Question:

After death, immediately (or forty days or so) the souls are going to be in hell or in heaven. That means that they are judged before (remember poor Lazarus who went to heaven and the rich man who wanted to warn his brothers to make their life good - he was sent to hell). My question is: if the souls are judged once after death, then for whom is the last judgment when Jesus Christ will come again? All the dead ones will be resurrected and judged again with the rest of the people?

Dan Anci

REPLY:

There are a number of things wrong with the concepts you express in the question and you are right to question them. I will leave it to St Mark of Ephesus to answer your questions. Note in the following words of St Mark that no one is in heaven or hell yet. Indeed, according to St Mark, hell does not even exist yet. Please note especially St Mark's comments about the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man. His comments are extremely important considering the way that parable is misused by the ignorant. Just incidentely, it is clear that many people do not understand the difference between the use of "hades" and "hell" in Orthodox Christian writings. This is why some ask the question, "If St Mark teaches that hell does not yet exist, how did Christ descend into hell after the crucifixion and how did St John the Baptist preach there." The answer is, neither Christ nor St John the Baptist went to hell. Both appeared in "hades," which is a Greek word used metaphorically for the undefinable pscychological condition of the departed. It is neither a place nor a concept of suffering. The Old Testament faithful were not sent to hell. They reposed in a state or condition referred to metaphorically by the Greek term "hades." It has no relationship whatsoever to "hell," which is also not a place and not something created, but rather is a state or condition of eternal separation from God.

St Mark of Epehsus instructs us:

But if, as was said, no-one has entered either the Kingdom or Gehenna, how is it that we hear concerning the rich man and Lazarus that the former was in fire and torment and spoke with Abraham? The Lord said everything about Lazarus in the manner of a parable, even as He spoke of the ten virgins and in the rest of the parables. The parable of Lazarus has not come to pass in actuality, because the sinners in Gehenna shall not see the righteous who are with Abraham in the Kingdom, nor will any of them know his neighbour, being in that darkness.

Accepting this opinion our Church thus is minded and preaches, and She is most ready and well prepared to defend it. Firstly, the Lord in the Gospel according to Matthew describes beforehand the judgment to come, saying, "Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit..." - it is evident that they have not yet inherited - "the kingdom prepared for you;" "prepared" He says, not "already given." But to sinners He says, "Depart ye cursed" - evidently they have not yet departed - into everlasting fire "prepared" not for you but "for the devil and his angels." Here again He says "prepared," since [that fire] has not yet received the condemned demons. And how could this be, when the demons even till now and until that very day roam about everywhere in the air and work their deeds in those who obey them? This very thing they cry out to the Lord in another place, as it is recorded in the same Gospel, "Art Thou come hither to torment us before the time?" So it is clear that they do not endure torment yet, since the time has not yet come. If, therefore, the wicked demons, the first to work evil, for whom hell has especially been prepared and stored up, if they have not yet paid the debt of their fitting condemnation and freely wander about wherever they wish, what reasoning could persuade us that souls which amidst sins have departed from hence are straightaway given over to fire and to those torments which are prepared for others [i.e., the demons]? Nay, but then what need is there of the judgment, or even of the resurrection of the bodies of these [souls], and of the Judge's coming [again] to earth and of that fearsome, universal theatre, if each man has received his due before that day? And how is it that the Lord in the parable of the virgins syas that the virgin souls who went forth to meet the Bridegroom "slumbered and slept while the Bridegroom tarried," which means that they died, but that they did not not enter the bridal chamber until the Bridegroom came from Heaven, awakening all the virgins as it were from sleep, and the one group he led within along with Himself, while the others He shut out, which thing clearly shall come to pass only on that day? For He says, "Then shall the Kingdom of the heavens be likened to ten virgins." And how it is that having travelled into a far country and delivered unto His servants His goods, He summons all together upon His return and and requires of each one his work, if even before the Master's return each of the servants has laid bare his work and received his recompense?

But also the divine Apostle in his second epistle to the Corinthians says, "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the things done [lit. through] his body, according to that which he hath done, whether it be good or bad" (2Cor.5:10). Do you see that before [the time of] that judgment seat and before [the time when] we shall all appear gathered together, [that is] while we are bereft of our bodies, no one shall receive according to that which he has done through his body? But also in his second epistle to Timothy he says that on the one hand the time of his departure is "at hand," but the crown of righteousness is "laid up," and therefore is not "at hand," that "which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing" (2Tm.4:6-8). And in the second epistle to the Thessalonians, "Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to those who trouble you, and to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, taking vengeance on those who know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with the everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power, when He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all those who believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day" (2Ths.1:6-10). And again in the epistle to the Hebrews where he speaks concerning the saints who have gone before us, "And all these, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect" (Hb.11:39-40). This we must think concerning all the faithful and righteous who lived until the Master's coming. For just as those who have gone before have not been made perfect without the apostles, so neither are the apostles without the martyrs, nor the martyrs without those who after them have entered and shall enter into the good vineyard of the Church. This is indeed taught most lucidly by the parable where at different times there were different callings for workmen into the vineyard, but the recompense was given to all at the same time, and those who came first received nothing more. The great Evangelist, John the Theologian says the same in Revelations: "And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the soul of those who were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held, and they cried with a loud voice saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them and it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants and also their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled" (Rev.6:9-11). From all these things, therefore, it is evident that neither are the saints in perfect enjoyment of those good thing and of the blessedness to come, nor have sinners already received condemnation and been sent away to torment. And, indeed, since they are incomplete and, as it were, cut in half, being bereft of their bodies which they wait to receive incorruptible after the resurrection, how could they attain to those perfect rewards? Hence the Apostle says, "Christ the first fruits, afterwards those who are Christ's at His coming, then cometh the end" (1Cor.15:23, 24), then, he says they shall appear, then they shall be perfected. And the Lord says, "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of the heavens" (cf Mt.13:43). (TEN ARGUMENTS AGAINST PURGATORY).

+Archbishop Lazar