Death in Orthodoxy: does it exist or does it not exist?

We are all mortal. Sooner or later, the body of each of us will find itself lifeless. Subsequent generations will most likely quickly forget about us. Perhaps our marble tombstone will be kept in the cemetery for a little more than a century - but it will also disappear over time.

Perhaps, over time, “virtual” cemeteries will appear, where the accounts of the deceased will be collected, but even there, each individual will be lost among millions of others.

Another few hundred years will pass, and entire countries and pieces of history will disappear from memory. When the count goes on for thousands of years, entire civilizations will disappear. Perhaps by then humanity itself will cease to exist.

Everything will be completely different.

Our habits, ideals and social institutions will disappear or change to such an extent that they become unrecognizable. And the time that we call “ours” will become the “past”, from which only historical figures and a mass of human lives will remain, which will flash on the screen of gadgets in the form of numbers:

150 million people inhabited Russia in the 21st century. More than a billion - China and India.
Civil strife claimed tens of thousands of people every year, and sometimes there were wars when millions died in a few years.
During the Battle of Borodino, 80,000 people died in a few hours.
The nuclear bombing of Japan killed 200,000 people.
Perhaps there was a continent called Atlantis, which sank under water and no one knows how many inhabitants there actually were - perhaps up to half a million.

Death will erase us all from the earth's plane. Only a few will remain in the memory of humanity - and even then, not for long. And even if humanity learned to preserve the eternal memory of the past, humanity itself, like the earth, like our sun, will sooner or later cease to exist.

A sobering picture!

At the same time, the person himself has a special relationship with death - he lives his life as if he will never die. The point is not that he drinks beer or smokes and thereby brings his death closer, but that he does not think about death at all.

For example, do you, reading these lines, really realize that you are going to die?

This is not about a hypothetical understanding that life is finite, but about a deep, unconditional giving of account.

The whole truth of our existence is that we realize our mortality only at moments when death really threatens us - either in its direct form, or in the form of an illness that will inevitably lead to the end.

As a rule, such situations become a serious shock. Many people change their lives after them, or at least reevaluate their actions.

(it happens the other way around - a person “flirts” with death all his life. Psychologists say: in this way, by doing, for example, extreme sports, he subconsciously wants to better experience life itself. As if he clearly shows himself: there is death in the world, and I have life).

But no one - not a race car driver racing along the track, nor an accountant spending the whole day in front of a computer - wants to die. Even a soldier defending his homeland does not want to - unless he is completely overcome by hopelessness.

Imagine - what would you do, how would you spend the rest of the day if you found out that, say, you would die tomorrow?

Despair. Confusion. Fear and fright. Attempts to remember to whom you really committed a crime and ask them for forgiveness - that is, to clear your conscience. Perhaps - in contrast to this - a spree oblivion.

These will be the most stunning moments of your life.

But here is the story preserved by Church tradition:

A student came to one monk and asked: “Father, how should I live?”

He answered: “You need to live in such a way that, having learned that you will die tomorrow, you do not throw yourself on your knees in despair, but calmly go and make yourself some tea.”

This is not a story divorced from reality. The church world gives a completely different perception of death, which inspires and makes you think - in the form of a lack of fear of it.

This lack of crippling fear of death manifests itself in different ways:

And in the form of the scene about the monk and the elder that we just described,
And in the form of photographs of deceased monks, on whose faces there was peace frozen,
And thousands of real stories about the peace with which the saints waited in the wings
(not to mention the stories of martyrs who went to their deaths voluntarily)

For them there was a world in the face of which death ceases to be a terrible mask in a dark room.

What kind of world is this?

Orthodoxy and the afterlife

If we try to reduce the entire teaching of the Orthodox Church to two words, then the Orthodox believe: after the death of the body, nothing ends. When we die, we do not die, but gain eternal life.

Our soul is a fragment of this eternity (as a reminder of the time when a person - and his soul - lived an eternal life). And while a person lives on Earth, while his heart beats, his soul is chained.

What is holding her back? Time, distances, conventions that entangle all of humanity (and every society in particular), the human psyche, the subconscious.

A person is not organized, there is no harmony in him, he is overcome by weakness and passions, he finds ecstasy in oblivion, he is carried away by vanity. At the same time, it seems to him that his life and deeds are worth something, for the sake of them he needs to sacrifice the minutes he has lived.

But you can't deceive your soul. While a person thinks that everything is in order and he will never die, the soul misses eternity. She knows that life is not as full as a person thinks, but simply put, it is completely empty. And reminders of this are depression and depression, and the monstrous feeling of loneliness that covers a person when he suddenly - at least for a few hours - is left completely alone. Without friends, without internet, without anything - in the middle of the four walls he calls home, or in the middle of the houses he calls his city.

But then death comes. Last breath, last heartbeat. Everything in a person stops. For the soul, the earthly journey is over. Ahead is eternity. Isn't this liberation?

That is why in Orthodoxy death is not a tragedy or misfortune, but a bright event. And at the funeral service all the priests dress in white, not black.

Orthodoxy and death: where is the evidence for all this?

It is impossible to prove that there is something after death. We wrote a long text about the deceit of our time and the monstrous standards that it has set. These are standards for perceiving the world, where everything is subject to logic. If something doesn’t fit into human logic, it doesn’t exist. If something cannot be seen through a microscope or telescope, it is not there.

Man has been transformed from a carrier of Infinity into a mortal being. It is limited only to the body and emotions. In the near future, his boundaries will be narrowed to digital, in which he will dissolve all his aspirations and all his nature.

But what is eternity? What kind of other world is this in which the soul will find itself after death, having found Eternal Life there?

Afterlife after death in Buddhism

What do we know about life after death as described in Buddhism? Adherents of this religious movement believe in reincarnation and the law of karma. It is believed that if a person has done something bad in one life, he should restore balance and do something good in the next.

There is an opinion that the soul can become not only a person, but also inhabit an animal or plant (at will). The main goal pursued by the soul is to free itself from suffering and constant rebirth.

It is believed that a creature can stop the series of constant births and deaths only if it learns to look at this world more broadly. People believe that by leaving the “wheel of samsara” a person will achieve nirvana. This is the highest level of perfection, achieved beyond the cycle of birth and death.

Orthodoxy: eternity and how death appeared

Eternity lies beyond human logic. Not in the sense that it is illogical, but in the sense that it, in principle, lacks the assessments with which a person lives on Earth.

Eternity cannot be described in words, and anything described in words is no longer eternity. In eternity there is no time, distances and relationships in the form in which we are accustomed to seeing them on earth.

Why does the soul not exist in eternity from the very beginning?

Why do we need life on Earth, which we live, by and large, in suffering? Why do we need childhood, youth, mature years and old age? Any of these periods is associated with constant hardships and overcoming oneself - why not, from the very beginning, a soul filled with joy, stay in eternal life?

Once upon a time it was like that. This is described in the very first chapters of the Bible.

Once upon a time, man lived together with God and only with Him alone. Man had Eternal Life, being himself like God. Man gave every animal and bird a character - a “Name” - and, in fact, created them.

But then death came. In the Bible, this most tragic moment in human history is described as the day when Adam and Eve, disobeying God, ate the forbidden fruit. This damaged human nature and gave rise to that same sin in their (and now our) nature - man became mortal, time appeared in his life, he was expelled from Paradise.

Man essentially became what he is now - suffering and lonely. Cut off from eternity. Doomed to die. With a lifespan of around 100 years.

Death in Christianity

Always expect, but do not fear death, both are the true characteristics of wisdom. Saint John Chrysostom

There lived two brothers who had many children. They taught children to be especially hard-working. One day one of the brothers called the children of another brother to him and told them: “Your father knows a day on which, having worked, you can become rich forever and then live without labor. I experienced this myself, but now I have forgotten what day it was. And therefore go to your father, he will tell you about this day.” The children happily went to their father and asked him about this day. The father answered: “I myself, children, forgot this day. But work hard for a year; at this time, perhaps you yourself will learn about the day that gives you a carefree life.” The children worked for a whole year, but did not find such a day and told their father about it. The father gave them credit for their work and said: “You do this: now divide the year into four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter, work and you will find this day.” The children worked like this and then told their father: “And again we did not find the day you indicated. And since we are tired, and at the same time we have acquired the means to live for ourselves, we will no longer work.” The father answered: “The day that I told you is the day of death. It will befall us when we don’t even think about it. That’s why you need to work in the same way to save your soul all your life, day and night, and prepare for death.”

(81, 339-340)

Man was originally conceived by God as an immortal being: “God created man incorruptible; He created him in the image of His own nature,” but “through the envy of the devil, death entered the world: and those who belong to his inheritance experience it.” Adam and Eve could have lived forever and happily in Paradise, in which everything was permissible, except for one thing, which God warned them about, pointing to the tree of knowledge: “in the day that you eat from it, you will die.” We all know how this story ended, and when “the eyes of both of them were opened,” God brought down his wrath on them and said: “By the sweat of your brow you will eat bread until you return to the land from which you were taken, for dust you are and to dust you will return.” they were expelled from heaven and became mortal. The very first death on Earth, as narrated in the Bible, was the death of Abel, who died at the hands of his brother Cain. Thus death entered the world. This moment is depicted in William Blake's famous painting "Adam and Eve at the Body of Abel."

Further, in the Old Testament, the prophets interpret death as the destruction of the possibility of any action, including for the glory of God. But, nevertheless, the words of the Old Testament prophets speak of the resurrection - in the book of Isaiah (26, 19), in the book of Job (19, 25) and in Ezekiel (37, 9-14). Daniel says that “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awaken, some to eternal life, others to everlasting reproach and disgrace” (12:2).

Attitudes towards death changed with the advent of Christianity. In Christianity, the understanding of the meaning of life, death and immortality comes from the Old Testament position: “The day of death is better than the day of birth” and the New Testament commandment of Christ “... I have the keys to hell and heaven.” On the one hand, death is an eternal punishment that each of us is forced to bear for a sin we once committed. But on the other hand, death is the liberation of a person from the shackles of a mortal body, from the vale of earthly sorrows, releasing his eternal soul. “Let us begin to tremble not before death, but before sin; It was not death that gave birth to sin, but sin that produced death, and death became the healing of sin” (36, 739). A person becomes immortal - the path to immortality is opened by the atoning sacrifice of Christ through the cross and resurrection.

Earthly life, full of sorrows and sorrows, is not highly valued in Christianity, but it is precisely this that prepares a person for eternal life. The idea of the immortality of the soul and resurrection fills the life of a Christian with high meaning and gives him the strength to overcome incredible difficulties. Since a short human life is just a preparation for life beyond the grave, a true Christian must always “be sober” - “be prepared: for at an hour you do not think, the Son of Man will come.”

The immortality of the soul became a dogma at the Council of Nicea in 325, when, when approving the creed, the dogma of eternal life was included in it.

The ancient Christian Gnostic Church as a whole did not reject the idea of transmigration of souls - at least it was tolerant of it, but in 553, at the Second Council of Constantinople, it was decided: “Whoever will defend the mythical doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul and the absurd assumption that follows from it her return is anathema.”

Christianity says both that the fear of death is natural and necessary for man, and that “The first definite sign that the life of God has begun to act in us will be our freedom from the feeling of death and its fear. A person living in God experiences a deep feeling that he is stronger than death, that he has come out of its clutches. Even when dying, he will not feel this - on the contrary, he will have a strong feeling of unceasing life in God” (Christian philosopher O. Matta el-Meskin.) Stop crying about death and cry about your sins in order to atone for them and enter Eternal Life (36, 75). (Christian), you are a warrior and constantly stand in the ranks, and a warrior who is afraid of death will never do anything valiant (36, 77).

Archbishop of Tauride and Kherson Innocent writes: “those who were at the death of the righteous people saw that they did not die, but seemed to fall asleep and leave in peace somewhere from us. On the contrary, the death of sinners is painful. The righteous have faith and hope, the sinners have fear and despair.” In the figurative expression of one of the hierarchs: “A dying person is a setting luminary, the dawn of which is already shining over another world.”

After death, the soul leaves the body, without interrupting its existence for a second, and continues to live the fullness of life that it began to live on earth. But already without a body. But with all the thoughts and feelings, with all the virtues and vices, advantages and disadvantages that were characteristic of her on earth. “The life of the soul beyond the grave is a natural continuation and consequence of its life on earth,” writes Archbishop Anthony of Geneva. “If a person was a true Christian during his life (kept the commandments, attended Church, prayed), then the soul will feel the presence of God and find peace. If a person was a great sinner, then his soul will yearn for God, it will be tormented by desires to which the flesh is accustomed, because... it will be impossible to satisfy them; he will suffer from the proximity of evil spirits.”

The soul, having left the body, is capable of reasoning, perceiving, realizing, but it is deprived of a shell and therefore cannot perform actions, it will no longer be able to change something, acquire something that it did not have while in the body. “There is no repentance beyond the grave. The soul lives there and develops in the direction that it began on earth,” writes Anthony of Geneva.

Archimandrite Cyprian writes: “In addition to torment and the power of hell, something else confuses us in death: this is the uncertainty of our life. There will be no break for the soul at the moment of physical death: the soul, as it lived until the last minute of earthly life, will continue to live until the Last Judgment. (...) There is no death in Orthodoxy, for death is only a narrow boundary between life here and death in the next century, death is only a temporary separation of soul and body. There is no death for anyone, for Christ has risen for everyone. There is eternity, eternal peace and eternal memory with God and in God.”

After a person dies, his soul leaves the body. Having become free, the soul acquires something else - spiritual vision. She is able to communicate with the world of light spirits - angels, and dark spirits - demons, as well as with other souls. The soul after death is not at complete rest, but continues to develop. And the further development of the soul, according to the Church, will depend on which direction it will go at the moment of death: towards Light or Darkness. This is why the Church values the sacrament of repentance so highly, especially before death, thanks to which a person, even in the last minutes of his life, can change a lot, if, of course, the repentance was sincere and complete. According to the Church, after death the soul is relatively free for two more days and remains near the body, then, on the third day, after the body is buried, it passes into another world.

When passing to the afterlife, the soul must meet evil spirits and pass their test. Before Jesus died, he said, “Now the prince of this world comes, but he has nothing in Me.” In this case, the Church advises not to give in to fear, but to trust in God, remembering that the fate of the soul is determined not by evil spirits, but by God. “If we have fear, we will not pass freely past the ruler of this world,” says Archimandrite Seraphim Rose. So, the soul makes a certain journey after death and approaches the throne of the Last Judgment not the same as it left the body. This period of growth is necessary, according to one of the saints, since “... she will not tolerate the light that reigns there.” In the end, the Last Judgment will take place: “For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward everyone according to his deeds.” Not all sinners face the same fate - the unrepentant and great will go to hell, while others can hope for God's mercy and eternal life. The Church believes that the prayers of the Church, as well as the prayers of family and friends, can help a sinful soul.

According to Catholic doctrine, the souls of some sinners on their way to heaven end up in Purgatory because they did not receive remission of punishment for their sins during their lifetime (they did not perform penance). The period of stay in purgatory can be shortened by the prayers of loved ones, as well as by good deeds performed in memory of the deceased. Ideas about purgatory began to take shape in the 1st century AD. e, and the doctrine of purgatory was developed in detail in the works of Thomas Aquinas. The dogma of purgatory was adopted at the Council of Florence in 1439 and confirmed in 1562 by the Council of Trent.

Christianity: The Most Underrated Religion of Our Time

Writing about Christianity and Orthodoxy in our time is difficult. There is probably no religion on earth that is entangled in so many conjectures and prejudices.

Our time itself is to blame for this, as it has turned half the concepts about life upside down. Cultural aspects of a particular country are also to blame. As a result, the very words and terms by which Orthodoxy lives have lost their original deep meaning.

Prayer - this mystical communication with God of the soul - has become confused with emotions.
Repentance (that is, the desire to live in a new way) - with soul-searching.
Sin - with legal misconduct.
Humility comes with downtroddenness.
Christ - with man.

Perhaps I am only speaking from my own experience, but growing up in a church school in the 90s, I (and I believe I was not the only one) heard only one thing about Christ: He walked the earth and was crucified.

The idea of Christ the God was completely suppressed by the idea of Christ the man. Christ in the culture and in the minds of many people has shrunk from God to nothing but a saint. Very charismatic, spiritually strong, the greatest of the greats, but still a saint.

The excessive “humanization” of Christ is a big problem. And the problem is so underestimated that now, probably, not even everyone understands what we are talking about now and what, in fact, the problem is.

You will say - I know that Christ is the Son of God. You will also say - of course, Christ is our true God.

But it seems that this will be exactly the same knowledge as our knowledge of death. We all know that we will die, but we have not “recognized” this thought - it has not become part of our nature.

What is this - Christ God?

Christ is the Source of Life.
Christ began before all.
Christ is God.
Christ is our breath.
Christ is our desire.
Christ is the action of life within us.
Christ is our Love.
Christ is the hope of our spirit.
Christ is our immortality.
Christ is all that is eternal that is within us.
Christ is the most important thing that is within us.
Christ is the most hidden thing in our existence.
Christ is our hope.

If it were not for the action of Christ in us, we would, as Gregory Palamas said in one of his sermons, would have disintegrated instantly before the action of death in our world.

The fact that we are alive is Christ. And the Nativity of Christ on Earth is the greatest Mystery that has occurred since the creation of the world and the fall of man from eternal life.

God became human. So that by his coming - by his clothing in human flesh, by his suffering on the cross - he would return us to Eternal Life. Or at least give us a full chance at it.

Orthodoxy and life after death

So, what does Orthodoxy say about death and the afterlife?

Any church description of what happens beyond the borders of our earthly life is only a designation. And these designations of the afterlife can, in fact, be reduced to just three theses:

After death a person will go to Heaven or Hell
Whether it will be heaven or hell largely depends on his life on Earth.
“In many ways,” because until the end the ways of the Lord are inscrutable, and not a single person is given the ability to know for certain about the fate of any soul - even his own.

The doctrine of Heaven and Hell is also overgrown with a huge number of images and speculations. You know them yourself: frying pans, flour, fire, and on the other hand - gardens and bliss.

While the Church’s teaching about Heaven and Hell is based on two deep thoughts:

The fate of each soul - like the fate of every person on earth - is individual.
Current life on Earth is a great responsibility for humans.

And the images that have been born over millennia are intended only to emphasize this - since it is impossible to describe in words or even get close to the images of Heaven or Hell.

Now priests find other images instead of frying pans on the fire:

Heaven is eternal life with God
And hell is eternal life without Him, in emptiness - which is worse than any fire.

But the fact is that such deep (and essentially more true) images “gather” a person much worse than the threat of torment and eternal fire. And it seems that the terminology that has developed in Orthodoxy about the eternal suffering that the sinner will suffer after death is actually more effective. Not to mention the fact that eternal life without God and any Grace from Him is truly real torment for the soul.

Icon of the descent into hell of Jesus Christ

Prayers of the living and true faith in Orthodoxy

In Orthodoxy there is no purgatory, limbo, or the practice of indulging the sins of the deceased. After death, the soul of an Orthodox Christian ends up, in accordance with earthly deeds, in a temporary abode in hell or heaven. Only prayerful remembrances in church, heartfelt prayers of the living, their good deeds and alms given for the deceased can ease her posthumous fate.

According to Orthodox doctrine, even in earthly life, salvation is earned not only and not so much by the atonement of sin, but by faith in Christ, repentance, and deeds of mercy and love. In the afterlife, repentance and good deeds become impossible. The soul of a believer is tested through a private trial, which is allegorically described in the “Life of St. Basil the New” (10th century) as the ordeal of Blessed Theodora.

The soul of the deceased after death was led by angels to God. On this upward path, twenty outposts-ordeals were encountered, where fallen spirits, the founders of all sins and vices, convicted the human soul of the abominations it had committed. The angels announced good deeds during life and completed repentance. Theodora's blessings in earthly life and the high intercession of Vasily the New helped her soul reach Paradise.

What is Paradise?

But how can you desire something that you really don’t have the slightest idea about? In many discussions this question is the cornerstone. And the material world is precisely why it is so actively crowding out the spiritual world in the mass consciousness, because it has at least some visible evidence - in the form of scientific progress and many discoveries.

How can one desire Heaven? How can one desire eternal life if there is no direct visible and scientific evidence for this?

In essence, these are questions of faith. And faith itself can be based and strengthened on two things:

Trust in the Church and its experience.
And my own experience.

Both paths are complementary and ultimately present in the spiritual life of any Christian.

A person ultimately understands for himself, or feels, or Knows that Paradise and Eternal Life with God is something completely complete and incomparable to any sensation that can be obtained on Earth.

This is the inspiration of a creative person - but incomparably stronger than that. This is a feeling of love or falling in love - but incomparably more complete than that. This is the joy of the first spring sun - but incomparably higher than this.

Clive Lewis has a beautiful passage in one of his fairy tales that is very suitable for comparison:

“And then a strange thing happened. The guys knew as much about Aslan as you did, but as soon as the beaver uttered this phrase, each of them was overcome by a special feeling. […] At the name of Aslan, each of the guys felt that something trembled inside him. […] Lucy had the feeling you get when you wake up in the morning and remember that today is the first day of vacation.”

English writer Clive S. Lewis

Who will go to Heaven and who will go to Hell?

So, everything that happens after our death is a mystery. Not in the sense of a “secret” that is forbidden to be told, but a reality incomprehensible to the mind.

Who will go to Heaven? Who's going to hell?

Will all sinners go to hell? Will all children go to Heaven?

The saints warned: eternity is such a different reality that no human logic can comprehend it. And in fact, any “formula” that could somehow be used to derive the law of soul salvation will be incorrect.

When a person tries to comprehend God’s plan using logic alone, completely insane systems will be born. For example, liberal Protestant theories that everyone who is simply baptized will go to Heaven, and Christ will take care of everything else.

Any of these “formulas” has a correct beginning, but when taken “to the end”, it becomes a dead end - like everything earthly, closed in on itself.

One woman asked St. Theophan the Recluse in the 19th century whether she understood correctly that none of the Catholics would be saved. The saint replied: “I don’t know whether Catholics will be saved, but I know one thing for sure: that without Orthodoxy I myself will not be saved.”

This answer to a private question shows how to actually treat assumptions about what and who awaits: try to take care of yourself, and everything will work out according to God’s providence.

Question and answer

Are the souls of those in hell commemorated in Orthodox churches?
Yes, this happens once a year, on Trinity Parent Saturday, when prayers are offered for all Orthodox Christians, “those who have fallen from eternity” and even “those held in hell.”

Do Catholics have special memorial days with indulgences?

During the octave of prayers for the dead from November 1 to 8, those who visit cemeteries receive indulgences for the souls of deceased relatives in purgatory.

In what religions, besides Christianity, do they expect the resurrection of the dead?

The day when the dead are resurrected must come according to the beliefs of Muslims and also Jews.