THE SHACKLES OF DEATH. WHY IS THERE NO REPENTANCE IN HELL? Part 3. ~ Valentina Ulyanova

 

THE SHACKLES OF DEATH. WHY IS THERE NO REPENTANCE IN HELL?

Part 3. “When the will is taken away after death”

Valentina Ulyanova

Photo: mykaleidoscope.ru    

And now it’s time to return to where I began in this article. To the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself in the parable of the wedding feast gave us an image of the “shackles” of sinners after death, warning us not to delay repentance. Let me remind you that Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid explains that the “shackles” symbolize that the powers of action of our souls will be bound:

“The Lord then says to His servants, the angels of punishment, Bind his hands and feet, that is, the soul’s powers of action. For in this present age is the time to act and to do, but in the age to come all of the soul’s powers of action are bound, and a man cannot then do any good thing to outweigh his sins.”

Venerable Arsenia (Sebryakova) makes herself very clear. She writes about the taking away of the will after death:

“As long as you live on earth, you cannot realize to what extent your spirit is enslaved and dependent on another spirit. You cannot fully know this, because you have free will by which you act when and as you want. But when that free will is taken away from you after death, the soul sees to whose power it is enslaved. The Spirit of God brings the righteous into the eternal abodes, enlightening them, illuminating them and making them like God. But the souls which were in communication with the devil will be possessed by him.”¹

St. Simeon of Thessalonica connects freedom of choice, possible only in this life, with the possibility of repentance:

“Here we have time to make amends for our transgressions, as long as we have freedom of choice; and then there will be one time—of separation and retribution for what everyone has chosen for himself. Let none of those who are possessed by sins or by any delusion (in order to justify or delight themselves) deceive themselves with such delusions; the torments for the unrepentant are eternal. This is why repentance is possible to the last gasp. Indeed, if it benefited us there, it would not have been given to us here. And what wonder would the Savior’s economy of salvation have done if there were repentance or the end of torments there? Do you see the folly of the impious?”²

It should be understood that here we are not talking about the will in general, but about the part of the will by which we choose whether to repent of our sins or not—gnomic will. We’ll give a few words about what this is.

Priest German Kapten writes that St. Maximus the Confessor was the first to speak about the difference in human volitional abilities: about natural will that belongs to the essence, and gnomic will, which is the ability to make a reasonable choice.

“Natural will, in his opinion, was good after Creation and bore no evil. It is necessary for man to exist in this world, to regulate all human abilities, from vital ones—nutrition and breathing—to more subtle intellectual needs.

“St. Maximus interpretes Adam’s sin not as a legal crime, but as a gnomic choice that turned his mind away from God to uλη (materiality without any formalization).

“St. Maximus the Confessor shows that the free choice of evil corrupted the essence of the unrepentant sinner, and thus he cannot return to perfection. For the saint, the ontological place of corruption is the will, or rather, its fragmentation.

“Initially, Adam’s gnomic will was only a possibility, but after the fall, he and his descendants must constantly choose. Any choice involves torments—the experience of the very need to choose and the consequences of your decisions.”³

It can be assumed that the gnomic part of human will can exist only within the boundaries of time, and it cannot work in eternity. “The choice is possible, provided that there is time,”⁴ writes Priest German Kapten.

Archimandrite Raphael (Karelin) explains in detail the change of the human will after death, this power of the soul that is important for repentance:

“The words it [sin] shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come (Mt. 12:32) do not mean the severity of the sin committed, but your inner state that makes you unable to repent; and Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven (Mt. 18:18). If you have not repented of your sins in your earthly life, you will not be able to repent in the afterlife either; sin will become your personal quality, and the afterlife for you will mean becoming like demons.”

Recalling the prophetic word, For in death there is no remembrance of Thee (Ps. 6:6), Archimandrite Raphael (Karelin) writes:

“These words mean the expression of your faith and belonging to a certain denomination. The soul of a non-believer or an adherent of another faith cannot accept the Orthodox faith after death in hell—that is, it cannot be born again. In the afterlife is revealed what constitutes the contents of the human soul, what was acquired in earthly life.

“In Patristic works, the same call sounds like the ringing of an alarm bell: to treasure the time of our life on earth, to treasure every day and hour, for after death it will be too late. The Apostle Paul writes that it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment (Heb. 9:27)—the particular judgment of the soul before the Last Judgment.

“In hell the human soul cannot help itself. There is no choice of confession or change of faith. Only the living who remain on earth and the Church itself by praying for the dead can help some to be saved, but under two conditions: firstly, if a person in question was Orthodox and belonged to the earthly Church; secondly, if he repented of his sins, did good works, but could not reform properly and died in an uncertain spiritual state when the good in his soul was mixed with evil. Then the Church can fill in what is missing without changing the direction of the personality itself. <…>

“St. Maximus the Confessor, a great Christian thinker, in his dispute with the Monophysites points out that two aspects can be distinguished in the human will: natural will as desire (the early Fathers called it the irritable power, and some modern theologians call it the reactive one) and gnomic will—the possibility of choice. St. Maximus the Confessor says that human freedom is put into practice through life in God, and then gnomic will is united with the natural one. When you are possessed by satan, you are enslaved, and your will is subject to self-corruption. This process of destroying gnomic will has its completion in hell… Man’s natural will remains in hell, but his gnomic will ceases to work, since faith—the kingdom of freedom—has become obvious, and the moral composition of the soul—static, which can be changed by the prayers of the Church, including private prayers. ... After death, unrepentant sinners will be determined by their sins…

“The earthly life of a sinner and his destiny after death... do not depend on his desire, but on his sins. In fact, a sinner says ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to temptations in his earthly life. Here gnomic will makes choices between good and evil, truth and falsehood, virtue and sin, grace and passions, God and satan. Here, free human will is in a state of the permanent possibility of choosing motives and decisions, but after death another process begins—the revelation of the moral potential that you have acquired. Here a sinner can only be helped from the outside—by the power of prayers and almsgiving, and only on condition of his faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, and the good works that he had time to do before death⁵.”

All the Holy Fathers say that repentance, which is salvific for us—the choice of a will that turns to God (Greek: “metanoia”, meaning “change of mind”)—is possible only in this life. There is no repentance after death. There the soul of an unrepentant sinner cannot receive the saving effect of grace, and his will becomes completely subordinate to sin, to which he submitted in his lifetime at his own choosing.

In conclusion, I will repeat that whatever our eternal destinies may be, we will see for ourselves that we created them ourselves with our earthly lives and chose them ourselves with our virtually daily choices. By choosing to obey the will of God or sin in both important and seemingly insignificant things, we create our eternity.

St. Justin (Popovich) writes that God does not violate our freedom, respecting the choice of the personality:

“Providence ... does not violate, destroy or block freedom, because it is a gift from God; a gift that is the essence of the nature of rational beings; a gift that makes them what they are; a gift given to them by God as their inviolable, inalienable and personal attribute... God, being invariably Good, does not destroy or limit the freedom granted ... the freedom of His creation always remains inviolable…

“If the will inclines towards evil, then Providence leaves it to act independently. <…>

“God does not eliminate evil in the world, since this would mean destroying the freedom of the rational and moral beings, with which He Himself endowed them. He does not prevent evil in the world, since otherwise He would limit the freedom of action of these beings… However, the fact that He allows sin must not be understood as God’s inattention to the destinies of created beings, but solely and exclusively as His desire not to infringe on their freedom and allow it to act, so that they may choose independently either good or evil, voluntarily moving towards the former or the latter.”⁶

People who chose evil in their lifetimes will remain in eternity with the fruit of this choice. Evil will reign in them, and God will remove them from Himself, because they have moved away from Him.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons explains the logic of the deprivation of salvation:

“And to as many as continue in their love towards God, does He grant communion with Him. But communion with God is life and light, and the enjoyment of all the benefits which He has in store. But on as many as, according to their own choice, depart from God, He inflicts that separation from Himself which they have chosen of their own accord. But separation from God is death, and separation from light is darkness. And separation from God consists in the loss of all the benefits which He has in store. Those, therefore, who cast away by apostasy these aforementioned things, being in fact destitute of all good, do experience every kind of punishment. God, however, does not punish them immediately of Himself, but that punishment falls upon them because they are destitute of all that is good. Now, good things are eternal and without end with God, and therefore the loss of these is also eternal and never-ending...”⁷

St. John Chrysostom writes about the righteousness of God’s judgment of those who don’t choose blessed deeds, but choose deeds deserving damnation:

“But to the others He saith, Depart from me, ye cursed (no longer of the Father; for not He laid the curse upon them, but their own works), into the everlasting fire, prepared, not for you, but for the devil and his angels. For concerning the Kingdom indeed, when He had said, Come, inherit the kingdom, He added, prepared for you before the foundation of the world; but concerning the fire, no longer so, but, prepared for the devil. I, saith He, prepared the Kingdom for you, but the fire no more for you, but for the devil and his angels; but since ye cast yourselves therein, impute it to yourselves.”⁸

In order for this tragedy not to happen to us the Lord gives each one of us a life, time and freedom of choice. And the price of this choice is eternity.

Valentina Ulyanova
Translation by Dmitry Lapa

Pravoslavie.ru

2/24/2024

1 St. Arsenia (Sebryakova) of Ust-Medveditsky. Letters. Letter 45.

2 St. Simeon of Thessalonica. Commentary on the Divine and Sacred Creed of Our Orthodox and Immaculate Christian Faith.

3 G.Yu. Kapten. Criticism of Origenism in the Philosophy of St. Maximus the Confessor.

4 Ibid.

5 Archimandrite Raphael (Karelin). On Modern Neognosticism.

6 St. Justin (Popovich). Dogmatics of the Orthodox Church.

7 Hieromartyr Irenaeus of Lyons. The Denunciation and Refutation of Pseudo Knowledge (Against Heresies). The citation source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103527.htm

8 St. John Chrysostom. Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew. The citation source: http://ww1.antiochian.org/node/17259

thanks to:

https://orthochristian.com/158815.html

THE SHACKLES OF DEATH. WHY IS THERE NO REPENTANCE IN HELL? Part 2. ~ Valentina Ulyanova

 

THE SHACKLES OF DEATH. WHY IS THERE NO REPENTANCE IN HELL?

Part 2. Why is there no repentance after death?

Valentina Ulyanova

Part 1

Photo: omolitvah.ru    

Reading these and other similar testimonies, many are perplexed. How, they think, can we reconcile more acute senses of the soul with the impossibility for it to repent? The fact is that repentance is more than a mere feeling. Remorse is possible after death, as Blessed Theophylact writes in the above commentary—but it will be fruitless for those who did not repent in their lifetimes. The Venerable Ephraim the Syrian says the same: “There are tears of repentance, when the soul desires eternal good things, and they are very sweet and beneficial. And there are tears of remorse, where (according to the Savior’s word) there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mt.8:12), and these tears are bitter and useless, because they are altogether fruitless.”¹

The fact is that repentance is not only the awareness of your sins, but also the desire and opportunity to change, to be cleansed from them, to be spiritually transformed. Transformation is possible only by the movement of the human will and the work of grace, and “the time and place for the action of grace is here alone”, as the Holy Fathers wrote.

St. John of Kronstadt said:

“A terrible truth. Impenitent sinners after their death lose every possibility of changing for good, and therefore remain unalterably given up to everlasting torments (for sin cannot but torment). <…> Who does not know how difficult it is, without God’s special grace, for a sinner to turn from the way of sin that is so dear to him into the path of virtue?... But for the grace of God, what sinner would have returned to God? For it is the nature of sin to darken our souls, to bind us hand and foot. But the time and place for the action of grace is here alone: after death there remain only the prayers of the Church, and these prayers can be efficacious for penitent sinners alone—that is, only for those who have developed in their souls the capability of receiving God’s mercy or of benefiting by the prayers of the Church—that is, the light of the good works which they have taken with them out of this life.”²

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid wrote:

“The sinner is in darkness even in this life, as he has fallen away from the Sun of Righteousness. But as there is still hope of conversion, this is not yet the ‘outer’ darkness. But when he has died and an examination has been made of the things he has done, then the outer darkness in its turn receives him. For there is no longer any hope of conversion, but he undergoes a complete deprivation of the good things of God. While he is here in this life he enjoys to some degree the good things of God, I mean, the tangible things of creation, and he believes that he is in some manner a servant of God, living out his life in God’s house, which is this creation, being fed by Him and provided with the necessities of life. But then he will be altogether cut off from God, having no share at all in the good things of God. This is that darkness which is called ‘outer’ by comparison to the darkness here, which is not ‘outer’, because the sinner is not yet completely cut off from this time onward.”³

Reflecting on the same subject, St. Theophan the Recluse, wrote:

“Now or tomorrow death will come, and it will end all that is ours, and will in itself be imprinted on our destinies forever, for there is no repentance after death. We will stand before the Judgment seat in that state death finds us.”⁴

“The law of life is such that as soon as someone plants the seed of repentance here, even at his last gasp, he will not perish. This seed will grow and bear fruit—eternal salvation. And if someone does not plant the seed of repentance here and passes over with the spirit of unrepentant persistence in sins, then he will remain there forever with the same spirit and reap forever the fruit of it according to its kind—God’s eternal rejection.”⁵

As we can see from these words, a salvific change after death is possible only for those who, according to St. John of Kronstadt, “have developed in their souls the capability of receiving God’s mercy—the light of the good works which they have taken with them out of this life.”

All Orthodox Christians who died in repentance have hope of salvation from hell, even if they did not have time to bring the fruits of repentance sufficient for cleansing their souls and therefore did not attain Paradise: the prayers of the living can help them. Their painful state can be changed. Their “seed of repentance”, albeit small, can bring the fruit of eternal life through the prayers of the Church.

The Epistle of the Patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Church on the Orthodox Faith (1723) reads:

“The souls of people who fell into mortal sins and did not despair at death, but once again before being separated from the real life of those who repented, only who did not manage to bear any fruits of repentance (which are: prayers, tears, contrition, consolation of the poor and expression in actions of love for God and neighbors that the entire Catholic Church from the very beginning recognizes God-pleasing and useful), the souls of such people descend into hell and suffer punishment for the sins they have committed, without depriving, however, of relief from them. They receive relief by infinite goodness through the prayers of the Priests and the beneficence performed for the dead; and especially by the power of the bloodless Sacrifice, which, in particular, the clergyman brings for each Christian about his relatives, in general, for all, the Catholic and Apostolic Church brings daily.”⁶

That is, it is not that the love of God turns away from the sinner after death, but the soul itself changes after death, and if there is no “light of the good works” or “seed of repentance” in it, it will not be able to receive God’s help and be transformed by repentance. The Holy Fathers unanimously write about this. I will give just a few examples.

St. Anthony the Great:

“What do crying and sobbing mean, if not the boundlessness of cruel and terrible torments? and what is depicted by gnashing of teeth, if not the greatest regret for the sins committed? Then—and this will surely happen—we will begin to resent ourselves, to repent with gnashing teeth, when repentance will not take place, when there will be no benefit from it, when the time given for repentance will have passed.”⁷

St. Gregory of Nyssa:

“After death no one will have a chance to heal the disease inflicted by sin by the memory of God, because confession has power on earth, but it does not exist in hell.”⁸

St. John Damascene states in his book, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith:

“You must know that the fall for the angels is the same as death for people. For after they fall they have no repentance, just as humans have no repentance after death.”

Why does this happen? The fact is that the personality cannot change after death. Entering eternity beyond the grave, the soul begins to live according to the law of eternity.

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) teaches that after death a person begins a different way of existence, passing from a temporary life into eternity, immutability:

“Death is a great sacrament. It is the birth of a person from this earthly, temporal life into eternity.”⁹

The things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Cor. 4:18), the Holy Scriptures say about what awaits everybody after this temporary life. The attribute of eternity is the qualitative immutability of phenomena. The qualitative state of the soul acquired during life on earth cannot change after passing into eternity. Therefore, after the death of the body the soul can only change within the limits of the quality that it acquired in earthly life: either to grow in virtue or degrade in sin. He who in his lifetime acquired a penitent spirit and striving for goodness will be perfected in goodness by the grace of God; and he who had no repentance in his soul, but wholeheartedly served his passions, will fall more and more into the abyss of evil.

Archbishop Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky) speaks about this in a brief yet very profound phrase:

“The life of the brain and the heart and the combined, miraculously coordinated life of all the bodily organs are required only for the formation of the spirit and cease when its formation is completed or its direction has been fully determined¹⁰.”

The Australian surgeon Pyotr Kalinowsky explained the deep meanings of these words of St. Luke:

“These words of Archbishop Luke speak about the most important thing—what gives a person life on earth. Archbishop Luke, having spoken about the purpose of our life on earth, proceeds, saying that after the death of the body in the immortal human soul eternal life and endless development in the direction of good or evil continue.

“The most terrible thing about these words of the archbishop is that at the moment of death of the body all further development of the soul in the direction of good or evil has already been determined. In the afterlife, two paths lay before the soul—towards the light or away from it, and after the death of the body the soul can no longer choose its path. The path was determined by human life on earth. <…> However, the sinner’s dark soul, which remains dark even after the death of the body, can no longer change.

“This is what the Lord Jesus Christ Himself says: My Father is the Husbandman. Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit (Jn. 15:1-2).

“For a person who realizes that his life on earth is only a part of his life and that in the afterlife he will continue the development begun here, his entire temporary existence acquires a special meaning.”¹¹

St. John Damascene writes about this attribute of eternity:

“Further, everlasting life and everlasting punishment prove that the age to come is unending. For time will not be counted by days and nights even after the resurrection, but there will rather be one day with no evening, wherein the Sun of Justice will shine brightly on the just, but for the sinful there will be night, profound and limitless. In what way then will the period of one thousand years be counted which, according to Origen, is required for the complete restoration?”¹²

St. Theophan the Recluse explains the immutability of the personality in eternity as well:

“You forget that there will be eternity, not time; therefore, everything there will be eternal, not temporary. You count the torments for hundreds, thousands and millions of years, whereas there the first minute will begin, and there will be no end to it, because there will be a never-ending minute. The counting will not go any further, but it will be in the first minute, and it will remain like that.”¹³

Monk Mitrofan explains this phenomenon based on the Word of God:

“Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise (Lk. 23:43), Jesus Christ said to the penitent thief. It means that every soul upon separation from its body will be either in Heaven or in hell. When? Today, the Lord Jesus Christ said.

“How do we understand the word ‘today’? How can it be reconciled with the teaching of the Church about the third, the ninth and the fortieth days? There are days, nights and years on earth, but eternity is either light or dark. Thus, the word ‘today’ means time after death—eternity. The third, the ninth and the fortieth days are on earth, but there are no days in the afterlife. There is only ‘today’ and there is no other day.

“The sacrament of death is the door through which the soul, having separated from its body, enters eternity.”¹⁴

St. Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky) writes about this as well:

“The eternal bliss of the righteous and the eternal punishment of the sinners must be understood in such a way that the immortal spirit of the former, enlightened and powerfully strengthened after liberation from the body, receives the opportunity for unlimited development in the direction of goodness and Divine love, in permanent communion with God and all the bodiless powers. And the dark spirit of evildoers and those who fight against God in permanent communication with the devil and his angels will be tormented forever by being alienated from God, Whose holiness they will finally know, and by the unbearable poison that evil and hatred are fraught with, infinitely increasing in incessant communication with the center and source of evil—satan...”¹⁵

To be continued…

Valentina Ulyanova
Translation by Dmitry Lapa

Pravoslavie.ru

2/23/2024

1 St. Ephraim the Syrian. Lessons in Repentance. The citation source: https://stjohndc.org/en/content/blessed-are-they-mourn-they-shall-be-comforted

2 St. John of Kronstadt. My Life in Christ. Part 1. The citation source: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/kronstadt/christlife.ii.html

3 Blessed Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid. A Commentary on the Gospel According to Matthew. The citation source: https://catenabible.com/com/58a5ce5154b4f95416b2f7a1

4 St. Theophan the Recluse. Homily on Meatfare Sunday.

5 St. Theophan the Recluse. Letters to Different People on Various Subjects of Faith and Life. Letter 2. On Eternal Torment of Unrepentant Sinners // http://www.odinblago.ru/feofan_pisma/

6 The citation source: https://moscsp.ru/en/poslanie-patriarhovvostochno-kafolicheskoi-cerkvio-pravoslavnoi-vere.html

7 St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov). Patericon.

8 St. Gregory of Nyssa. Homily on Psalm 6.

9 St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov). A Word on Death.

10 St. Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky). Spirit, Soul and Body.

11 P. Kalinovsky. Transition: the Last Illness, Death and Afterwards .

12 St. John Damascene. An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. Book 2. Chapter I. The citation source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/33042.htm

13 St. Theophan the Recluse. Thoughts on Various Subjects of Faith // Manuscripts from the Cell. Moscow, The Rule of Faith, 2008.

14 Monk Mitrofan. The Afterlife.

15 St. Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky). Spirit, Soul and Body.

thanks to:

https://orthochristian.com/158814.html

THE SHACKLES OF DEATH. WHY IS THERE NO REPENTANCE IN HELL? ~ Valentina Ulyanova

 

THE SHACKLES OF DEATH. WHY IS THERE NO REPENTANCE IN HELL?

Valentina Ulyanova

Blessed Theodora’s Journey Through the Aerial Tollhouses  

For in death there is no remembrance of Thee: in the grave who shall give Thee thanks?

(Ps. 6:5)

Now or tomorrow death will come...
and will in itself be imprinted on our destinies forever,
for after death there is no repentance.

St. Theophan the Recluse

Foreword

Reading descriptions of afterlife experiences, testimonies of those who passed into eternity and then by Divine Providence returned for repentance, we often see two phenomena that may at first glance seem to contradict one another. Firstly, the senses of the soul, freed from the shackles of the body, are more acute and strong—especially if the body was sick and infirm before death. Secondly, we know that after death there is no repentance, and the soul of an unrepentant sinner is bound in the state that it had just before death. Actually, the image of these “shackles” after death was given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself:

And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment: And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen (Mt. 22:11-14).

This is how Blessed Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid and Bulgaria, explains this parable:

“The entrance into the wedding takes place without distinction of persons, for by grace alone we have all been called, good and bad alike; But the life thereafter of those who enter shall not be without examination, for indeed the king makes an exceedingly careful examination of those found to be sullied after entering into the faith. Let us tremble, then, when we understand that if one does not lead a pure life, faith alone benefits him not at all. For not only is he cast out of the wedding feast, but he is sent away into the fire. <…> For there are many who deceive themselves with vain hopes, thinking that they shall attain the Kingdom of Heaven, and they include themselves among the assembly of the dinner guests, thinking great things of themselves. <…> The Lord then says to His servants, the angels of punishment, Bind his hands and feet, that is, the soul’s powers of action. For in this present age is the time to act and to do, but in the age to come all of the soul’s powers of action are bound, and a man cannot then do any good thing to outweigh his sins. Gnashing of teeth is the meaningless repentance that will then take place. Many are called, for God calls many, indeed, all, but few are chosen. Few are saved and found worthy to be chosen by God. It is God’s part to call, but to become one of the chosen or not, is our part.”¹

1. The senses of the soul after death

Obviously, this parable does not speak about the senses of the soul beyond the grave. We know that, according to Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose), “after death, the soul is alive, and its senses become more acute, not weakened².”

St. Ambrose of Milan teaches:

“Since the soul continues to live after death... the soul is not held back by any obstacle placed by death, but is more active, because it is active in its own sphere without any association with the body, which is more of a burden than a benefit to it.³

The Venerable Dorotheus of Gaza says:

“For as the Fathers tell us, the souls of the dead remember everything that happened here—thoughts, words, desires—and nothing can be forgotten. But, as it says in the Psalm, In that day all their thoughts shall perish (Ps. 145:4). The thoughts he speaks of are those of this world, about houses and possessions, parents and children, and business transactions. All these things are destroyed immediately when the soul passes out of the body… But what it did against virtue or against its evil passions, it remembers, and nothing of this is lost… In fact, the soul loses nothing that it did in this world, but remembers everything at its exit from this body more clearly and distinctly once freed from the earthliness of the body.⁴

St. John Cassian writes that the rational powers of the soul function even better after death than during life:

“Souls after the separation from this body are not idle, do not remain without consciousness; this is proved by the Gospel parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Lk. 16:22-28)… But if you care too to understand the words spoken to the thief, Today you shall be with Me in Paradise (Lk. 23:43), what do they clearly show but that not only does their former intelligence continue with the souls, but also that in their changed condition they partake of some state which corresponds to their actions and deserts? <…> For it was not his flesh but his soul which was to enter Paradise with Christ. <…> By which He clearly shows that the souls of the dead not only do not lose their consciousness, they do not even lose their dispositions—that is, hope and fear, joy and grief... They become yet more alive and more zealously cling to the glorification of God. And truly, if we were to reason on the basis of the testimony of the Sacred Scripture concerning the nature of the soul, in the measure of our understanding, would it not be folly to suspect even in the least that the most precious part of man (that is, the soul), in which, according to the blessed Apostle, the image and likeness of God is contained (cf. 1 Cor. 11:7; Col. 3:10), after putting off this fleshy coarseness in which it finds itself in the present life, should become unconscious—that part which, containing in itself the whole power of reason, makes sensitive by its presence even the dumb and unconscious matter of the flesh? Therefore it follows, and the nature of reason itself demands, that the spirit after casting off this fleshy coarseness by which now it is weakened, should bring its mental powers into better condition, should restore them as purer and more refined, but should not be deprived of them.”⁵

St. Theophan the Recluse wrote to his dying sister, comforting her that death has no power over the soul: “You will not die. Your body will die, but you will go over into a different world, being alive, remembering yourself, and recognizing the whole world that surrounds you.”⁶

The Venerable Paisios the Hagiorite explained that “those who commit wrongdoings in this life are like drunken men. They don’t understand what they are doing; they don’t have a sense of their guilt. But when they die, this ‘drunkenness’ disappears and they become aware of their real condition. The eyes of their souls are opened and they realize their guilt, because the soul, when separated from the body, moves, sees and perceives with an inconceivable speed.”⁷

The fact that after leaving the body the soul feels and thinks more keenly than before is evidenced by the story of afterlife experience, written in the first person by K. Ikskul, a man who died, saw the spiritual realm and the aerial tollhouses with his own eyes, and was resurrected after praying to the Mother of God. K. Ikskul’s book, An Event Unbelievable for Many Yet True, was approved in 1910 by the outstanding spiritual writer and missionary Archbishop Nikon (Rozhdestvensky) of Vologda as containing nothing inconsistent with the Orthodox teaching about the afterlife.

Specifically, in It K. Ikskul wrote about the feelings of his soul after death: “I... suddenly felt lightness. I opened my eyes, and what I saw at that moment was imprinted in my memory with perfect clarity to the smallest detail.... Afterwards, recalling and thinking over my state of mind at that time, I only noticed that my mental abilities had functioned with amazing energy and speed...”⁸

To be continued…

Valentina Ulyanova
Translation by Dmitry Lapa

Pravoslavie.ru

2/22/2024

1 Blessed Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid. A Commentary on the Gospel According to Matthew. The citation source: https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2018/09/gospel-commentary-for-fourtenth-sunday.html

2 Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose). The Soul after Death.

3 St. Ambrose of Milan. A Treatise on Death as a Blessing. The citation source: http://www.holy-transfiguration.org/library_en/sacr_life_after_death.html

4 St. Dorotheus of Gaza. Directions on Spiritual Life. Direction 12. The citation source: http://www.holy-transfiguration.org/library_en/sacr_life_after_death.html

5 St. John Cassian. The Writings of the Ten Conferences of the Fathers in the Desert of Skete Sent to Bishop Leontius and Helladius. Conference 1 by Abba Moses. Chapter 14. On the Immortality of the Soul. The citation sources: http://www.holy-transfiguration.org/library_en/sacr_life_after_death.html, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/350801.htm

6 St. Theophan the Recluse. A Collection of Letters. Iss. 1. Letter 159.The citation source: http://www.holy-transfiguration.org/library_en/sacr_life_after_death.html

7 St. Paisios the Hagiorite. Spiritual Counsels. Vol. 4. On Family Life. The citation source: https://iconandlight.wordpress.com/2022/02/27/in-the-future-judgment-will-reflect-himself-upon-the-other-and-he-will-bow-his-head-and-proceed-to-the-place-where-he-belongs-i-pray-we-all-go-to-paradise-or-on-one-goes-to-hell-saint-paisios-of-2/

8 K. Ikskul. An Event Unbelievable for Many Yet True. The Trinity Flower, no. 58, 1910 // https://verapravoslavnaya.ru/?K._Ikskulmz

thanks to:

https://orthochristian.com/158812.html