If you delve as closely as possible into the science of the Orthodox Church, you can hear more than once that all people who consciously and constantly sinned during life, without repenting, will endure eternal torment in hell. Of course, this frightens and worries many people, but not everyone is one hundred percent sure that this will actually happen. Yes, you can talk a lot about what will happen to a person’s soul after death, but in order to answer the question of whether the soul’s torment in hell will be endless, it’s worth not just talking about this topic, but also studying the relevant Christian literature, as well as listen to the teachings of the holy fathers.
What is hell - basic concepts
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When discussing what hell is, many can create in their imagination truly terrible pictures that are unpleasant to even think about. In fact, hell is a place that alienates sinners from God as much as possible, and when a person realizes that by his behavior he has alienated himself from a loving and merciful Father, he begins to torment himself as much as possible, experiencing severe torment.
Hell is the inability to satisfy the basic needs of one’s own soul, which is why it will be a place of terrible torment when a person realizes what he has lost due to dubious pleasures. The main torment of sinners in hell will be that they will forever be deprived of God's grace, which is so necessary for the soul. Hell is a place where complete darkness reigns, where an eternal fire burns, causing severe pain to sinners.
The state of sinners after death until the Last Judgment
According to church teaching, it includes the souls of those sinners who, according to the determination of the Private Court, are deprived of (at least temporary) peace in the Kingdom of Glory, those, for example, “who die having angered God and despair” (Orthodox Confession. Part 1, question 68), also, by the way, those Christians who committed mortal sins during their lifetime repented to death, but did not bear any fruits of repentance (Message of the Eastern Patriarchs, member 18). In hell they perceive retribution for their sins.
Can God, who is love, punish people with eternal torment?
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People often think that if God is love and teaches everyone love, then he cannot subject even an unrepentant sinner who committed terrible evil during his life to eternal torment. In fact, the torments of hell should not be perceived as God's wrath or his punishment, since they are the consequence of the actions of a specific person who, having free will, chose a life of sin rather than eternal grace.
If you carefully read the interpretations given to Christians by Simeon the Theologian, you can understand the fact that the foundations of hell lie in the depths of the sinful human heart and it is not a loving God who prepares eternal torment for sinners, but they themselves, not fulfilling His commandments. Sinners are spiritually blind people who cannot see God in all His glory, cannot feel His love, thereby creating hell for themselves.
Are the torments of hell eternal?
Are the torments of hell eternal?
Today we often come across the opinion that the torment of sinners after their fate is determined at the Last Judgment will not last forever. That ultimately everyone will be saved, but “as if from fire.” That the Lord, Merciful and Loving of all, after passing through the torments of hell, will cleanse and forgive His sinful creation.
But how, then, in this case should one treat Scripture, which seems to testify to the opposite?
“And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off: it is better for you to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:43).
“Then the king said to the servants: Having tied his hands and feet, take him and throw him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 22:13).
“And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46).
The doctrine of the universal salvation of people—apokatastasis (restoration)—is far from new. It was proposed by the Greek Christian theologian and philosopher Adamant Origen.
Origen misinterpreted the phrase, taking it out of the context of chapter 15 of the first letter of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians: “The last enemy that will be destroyed is death, because he has put everything under His feet. When it is said that all things are subject to Him, it is clear that except Him Who put all things under Him. When he puts all things in subjection to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things in subjection to Him, so that God may be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:26-28).
Here is what Origen writes: “I think that this expression “God will be all in all” means that in every single being He will be all. In every individual being, God will compose everything in this way: everything that a rational spirit can feel, or understand, or think, cleansed from the leaven of all vices and completely cleansed from the cloud of evil - all this will constitute God, and, besides God , this spirit will no longer see anything else except God, will not remember anything else, God will be the limit and measure of all its movement; and thus God will constitute (in him) everything. Then there will no longer be a difference between good and evil, because there will be no evil at all: God will be everything, and with him evil can no longer exist; and he who always abides in goodness, for whom God is everything, will no longer desire to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Thus, the end, brought to the initial state, and the outcome of things, equalized with their beginnings, will restore the state that rational nature had when it did not yet want to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then, after the destruction of every sinful feeling and after the perfect and complete purification of this nature, God alone, the only good one, will be everything for it, and He will be everything not in some just a few or not in very many, but in all beings. " Origen’s thought is clear: since God created rationally free beings for the sake of bliss, and He is not powerless to realize His plans, the goal will necessarily be achieved. The infinity of future torment would contradict the goodness and mercy of the Creator. At the same time, Origen did not deny the Last Judgment: “There is no doubt that on the day of judgment the good will be separated from the evil and the righteous from the unrighteous, and by the judgment of God everyone will be distributed, in accordance with their merits, to the places they deserve,” but at the same time there will be torment have a final ending...
The terrible and soul-destroying heresy of Origen was condemned by the V Ecumenical Council in 553 in the city of Constantinople.
The attitude of the Holy Orthodox Church towards Origen's heresy is quite clear. In particular, St. the venerable father of the 7th century, John Climacus, says: “Everyone, and especially the fallen, must take care not to allow the illness of the godless Origen into their hearts; for his bad teaching, instilling in him the love of God for mankind, is very pleasing to voluptuous people.”
“The wrong view of torment in general is now very widespread. They are understood somehow too spiritually and abstractly, as remorse; Of course, there will be remorse of conscience, but there will also be torment for the body, not for the one in which we are now clothed, but for the new one in which we will be clothed after the Resurrection. And hell has a definite place, and is not an abstract concept.” Venerable Barsanuphius of Optina.
“There are many people who place good hopes not on the fact that they abstain from sins, but on the fact that they believe that Gehenna is not as terrible as they say about it, but is weaker than what they threaten us with, and is temporary, but not eternal, and they think a lot about this. Meanwhile, I can present a lot of evidence and even deduce from the very words (of Scripture) about Gehenna that it is not only no weaker than what is presented in the threats, but is even much more terrible. However, now I won’t talk about it. Enough is the fear that mere words (about Gehenna) arouse in us, if we do not even reveal their meaning. And that it is not temporary, listen to what Paul says here about people who do not know God and do not believe in the Gospel, namely that they will be punished, eternal destruction. So, how can the eternal become temporary?..” St. John Chrysostom .
More detailed information about the study of this issue is given by Archpriest Georgy Maximov in his book “Are the Torments of Hell Eternal,” the main fragments of which we publish.
Are the torments of hell eternal?
priest Georgy Maksimov
The Holy Scriptures speak repeatedly and quite definitely about the eternity of future punishment for sinners: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awaken, some to eternal life, others to everlasting reproach and disgrace” (Dan. 12:2); “And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into everlasting life” (Matthew 25:46); “Whoever blasphemes the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness, but he will be subject to eternal condemnation” (Mark 3:29); “Those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ... will be subject to punishment, eternal destruction” (2 Thess. 1:8, 9).
This truth was subsequently confirmed with particular force by the Holy Fathers and Councils of the Church.
“Whoever says or thinks that the punishment of demons and wicked people is temporary and that after some time it will have an end, or that there will be a restoration of demons and wicked people afterwards, let him be anathema,” - this is the 9th anathematism against the Origenists, proposed by the saint Justinian the Great and adopted by the Local Council of Constantinople in 543.
The idea of universal salvation (of all people and all demons) was also condemned by the 12th anathematism of the V Ecumenical Council: “Whoever claims that the powers of heaven and all people, and even evil spirits will unite with that God-Word in which there is no substance ... - let him be anathema." Subsequently, the general condemnation of the non-Orthodox opinions of Origen was confirmed by the fathers of the Trullo Council of 692, as well as the VI and VII Ecumenical Councils.
The opinion condemned by the 9th anathematism - about the finiteness of hellish torment - was expressed not only by Origen. In addition to him, the same thoughts can be found in Didymus the Blind, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Evagrius of Pontus, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Diodorus of Tarsus. And the Church has always uncompromisingly opposed this opinion.
"Optimistic" theology"
However, after a long time, the idea of universal restoration was revived again among a number of Orthodox theologians of the twentieth century11. This return of “optimistic eschatology” occurred in different ways, but in many ways it was caused by the need to rethink the position of Orthodoxy in a heterodox environment. Related to this is the fact that, as a rule, the active supporters of this error were theologians who lived in exile.
The ecumenical context was the first impetus for the return of the concept of apokatastasis. Ecumenism is the doctrine of the possible unification of all religions into some new unified system. The distortion that ecclesiology received in the general ecumenical guidelines of emigration theologians (we are talking about the recognition or at least the assumption of the equal salvation of other confessions/religions) initially concealed the logical need to overcome the dogma of the eternity of hellish torment. The second factor, even more significant, is the influence of the ideas of sophiology, to which many of the “optimist” theologians were not indifferent. The meaning of “Sophian unity” presupposed the same metaphysical prerequisites for universal restoration as classical Origenism.
The ideas of apocatastasis, dug up and cleared of the dust of centuries, turned out to be so widely popular among the under-churched Orthodox intelligentsia that they even found their way into the “Orthodox catechism” “As God Lives,” published by members of the Parisian Orthodox brotherhood in 1979. The Catechism aroused great interest in the West and was translated into Russian in 1990. The authors of this doctrinal work bluntly declare:
“Let us say frankly: the idea of eternal hell and eternal torment for some, eternal bliss, indifferent to suffering, for others can no longer remain in a living and renewed Christian consciousness as it was once portrayed by our catechisms and our official theology textbooks. This outdated understanding, which tries to rely on the Gospel texts, interprets them literally, roughly, materially, without delving into their spiritual meaning hidden in images and symbols. This concept is becoming more and more intolerant violence against the conscience, thought and faith of a Christian. We cannot admit that the Calvary sacrifice was powerless to redeem the world and defeat hell. Otherwise, one would have to say: all creation is a failure, and the feat of Christ is also a failure. It is high time for all Christians to jointly testify and reveal their intimate mystical experience in this area, as well as their spiritual hope, and perhaps their indignation and horror regarding the materialistic ideas of hell and the Last Judgment expressed in human images. It is high time to put an end to all these monstrous statements of past centuries, which create out of our God of love what He is not: an “external” God, Who is only an allegory of earthly kings and nothing more. The pedagogy of intimidation and horror is no longer effective. On the contrary, it blocks the entrance to the Church for many of those who seek the God of love.”
Similar statements can be found among our compatriots. As we see, the ambitions of the “optimists” are stated quite openly and quite aggressively.
The first thing that is alarming about the position of “eschatological optimists” is the point of view from which they view the problem: from the position of people who firmly know that they will definitely and will not go to hell under any circumstances. It all looks as if, with one, if not both, feet already in heaven, the “optimists” generously squander God’s mercy, figuring out under what pretext to have mercy on the unfortunate fallen angels and those people who are a little less fortunate than themselves.
I would like to believe that after the Last Judgment and the general resurrection, “optimist” theologians, together with their adherents, will really find themselves on the right side. But their writings were compiled in this mortal body and for those wearing the same mortal bodies, and therefore it is important to note that the angle of view chosen by them is radically different compared to the one adhered to by the holy fathers: “Everyone will be saved, I alone will perish.” Enlightened by personal holiness and the deep grace of God, the greatest minds of Christianity approached this mystery with great humility, constantly “keeping their minds in hell and not despairing” (Rev. Silouan of Athos); “I dwell where Satan is” (Abba Pimen). This approach completely excludes any basis for the emergence of ideas about the finality of hellish torment, because it reveals the deep moral depravity of the “optimistic” position: we are all, first of all, defendants and any reasoning about the inevitability of “amnesty” is incorrect - this is an attack on the mercy of the Judge.
If “eschatological optimists” understood this and followed the holy fathers, there would be no pretext for reviving a half-forgotten heresy, and there would be no need for this article. But since this understanding is not observed, and “optimist” theologians continue to persist in their error, moreover, to develop it and insist on the obligatory rejection of the original teachings of the Church for all Christians, as we saw in the example of the cited catechism, then we will have to consider their arguments.
The reasoning used to support the idea mentioned can be divided into three types: metaphysical, moral and legal.
Metaphysical argumentation: “The kingdom of the next century is the restoration of the world to its original state”
“At the Second Coming and the last consummation of times, the entire totality of the universe will enter into complete unity with God”; “After the incarnation and resurrection, death is restless: it is no longer absolute. Everything now rushes towards “άποκατάστασις των πάντων” - that is, to the complete restoration of everything that was destroyed by death, to the illumination of the entire cosmos with the glory of God, which will become “all in all””; “Every human life can always be renewed in Christ, no matter how burdened it may be with sins; a person can always give his life to Christ so that He will return it to him free and pure. And this work of Christ extends to all humanity beyond the visible boundaries of the Church.” “Eternity is God, the divine life, therefore those who are outside of God cannot remain in this state forever and after some period will inevitably be restored.
These are typical examples of attempts at metaphysical substantiation of “eschatological optimism.” Since they all basically go back to the same Origenist scheme, it would not be out of place to recall the words dedicated to it by Fr. Georgy Florovsky:
“The whole pathos of Origen’s system lies in removing, abolishing the riddle of time. This is precisely the intimate meaning of his famous teaching about “general restoration”, about apokatastasis. In Origen, this doctrine of “universal salvation” is not determined by moral motives at all. This is, first of all, a metaphysical theory. Apokatastasis is the negation of history. The entire content of historical time will dissipate without memory or trace. And “after” history there will only remain what was “before” history.”
We will come to the same conclusion if we take a closer look at the very premise of restoration in the metaphysical argumentation of the “optimists.”
It is not entirely clear why they consider the idea of “a return to what was before” to be Christian? The Church expects a fiery transformation of the life of the world into the kingdom of the next century, and not an inevitable universal return to the primitive state. There is no talk at all about any return of anyone to a primitive state. The Lord will say: “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5), and not “Behold, I am restoring old things.”
God, “just as he created those who did not exist, so he will recreate those who received existence - a creation that is more divine and higher than the former,” testifies St. Gregory the Theologian. Saint Epiphanius of Cyprus, speaking about the future transformation of the world, gives the following image: it will be like “the transformation of a child into a perfect man.” The premise of the “optimist” theologians about the return of the world to the womb of the pristine is directly opposite to this patristic perspective. In essence, this is the same denial of history, revealing the non-Christian roots of this metaphysical scheme. That is why this very premise was condemned in a separate paragraph at the Fifth Ecumenical Council: “Who says that the life of spirits will be similar to the life that existed from the beginning, when the spirits were not yet fallen and lost, and that the end will be the true measure of the beginning (emphasis added) us. - Yu.M.), let him be anathema" (15th anathema).
The patristic vision of man's afterlife can be described as symmetrical. Eternal heaven corresponds to eternal hell, eternal existence with God corresponds to eternal existence without God. It was this symmetry that many holy fathers appealed to in their dispute with supporters of the opinion about the finiteness of hellish torment. “For if there is ever an end to torment,” writes St. Basil the Great, “then eternal life, without a doubt, must have an end. And if we do not dare to think this about life, then what is the basis for putting an end to eternal torment? “Just as punishments are eternal, so eternal life should not subsequently have any end” (Blessed Jerome of Stridon)23. According to this vision, eternal hell would exist as a potentiality even if neither Lucifer nor the ancestors of the human race had fallen away from God. As a potency conditioned by the free will of created beings, it would exist even if there were no one in it.
Of the “optimist” theologians, only Fr. Sergius Bulgakov honestly admitted that the Fathers of the Church had just such a vision and just as honestly admitted that he did not agree with it, while completely unprovenly attributing to such a paternal vision the understanding of eternity as a special kind of temporality. In fact, the teaching of the Church, on the contrary, is a completely consistent denial of all temporality in eternity: “We will have to go with the demons to where the fire is unquenchable... and not for a few times or for a year, and not for a hundred or a thousand years , for the torment will have no end, as Origen thought, but forever and ever, as the Lord said” (Rev. Theodore the Studite)
“To accept, together with Origen, that evil will ultimately exhaust itself and only God will remain infinite means forgetting about the absolute nature of personal freedom: absolute precisely because this freedom is in the image of God.”
From the point of view of Orthodox theology, human freedom, as Fr. Georgy Florovsky, must include the freedom to make a decision even against God, “for the salvation of people is prepared not by violence and autocracy, but by conviction and good disposition. Therefore, everyone is sovereign in his own salvation, so that both those crowned and those punished justly receive what they have chosen” (Rev. Isidore Pelusiot). “God honored man by granting him freedom,” writes St. Gregory the Theologian, “so that good belongs personally to the one who chooses it, no less than to the One who laid the foundation for good in nature.”
denial of free will leads to the denial of God’s love itself, which is so verbally advocated by “optimist” eschatologists: “The concept of universal salvation, while denying the eternity of hell, simultaneously ignores the incomprehensible mystery of God’s love, which is above all our rational or sentimental concepts, and the mystery of the human personality and its freedom. God’s love presupposes complete respect for His creatures, even to the point of “free impotence” to deny them freedom.”
Thus, the position of supporters of apocatastasis leads not only to the denial of the value of human freedom, but also to the denial of both Divine justice and Divine love. It is completely in vain that some modern theologians contrast these two attributes to the extreme, trying to present them as mutually exclusive. Neither Scripture nor the Tradition of the Church tells us about such a categorical opposition. One cannot deny the other, since Divine justice is one of the expressions of Divine love.
“The stated teaching of the Holy Fathers of the Church on retribution explains why that duality, that contradiction between justice and Divine love, which various heretical sects could not resolve in any way, never arose in their minds... The Fathers, in accordance with Scripture, did not understand the truth of God in the sense of punishment anger, but in the sense of this property of God, according to which God rewards every free being according to his deeds, that is, in accordance with where man has determined himself... The truth of God is guided not by a feeling of insult, but by the moral dignity of existence. This truth cannot contradict love, for it is forced not by the desire for satisfaction, which excludes love, but by the direct impossibility, without denying Oneself, of giving peace and life to lawlessness.”
Moral Argumentation: “The God of Love cannot punish”
What is the main mistake in this thesis? The fact is that “optimist” theologians understand the torments of hell as an action on the part of God, while the holy fathers taught that this is a consequence caused by the individual himself. It is not God who is preparing an eternity of hell. Hell, according to St. Macarius of Egypt, lies “in the depths of the human heart.” “In the same way,” explains the Monk Simeon the New Theologian, “just as the blind, who do not see the shining sun, although they are completely illuminated by it, remain outside the light, being removed from it by sense and sight, so the Divine light of the Trinity will be in everything, but sinners , imprisoned in darkness, and in the midst of it they will not see him... but, scorched and condemned by their own conscience, they will have unspeakable torment and unspeakable sorrow forever.”
Simply, laconically and theologically impeccably, Saint Irenaeus of Lyons explained this truth back in the 2nd century: “He gives His fellowship to all who observe love for Him. Communication with God is life and light and enjoyment of all the good things that He has. And those who voluntarily depart from Him, He subjects them to excommunication from Himself, which they themselves chose. Separation from God is death, and separation from the light is darkness, and alienation from God is the deprivation of all the blessings that He has. But the blessings of God are eternal and without end, therefore their deprivation is eternal and without end, just as those who have blinded themselves or are blinded by others in relation to the immeasurable light are forever deprived of its sweetness, not because the light causes them the torment of blindness, but blindness itself causes them misfortune.” .
Yes, “God is love” (1 John 4:16) and this love “will be... all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28), but for those who have become the embodiment of hatred, it will become hellfire. This is exactly what the famous words of St. Isaac the Syrian speak about: “Those tormented in Gehenna are struck by the scourge of love”37.
Some “eschatological optimists” say that the fire of Gehenna is purifying in nature and supposedly has as its food the sins of a particular person or demon cast into it. Over time, this food will be destroyed and the fire, not finding a place for itself in the purified nature, will disappear - this is how restoration will take place. For some, a year will be enough, for others, a century, for others, millennia will be tormented... However, this is not so, and the torment cannot be long or short-term, because “time will be no more” (Rev. 10:6) . “Eternity in Christ Jesus is a state of being outside and above time.”
Trying to solve in such a direct and primitive way the question of how to reconcile Divine love with the eternal torment of those to whom it is addressed, “optimist” theologians create an equally difficult dilemma. After all, while proclaiming the inevitable “restoration of all things” in God, they, without noticing it themselves, fall into the madness of “forced paradise”: “In the next century, it is generally impossible not to know and not love God. This love is the law of existence here.”39 With this approach, Heavenly Jerusalem turns into a concentration camp.
“Optimist” theologians may truly not believe that anyone could sincerely not love God, their Creator and Heavenly Father. It seems to them, like Muslims, that the basis of sin lies only in ignorance of the goodness of God. Once a person knows, there will be no sin, Muslims say. As soon as he finds out, even after death and the general Resurrection, he will repent and fall with tears at the feet of the Lord, and the Lord, of course, will have mercy on him and accept him, say the “optimist” theologians, “and the cries of late repentance of sinners will join to the general symphony of the triumph of good”40 I wish it were so! Moreover, I would like sinners (and first of all, ourselves) to bring true repentance in this life. I would like even more so that no one sins and does not apostatize from God.
But this, unfortunately, is not the case. Because the basis of sin is not ignorance, but the personal will of a rational being. After all, both the devil and Adam knew - much better than us - the goodness of God, but they fell away. Their choice leaned towards a life without God. As K.S. subtly noted. Lewis, “There are only two kinds of people: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, “Thy will be done.” Everyone in hell chose him themselves.”
So what should God do with those who do not want to be with Him and in Him? By the collar and to heaven? Destroy? Don't create? The Lord does not follow any of the indicated paths, and precisely because He loves His creation, even after it rejected Him. Just one phrase of St. Gregory Palamas turns the incorrect perspective of “eschatological optimism” hidden in these issues into the perspective of the true generosity of the Creator: “God, because of His inherent goodness and mercy, did not allow those who had things to become bad of their own free will to come into being, but For the sake of the good he created those who are evil to become evil.”
Legal argument: “It is unjust to punish forever for a temporary sin”
“Can the God of love, proclaimed by Christ, endlessly punish for the sins of temporary life? Is the power of evil really so great that it will exist even when the Lord reigns “in everything?”
Saint John Chrysostom responded to this argument: “Don’t tell me: where is justice if torment has no end? When God does something, obey His determinations and do not subject them to human speculation.” What to do, in Orthodox Christianity, a person’s relationship with God is not usually thought of in the category of justice. This does not mean that Divine justice as such is denied; we only say that for those who completely entrust themselves to the mercy of God, “mercy exalts itself over judgment” (James 2:13). Just as “just as a grain of sand cannot maintain balance with a large weight of gold, so the demands of God’s justice do not maintain balance in comparison with God’s mercy,” says St. Isaac the Syrian. But “if you demand justice, then, according to the law of truth, we should have perished immediately at the beginning,” continues St. John Chrysostom.
In addition, as Saint Justinian the Great rightly noted, there is not much justice in “combining those who have led a life of perfection to the end with the lawless and fornicators and admitting that both will enjoy the same benefits.” "
Finally, it is necessary to pay attention to how Saint Gregory Dvoeslov answered this question. “This bewilderment would be justified,” says the saint, “if the irritable Judge considered not the hearts of people, but only deeds. The wicked had the end of their sins because they had the end of their lives. They would like, if they could, to live endlessly, so that they could sin endlessly.”
St. Gregory of Sinaite offers another image: “Just as the germs of hellish torment lurk invisibly in the souls of sinners already on earth, so the firstfruits of heavenly blessings are communicated in the hearts of the righteous through the Holy Spirit”49. That is, by our death we give birth to that eternal fate that we have been carrying within ourselves all this life. This is the deepest meaning of this temporary life, which is ignored by “optimistic theology”: “here crowns of victory are given to the victors as pledges; just as for the vanquished, here is the beginning of their shame and torment.”
The “optimistic” position reflects a perverted understanding of eternity, according to which it turns out that eternity is a continuation of our present existence, only in the absence of death. But Orthodoxy thinks completely differently: eternity is another existence. As St. John of Damascus writes, “eternal life and eternal torment signify the infinity of the future century. For time after the resurrection will no longer be counted in days and nights, or, better, then there will be one non-evening day, since the Sun of righteousness will shine clearly for the righteous, but for sinners there will be a deep, endless night.”
Argumentation from the Misunderstood Doctrine of Christ's Descent into Hell
More recently, another variation of “optimistic theology” has appeared. Its supporters, in contrast to the “optimists”-ecumenists, recognize that it is impossible to be saved outside the Orthodox Church and that salvation is only in Christ and is inextricably linked with the recognition of Him as God and man. However, they manage to intertwine this truth with the Origenist lie in the following way.
Firstly, they teach that the Lord Jesus Christ, after dying on the cross, descended into hell and brought out of it the souls of absolutely all the people who had died before. Secondly, they say, the descent into hell was not a one-time act, but is a continuing action, so that Christ, as it were, constantly remains in hell, so that he can meet the souls of all dying people there and preach to them, and these souls are already convinced after death directly by Christ, accept Orthodoxy and are led out of hell.
Stated “in its pure form,” this false teaching looks so absurd that it seems unnecessary to refute it, but since it is heard from people who have some fame and even authority in the Orthodox community, and, in addition, there are people misled by it, it is not It would be superfluous to say a few words in refutation.
First of all, it should be noted that the idea that Christ, having descended into hell, freed the souls of absolutely everyone there, is not characteristic of the Church. If we turn to the works of the holy fathers, we will see a completely different teaching.
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem spoke about the removal from hell only of the Old Testament saints: “He descended into the underworld in order to free the righteous from there too. The holy prophets and Moses the lawgiver, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, David and Samuel and Isaiah, and John the Baptist came running... All the righteous, whom death had swallowed up, were redeemed. For it became the preached King to become the redeemer of good preachers. Then each of the righteous said: “Death, where is your victory? Hell, where is your sting? For the Conqueror has redeemed us."
Blessed Jerome says that the Savior descended into hell “in order to victoriously take with Him to heaven the souls of the saints who were imprisoned there.”
The Monk John Cassian writes: “Having penetrated hell, Christ... crushed the iron faiths, and brought the holy captives, held in the impenetrable darkness of hell, from captivity with Him to heaven.”
From St. Epiphanius of Cyprus we read: “What then? Does God save everyone by appearing in hell? No, but even there – only believers.”
The Monk John of Damascus also wrote that the Lord preached to everyone in hell, but for some this sermon was for salvation, and for others it was for reproof: “The deified soul descends into hell, so that, just as the Sun of righteousness may shine for those who are in the earth, so In the same way, for those who were underground, who were in darkness and the shadow of death, the light shone; so that, just as the Lord preached peace to those on earth, liberation to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and became the cause of eternal salvation for those who believed, and the reproof of unbelief for those who did not believe, in the same way he preached to those in hell.”
The assertion that the Lord continues to be in hell, preaching there to new souls of the dying and convincing them to believe in Him, is a completely new teaching, never before known to the Church and alien to its faith. Which in itself brings him under the words of the apostle: “Whoever preaches to you any gospel other than what you have received, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:9). The Church teaches that the Lord Jesus Christ descended into hell as a deified soul when it remained separated by death from His body. Then his soul united with his body and the Resurrection occurred, and then the miraculous Ascension into heaven, and now Christ, according to humanity, dwells at the right hand of the Father. Actually, every Christian speaks about this, confessing in the symbol of faith the Lord Jesus Christ, “who rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father.”
One can also cite the words of St. Innocent of Kherson: “Our Savior descended into hell Himself, by His will and His power, He descended in order to soon leave hell, He descended alone in order to bring from there all who were awaiting His coming with faith.”
This false teaching deprives the existence of the earthly Church of meaning, because with this approach it becomes completely unnecessary: if we accept that after death Christ still personally meets everyone in hell and gives the opportunity to enter heaven, then what difference does it make - to be in the Church or outside of it? , lead an ascetic life or wallow in sins if everyone has the same end?
Raising the question of the universality of salvation is incorrect. This is, first of all, a deeply personal question. No collectivism is appropriate here. It’s impossible to say: if only five percent are saved, then this is contrary to Divine love, but if two-thirds are saved, then that’s all right. Of course, if we approach questions of eschatology based on statistical criteria, then, indeed, only one hundred percent salvation should be considered ideal. “But this opinion is very erroneous,” says the Monk Ambrose of Optina, “because nowhere in Holy Scripture is a special spiritual right attributed to multitudes and numbers. The Lord clearly showed that the sign of the true Catholic Church does not lie in multitudes and numbers when He says in the Gospel: “Fear not, little flock! for it has been your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). There is also an example in Holy Scripture that is not in favor of the multitude. After the death of Solomon, under his son, the kingdom of Israel was divided, and the Holy Scripture presents the ten tribes as having fallen away, but the two tribes, which remained faithful to their duty, did not fall away” (Response to those favorable to the Latin Church). One can also recall the words of St. Gregory Palamas that, even if there were only one righteous person among people who became so by his own will, this would justify in the eyes of God both the creation of the world and the falling away of all other rational beings.
In conclusion, I would like to note that the Church responded to attempts to revive the ideas of apokatastasis in the twentieth century in exactly the same way as in previous centuries. The Council of Bishops of 1935, chaired by the Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan (later Patriarch) Sergius (Stragorodsky) and dedicated to the teachings of Archpriest Sergius Bulgakov, repeated:
“We must not forget that the devil can no longer turn, and likewise all those who have completely surrendered to him. This means that next to the “city of God” and “outside” it (Rev. 22:15) there will forever remain an area of rejection, the “second death” (Rev. 21:8). Revelation does not know the apocatastasis of all creation, but only the deification of those who will be with Christ. “God will be everything” only in the “sons of the Kingdom,” everything in everyone whose will has consciously been identified with the will of God.”
Will the torment in hell really be endless?
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No one has yet dared to answer definitively the question of whether torment in hell will last forever. There is quite a lot of controversy about this issue, since some believe that the torment will be eternal, while others say that hell is rather intended to cure the soul of sin and bring it to the state where it is ready to live forever with God. You can often hear the opinion that eternal hellish torment is intended for people who have committed sins of particular gravity. As for the opinion of the holy fathers, who often talked about hell and eternal torment, they write about this:
- torment in hell will not be temporary for sinners, but will last for eternity, says John Chrysostom;
- in addition to God's Love, there is also God's truth, therefore people who have meaningfully sinned during life and have not rightly repented will spend eternity in hell, says Theophan the Recluse;
- sinners will be uncomfortable in heaven and unpleasant to be before God, so hell is prepared for them, says Theophan the Recluse.
Although Catholics consider hell a place of purification, Orthodoxy is more critical of this issue and believes that unrepentant sinners cannot go to heaven, even after undergoing terrible torment in hell for a certain time. Orthodox fathers and teachers of the church believe that unrepentant sinners will never be worthy of being in heaven and will not even be able to be there, therefore eternal torment in hell is prepared for them, which will never end.
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What is the torment of the souls of sinners during this period?
A number of Orthodox theologians associate the forms of torment of sinners in hell with certain biblical symbolism: with the symbolism of burning in fire - the torment of conscience, with the symbolism of the worm - the manifestation of unresolved sinful passions, with the symbolism of darkness - the feeling of being abandoned by God.
And, for example, St. Mark of Ephesus, mentioning the fear, remorse, uncertainty of the future, deprivation of contemplation of God experienced by sinners, in his “Answers to Questions of the Latins” expresses the opinion that sinners “do not yet suffer torment in the fire of Gehenna, but as if they have it before their eyes; Because of the vision and the expectation of falling into it, they undoubtedly suffer bitterly.” Regarding the question of whether the captives of hell are subjected to all torments at the same time, he says that “since these torments are different and equal according to human sins, then for some all such torments correspond, for others - some of them; and for some it is more severe, and for others it is lighter.”
Based on the patristic teaching and visions of the afterlife from church tradition, the following can be noted.
“Tribulation and distress to every soul of every man who does evil” (Rom. 2:9), says the Apostle Paul. St. Paisius the Svyatogorets reveals this spiritual law as follows: “Already in this life, we will either taste the sweetness of heaven to some extent and from here we will go to heaven, or we will partly endure hellish torment and - save us from this, God - we will end up in hell. Good is heaven, and evil is hellish torment. By doing good, a person rejoices; by sinning, he suffers. The more good deeds a person does, the more joy he feels, the more evil he does, the more his soul languishes.” The awareness that life was lived and ruined by vices, constant reproaches of conscience for all the sins committed, the most painful awareness of the impossibility of immediately changing anything - all this will incessantly torment the unfortunate. In addition, the inability to satisfy their sinful desires and passions acquired during life, and which will not disappear anywhere, will burn these poor creatures like a flame.
The souls of sinners are “in a state of darkness, sorrow and suffering” (Long Christian Catechism). In hell there is darkness, crowded conditions, sounds of screams coming from everywhere, souls are deprived of the opportunity to see each other, but they see the spirits of evil in their hellish ugliness.
