).

There is no Hell in the Gospel similar words but, based on gospel logic, this also applies to hell. We can say that hell does not come in a perceptible way. And there is hell inside of us.

Of course, in the texts of the Gospel and Old Testament one often encounters a sensual, detailed description of hell. Here we must understand that these are, in a certain sense, anthropomorphisms, something adapted to the perception of a person. If we look at how the holy fathers talked about hell, we will see that they always removed from the agenda these sensually detailed creepy images with pans, iron hooks and salt lakes.

Basil the Great wrote about hellish torments that those who do evil will be resurrected, but not in order to fry in a frying pan, but “for outrage and shame, in order to see in ourselves the abomination of those sins that were committed, for the most cruel of all torment is an eternal shame and eternal shame. "

John Chrysostom, known for his penchant for literal interpretation, commenting on the words of Christ about the gnashing of teeth and the unbroken worm, about eternal fire, does not touch the images themselves, but says: “It is better to be subjected to countless lightning strikes than to see how the gentle face of the Savior turns away from us and does not want to look at us. " And for Chrysostom, hell boils down to the fact that God turns His face away from you. And what could be worse?

Is it possible to repent in hell?

- In the Gospel parable of the rich man and the beggar - Lazarus, it is said that the rich man, having got to hell after his cruel life, repented and asked the forefather Abraham to send a message to his relatives so that they would also repent. Does it mean that repentance is possible in hell?

- The question of repentance is the key question of salvation. When the Lord at the Last Judgment sends sinners to hell, He thereby testifies that a person is condemned precisely for his unwillingness to repent of his sins, for not wanting to be corrected. After all, it would seem that there was a non-believer, but the Last Judgment came, Christ came, everything was revealed, repent, and then you will be saved!

But it's not that simple. It is no coincidence that the Church constantly says that the time of earthly life is allotted for repentance.

There is a teaching of the Church about the so-called mortal sins. They are so called, of course, not because you need to kill a person for them.

The point is that, committing a mortal sin and not repenting of it, a person each time dies for eternal life, each time it seems to take poison, and refuses to repent of the antidote. Having decided to do this, he crosses a certain line, goes beyond that point of return, after which he can no longer repent, because his will, his soul are poisoned by sin, paralyzed. He is a living dead. He may realize that God is with God and truth, and light, and life, but he has already spent all of himself on sin and has become incapable of repentance.

Repentance does not mean to say: Oh, Lord, forgive me, I'm wrong. Genuine repentance means taking and changing your life from black to white. And life has been lived and wasted in sin. She's gone for good.

We see examples of unrepentance in the Gospel. When the Pharisees with the Sadducees go to John the Baptist to be baptized on the banks of the Jordan together with all the people, he greets them with the words: "Generation of vipers, who inspired you to flee from future wrath?" (Matthew 3: 7). These words, as explained by the interpreters, are not a question of the Baptist, but his statement that they, going to him, can no longer repent. And therefore they are the offspring of the viper, that is, the children of the devil, who, like his angels, are so rooted in evil that they are no longer able to repent.

And Abraham says to the rich man from the parable: “a great gulf is fixed between you and us, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, and also from there they do not pass to us” (Luke 16:26). Abraham can do nothing.

But this parable, told by the Lord Himself, was told by Him before His Resurrection. And we know that after His Resurrection He descended into hell and brought out all who wanted to go with Him. In one of his epistles, the Apostle Peter says that Christ also preached to the spirits in prison all sinners, who had been washed away by the flood since the time of Noah, but repented from hell.

There is no contradiction here. Man is warned that sin is the path to death. We have time for repentance — our whole life. Until the Last Judgment, the Church also prays for the dead, those who did not have time to repent during their lifetime. And we believe, hope that God hears our prayers. But we also believe that after the Last Judgment there will be no time for repentance.

- But if the image of God in man is indestructible, can a moment come when repentance is impossible? If a person cannot repent, then there is nothing of God left in him, and the devil, of course, did not win, but nevertheless won back a “piece of territory” for himself?

- When we talk about the image of God, we need to understand how it is expressed. There is the image of God, and there is the likeness of God. The image, combined with the likeness, makes a person worthy of God. Their combination also speaks of the agreement of the will of man with the will of God.

The image of God is in every person, the likeness is not in everyone. Creating man by His word, God says: “Let us create man in our image and in our likeness (Gen. 1:26) and the image here is that which is invested in man from the beginning and is indestructible, his divine qualities are eternity and freedom. Similarity is a potential that a person must reveal himself.

We can become like God through fulfilling the commandments, living according to the will of God. As one who has the indestructible image of God in himself, man chooses by his free will - to hell or to heaven. We cannot end our existence.

It would be possible to say that the devil won before the coming of Christ. And the victory of the devil was expressed, first of all, in the fact that every soul, both the righteous and the sinner, descended into hell. But after the Lord trampled death upon death, one can already ask, and St. John Chrysostom once posed this question - why did the Lord leave the devil, after all, it would be possible to grind him into powder and not torture anyone else?

The devil was “allowed” to man, like Job - so that man had the opportunity to grow in good, to resist evil, freely choosing God, that is, preparing his soul for life in paradise, where God will be in everyone. Or freely reject God.

We said that heaven and hell begin here and now. Are there few people here on earth who, having the image of God in themselves, do not at all strive to become like God, do without God, do not want to be with Him? And although a person in fact cannot live without God, live a real, genuine life, he often consciously arranges for himself a life where God does not exist, and lives in peace. And he excommunicates himself from what God has prepared for him. But if on earth he does not want to be with God, what reason is there to think that he wants to be with God after death?

In a conversation with Nicodemus, there are the following words: "Whoever believes in Him (the Son of God) is not condemned, but the unbeliever is already condemned, because he did not believe in the name of the Only Begotten Son of God" (John 4:18). And then Christ will say: “The judgment consists in the fact that the light came into the world; but people loved darkness more than light, because their deeds were evil ”(John 4:19). What do these words tell us? It is about the fact that a person chooses for himself, with whom to be and how to live. The unbeliever has already been condemned, but the unbeliever is not in the sense that he never heard anything about God, did not know, did not understand and therefore did not believe, and suddenly it turned out that He exists. And an unbeliever in the sense - consciously did not believe what he learned about God and about Christ as Savior. And by his unbelief he condemned himself.

Are prayers from hell heard?

- What exactly do those in hell suffer from who have not become like God, if they have deliberately chosen life without God, do not repent of anything?

- The hellish torment will consist in the fact that the passions that exist in us cannot be satisfied, and this feeling of dissatisfaction in the perspective of eternity will become unbearable. A person who has not turned to God for the healing of his passionate nature, damaged by sin, will always want something passionately and will never have the opportunity to fulfill his desire. Because in hell the passions are not satisfied, God will not create there the conditions that man is accustomed to using on earth.

The Gospel of John says that he who does the will of God “does not come to judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24). That is, in fact, it is the person himself, his will, his passion or freedom from it will determine - where to go, to hell or heaven. Like will connect with like.

- Can a sinner in hell pray? Or does he not have such a desire there?

- If we call prayer simply an appeal to God, then judging by the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, and from the many testimonies of the patericians, such a prayer is possible. But if we talk about prayer as about communion with the Lord and its effectiveness, here, also judging by the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, we can see that such a prayer is not heard in hell.

You can remember the words of Christ: “Many will say to me that day: Lord, Lord, did not we cast out demons in your name” (Matthew 7:22). This can also be understood as prayer, but it is not effective. Because behind her there was no real fulfillment of the will of God, but there was only vanity. And therefore, such a prayer is probably not able to change a person. A person who did not cultivate the Kingdom of God in himself, did not seek it, did not work on it, I don’t know if he can wait for what is asked.

- What is the difference between hellish torments before the Last Judgment and after?

- After the Last Judgment, all people will be resurrected from the dead, the spiritual new body of a person will be recreated. Not only souls will appear before God, as it happens before the Last Judgment, but souls reunited with bodies. And if before the Last Judgment and before the second coming of Christ, the souls of people were in a presentiment of heavenly bliss or hellish torment, then after the Last Judgment, in all its fullness, a person will begin to directly experience the state of either heaven or hell.

- Can those in hell see each other's suffering?

- There are revelations on this topic in the patericons, for example, in the story of how Macarius the Great, walking through the desert, saw a skull, which, as it was revealed to Macarius, turned out to be the skull of an Egyptian priest. The saint began to question him, and the skull told about its bitter torments. The ascetic, clarifying, asked: "Tell me, is there someone even more severe torment than you?" The skull says: “Of course there is. I stand on the shoulders of one bishop. " And then he begins to talk about him.

We are not given these testimonies in vain. You can slightly open the veil of the mystery of hellish torment, imagine the shame when there is nowhere to hide from the exposure of your sins.

- Why in the hymns of Great Saturday, when the descent of Christ into hell is remembered, there are the words “And all are free from hell”?

- We sing it in the sense in which we say that "Christ saved us all." The coming into the world of the God-man, His suffering, death, Resurrection, the sending of the Holy Spirit to humanity - do not depend on the will of the person himself. But it depends on the will of a person - to accept this common gift of salvation, so that it becomes his personal gift, or to reject it.

Therefore, we say that Christ descends into hell in order to save everyone. But who is He saving? We know from Tradition that after His Resurrection Christ brought the Old Testament righteous and repentant sinners out of hell. But we have no information that Christ brought everyone out. And if someone did not want to go to Him? We also have no information that hell has been empty since then. On the contrary, Tradition says the opposite.

- In the Church there is an understanding of the nonlinearity of time, which is expressed in the fact that we do not remember, for example, the Nativity of Christ, which was 2013 years ago, or the very Resurrection that was in Judea about 2000 years ago, but we are experiencing these events here and now.

- This is not an accurate understanding. There is a teaching about the uniqueness of Christ's sacrifice. It was done once, everything and for everyone. But what takes place on Great Saturday, on Easter itself, and on every church holiday is an opportunity to join this reality, which, as a given, already exists. Enter this reality, become its participants.

After all, we are “not to blame” for not being born at the time when Christ walked the earth. But Christ brought salvation for every person, and gave every person "equal opportunities", regardless of the time, to join the reality of his suffering, his triumph.

Christ Himself says: "The hour is coming and now is", "The time is coming and it has already come." At the liturgy, when the priest prays at the throne during the Eucharistic canon, he speaks of the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven in power, the general resurrection in the past tense. Why? Because the Lord has already given all this to us as a reality. And our task is to enter it, to become its partakers.

The Church of Christ is the reality of the Kingdom of God on earth. Joining the Church and all that she is ready to give, and reveals to man the reality of an eternal blissful life. And only the one who discovers this reality in himself can hope that after the Last Judgment it will be fully revealed in him.

The Kingdom of God has already come. But hell is not idle either.

Prepared by Irina LUKHMANOVA
Neskuchny Sad magazine

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