For what people get to hell. Paradise in the Holy Scripture

Heaven and Hell

Today, Orthodox theology, more and more often come across the "theology of uncertain concepts". For a person, accustomed to call everything with his own names, it is difficult to get used to strange judgments about the lack of award and punish God, as well as God's fishery and court. Attacks are subject to such well-established concepts as paradise and hell. These places - approve modernists - not there are places, but only a different way of perceiving God's love, which torments sinners and pleases the righteous . Paradise and blood pressure, therefore, are distinguished by the experiences of the same non-residential energy of God. For the righteous, it will be inevitable light and peace, but for sinners of the gearny fiery. At the same time it is understood that God never ceases to love his rejected him and sheds the light of his love on those whom he brings the most severe torment. Such a curious point of view on divine love makes us consider this question more.

Before God, modernists get a big problem: possessing omnipotence, he can only come on love, but this strange love has no opportunity to show his attitude towards a person. The limitations of such God is surprising: he cannot judge, that is, to dispose of the fate of the creations, over which it has full power, is afraid to reward and punish not to bring strusting in the legal nature of the relationship. He cannot treat a person as a person deserves, but can only hypocrite, depicting anger, since all the same love does not recognize the existence of any other properties other than love. The human right to endless divine love, as well as the right of those who do not want this love, put this god to a dead end. He can't send sinners to hell, as it would be the most punishment, but to make sinners with righteous, which could be blissing, too, because it really respects the rights of sinners. In order to formally follow these two conditions, only one thing remains: to leave sinners with you, so that they do not forget about a respectful attitude towards their rights and remembered the absolute love that is not capable of punishment. However, refer to St. Scripture.

When the owner of the house stands up and creates the door, then you stand out, you will knock on the door and say: Lord! Lord! Take us away; But he will tell you in response: I do not know you from where you are. Then you will say: we ate and drank before you, and you taught our streets. But he will say: I tell you: I do not know you, where are you from; Get out of me all the doors of unrighteous. There will be a crying and crushing teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and themselves expelled. (Luk.13: 25-28)

From this place of the Gospel, each unbiased-related reader can make several simple, but important conclusions.

Such a dialogue of modernists tend to understand in some unknown believers, an allegorical sense. Often, confirmation of their words by modernists are given the words of the PRP. Isaac Sirin, who writes:

"I say that tormented in Geen are amazed by the scourge of love! And how bitter and brutally it is a torment of love! For those who have fallen, they surveated against the love, suffer the torment that wondered by the fear of torment; Sadness hitting the heart for sin against love, worse than all sorts of punishment. Inappropriate to anyone such a thought that sinners in Genne are deprived of the love of God. Love is the export of truth, which (in what everyone agrees) is given to everyone at all. But the love of his power acts in two ways: she tormented sinners, as it happens here to tolerate from each other, and having fun who followed his duty. And so, in my argument, Geenne torment is repentance. The souls of the Almosts of the Horn in the Sons of Lyubov will be protected by its joy "(PRP. Isaac Sirin. Words of Motograms. Reprint, M. 1993, p. 70)

PS Isaac talks about tormented in Geenne, who are amazed by the scourge of love. Does this mean that speaking about Geenne, St. The devotee meant not a specific place, but only one state of torment from God's love? If you think so, then it turns out the Tavtology: "Muslims in love, which are amazed by the scourge of love." PS Isaac talks about the inappropriateness of that thought that sinners in Genna are deprived of the love of God and adds: "Love has a fact of the truth, which is given to everyone." These are very important words that shed light on the essence of the question under consideration. All created, including Geenna, there are due to the exclusion of the Creator and they themselves do not have a pretty beginning. In each of the reasonable creations there is love, which manifests itself in the form of a voice of conscience. Conscience can be called the generation of truth, which is present only in humans and causes the degree of responsibility of human actions. In the case of unreasonable creations (animals, plants, etc.) we have the fact of the presence of God's love as the causes that generates their being. If we talk about the geential torment, the presence of Divine Love as an eternal being of hell and sinners at the same time is at the same time for the latter and endlessly represented by the truth that was rejected by them on earth. It is an infinite loss of the truth-rejected on Earth will generate befriended repentance and bring inexpressible torments, which is "worse than all sorts of punishment." But it does not speak at all about the energetic nature of hell and paradise. To these flour of fruitless repentance will be added and hellish torments, respectively, the degrees of sinfulness: darkness (MF. 8, 12), Geenna Fire (Matt. 5, 22), crushing teeth (Matthew 13, 42) , 48), etc. In this regard, it is appropriate to bring two examples, brightly illustrating the inactivity of the state in paradise and hell.

"Here is a story about two friends, of which one went to the monastery and led the Holy Lifestyle there, and the other remained in peace and lived sinfully. When a friend who lived sinfully, suddenly died, his friend-monk began to pray to God to open him the fate of his comrade. Once in a dream, he was a deceased friend and began to talk about his unbearable torments and how the inappropriate worm would give him. Having said it, he raised his clothes to his knee and showed his leg, which was covered with a terrible worm, who disappeared her. From the Russian Academy of Sciences on the leg, such a terrible SMRArad came out that the monk immediately woke up. He jumped out of the kesels, leaving the door to open, and SMRArad from Kehei spread over the entire monastery. Since the stench did not decrease, then all the monks had to move to another place. And the monk, who saw the hellish prisoner, was unable to get rid of the Smand admitted to him "(from the book" Eternal Morobi Secrets ", the publication of St. Panteleimonovsky Monastery in Athos).

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

From the lives of St. Andrei Yurody:

"Once, during the harsh winter, St. Andrei lay on the street and died from the cold. Suddenly he felt in himself an extraordinary warmth and saw a wonderful young man with a face glowing like the sun. This young man led him to heaven, on the third sky. That's what sv. Andrei told, returning to Earth:
"According to Divine Decalion, I stayed for two weeks in a sweet vision ... I saw myself in paradise, and here I was on the unspecified charms of this beautiful and wondrous place. There were many gardens filled with high trees, which, breaking with their vertices, fun My vision, and the branches of them proceeded by pleasant fragrance ... These trees can not be like a beauty in beauty, in those gardens there were countless birds with gold, snow-white and multi-colored wings. They sat on the branches of the paradise trees and sang so beautifully that From their sweet singing, I did not remember myself ... "

Sensual description of Paradise reminds us of the words of the Lord: In the house of the father of my monastery a lot. And if it were not, I would say you: I go to cook the place to you. (In.14, 2). But the presence of visible beauty in paradise does not deprive his inhabitants of the joy of spiritual consolation. It would be strange to believe that heavenly bliss concerns only the spiritual side of human nature. After universal resurrection everything People enjoy in nonentible bodies. The righteous people will experience bliss by all their being: spirit, soul and body. Sinners will experience torment, also extending to all human nature. But at the same time, it is necessary to realize that there will be a lot of degrees of hellish torment, and it is quite possible to assume that the "death" from the MUK will be a tomorrow of the spirit and body because of the inability to stay with God in the heavenly abode.

Summing up this rather strange teaching, it is safe to say that the modernist understanding of Paradise and Hell proceeds from the concept of the uniqueness of the property of Divine Love. The sensuality of Paradise and Hell seem to modernists with something rough, since it reminds them of award-winning and punishment, the concept of which they are diligently perverted. Posthumous private and terrible courts, consist only in registration of arrivals in some (place?) Divine love. It was to such a ridiculous conclusion that the clarification of the new theologians, rejecting the reality of the positions of the afterlife and trying to bring elements of the Merbal Pantheism and Buddhist Nirvana.

"From the patristic legend it is clear that Paradise and hell cannot be considered as two different places, but God himself is a paradise for saints and hell for sinners." Metropolitan Ierofey (Vlasos). Heaven and Hell. from. eight.

Paradise (Gen. 2: 8, 15: 3, Ioil 2: 3, Lux 23: 42.43, 2kor 12: 4) - This is the word of Persian origin and means the garden. So the wonderful dwelling of the first person described in the book is called. Genesis. Paradise, in which the first people stayed, was for the body of real, as a visible blissful dwelling, and for the soul - spiritual, as a state of gracious communication with God and the spiritual contemplation of creatures.

They are called the blissful dwelling of celers and righteous people who inherit them after the terrible court of God.

Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev):

Paradise is not so much place as the condition of the soul; As the hell is a suffering that occurred from the inability to love and innocence to the Divine Light, and heaven is the bliss of the soul, which arises from the transfusion of love and light, to which the one who united with Christ is fully attached fully and fully attached. This is not contrary to the fact that paradise is described as a place with various "abode" and "parses"; All the descriptions of Paradise are only attempts to express the human language what is inexpressible and surpasses the mind.

In the Bible, "Paradeisos) called a garden where God placed a man; The same word in the ancient church tradition called the future of the bliss of people redeemed and saved by Christ. It is also referred to as the "kingdom of heaven", the "life of the future century", "the eighth day", "New Sky", "Heavenly Jerusalem".

Holy Apostle John Theologian says: "And I saw a new sky and a new land, because the old sky and the former land was already passed, and the sea is no longer; And I, John, saw the holy city of Jerusalem, a new, coming from God from the sky, cooked as a bride, decorated for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the sky, talking: Ce, the tabernacles of God with the people, and he will dwell with them, they will be His people, and God himself will be their God. And God's delay, every tear with the eyes of them, and death will not be already: neither crying nor a scream, no illness will no longer be, for the oldest passed. And he said Sitting on the throne: CE, I do everything new ... I am alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end; Thirsty I will give a gift from the water source alive ... and ascended me (Angel) in the Spirit on the Great and High Mountain, and showed me the Great City, Saint Jerusalem, who descended from the sky from God. He had the glory of God ... The temple I did not see in him, for the Lord God Almighty - His Temple, and the Lamb. And the city has no need for neither the sun, nor in the moon to illuminate their own; For the glory of God lit it, and his lamp is a lamb. Saved peoples will walk in the light of him ... And nothing will be unclean and nobody will be included in it and lies, but only those written by the Life in the Book of Life "(apoc. 21: 1-6, 10, 22-24, 27 ). This is the earliest in Christian literature a description of Paradise.

Reading the descriptions of paradise, found in the agiographic and theological literature, it is necessary to keep in mind that most of the writers of the Eastern Church speak about the paradise, which they saw, in which they were admired by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Even among our contemporaries, who have experienced clinical death, there are people who visited heaven and told about their experience; In the lives of the saints, we find many descriptions of Paradise. Rev. Feodora, Rev. Effrosionin Suzdal, Rev. Simeon Divnogorets, Saint Andrey Yurody and some other saints were, like the apostle Paul, "admired to the third sky" (2 Cor. 12: 2) and contemplated paradise bliss.

This is what Saint Andrei says (x in.): "I saw myself in paradise perfect and amazing, and, admiring the Spirit, I thought:" What is it? .. How did I find himself here? .. "I've seen herself clothered in the most Light apparel, as if exploding out of lightning; The crown was on the head of my woven of great colors, and I was obscured by the tsar's belt. Having rejoicing this beauty, wondering by the mind and heart of the unraded to God of God, I walked on him and having fun. There were many gardens with high trees: they were hesitated by the tops with their own and enjoyed their eyesight, the branches came great fragrance from the branches ... It is impossible to like the trees to like one terrestrial tree: God's hand, and not the human planted them. Birds in these gardens were countless ... I saw the Great River, current in the middle (gardens) and their filling. On the other side of the river there was a vineyard ... breathe there from four sides winds quiet and fragrant; The gardens were heard from their breath and produced a wonderful noise with their leaves ... After that, we entered a wonderful globe, which was not poured, but only enlightened. I started horrified, and again led me (Angel) turned to me and filed my hand, saying: "We must climb even higher." With this word, we found yourself above the third sky, where I saw and heard many of the heavenly forces, singing and salloneous God ... (going even above), I saw the Lord of My, as the once Isaiah-prophet, sitting on the throne, high and extomed, surrounded by seraphims. He was covered in crimson clothes, his face was shone in unfamiliated light, and he drew his eyes with love with love. I saw him, I fell in front of him on my face ... What's the reason for the vision of his face, it was impossible to express me, so it's impossible to express, so now, remembering this vision, I fulfill inevitable sweetness "Reverend Feodoron saw in paradise" Beautiful villages and numerous abode Having prepared by loving God, "and heard the" voice of joy and merry of spiritual. "

In all descriptions of Paradise, it is emphasized that earth words can only portray the heavenly beauty, as she is "extradited" and surpasses human comprehension. Also said about the "many abode" of Paradise (in. 14: 2), that is, about different degrees of bliss. "Some (God) will take great honors, others," says Saint Vasily Great, "because" the star from the star will be varied in glory "(1 Cor. 15:41). And since "in the midwife" at the father, then some are in a state more excellent and high, and others in the lower ".3 However, for each of his" abode "will be the highest full of blissfulness - in accordance with how much he approached God in earthly life. All the saints that are in paradise will see and know each other, and Christ will see and fill everyone, says the Rev. Simeon New Theologian. In the kingdom of heaven, "the righteous people will enlighten, like the sun" (Matt. 13:43), like God (1 in. 3: 2) and know it (1 Cor. 13:12). Compared to the beauty and light of paradise, our land is the "gloomy darkness", and the light of the Sun compared to the triipostasic light is similar to a small candle. Even those heights of the theology, which was brought by the Rev. Simeon during life, compared with the future of people's bliss in Paradise - it's like the sky, drawn by a pencil on paper, compared with this sky. According to the teachings of Rev. Simeon, all images of paradise, found in the living literature, - fields, forests, rivers, palaces, birds, flowers, etc., are only the symbols of Bliss, which is the ineven contemplation of Christ.

Metropolitan Surozhsky Anthony:

Adam lost paradise - it was his sin; Adam lost heaven, is the horror of his suffering. And God does not condemn; He calls, he supports. So that we come to feel, he puts us in the conditions that clearly tell us about what we die we need to escape. And he remains our Savior, not judge. Christ several times in the Gospel says: I have come not to judge the world, but save the world (Inm, 17; 12.47). Until the fullness of time will come, until the end comes, we are under the court of our conscience, we are under the court of a divine word, we are under the court of a vision of Divine love embodied in Christ - yes. But God does not judge; He prayes, he calls, he lives and dies. He goes to the very depths of human hell so that only we can believe in love and come to my senses, do not forget that there is paradise.

And Paradise was in love; And the sin of Adam is that he did not save love. The question is not in obedience or in front of listening, but that God suggested all myself, without a balance: your being, love, wisdom, keeping - all he gave this union of love, which makes one of two creatures (as Christ speaks of himself And about the Father: I'm in my father and my father in me [in. 14,11]; how the fire can penetrate the iron, how heat penetrates the bone's brain). And in this love, in an inseparable, inseparable connection with God, we could be wise wisdom, to love all the scorch and the bottomless depth of his love, know all the leading of the Divine. But the man was warned: do not look for knowledge through the bustling of the fetus from the tree of good and evil, - do not look for the cold knowledge of the mind, external, alien love; Do not look for the knowledge of the flesh, intoxicating and blinking, blinding ... And the person seduced for this; He wanted to know what kind of good and so evil. And he created good and evil, because evil is in that and to disappear from love. He wanted to learn what to be and not to be, - but he could know it, only being established forever through love, which brought to the depths of his being in Divine Love.

And man fell; And with him all the universe was shaken; All, everything was overshadowed and shocked. And the court to whom we rushing, the terrible court, which will be at the end of times, is also only about love. Parable about goats and sheep (MF.25,31-46) It is about this that: did you lose generous, affectionate, bold, good love on earth? Did you regret the hungry, did you regret naked, stray, did you have enough courage to visit the prisoner in prison, did you forget a person who is sick, in a hospital, lonely? If you have this love - then there is a way to you and in Divine Love; But if there is no earthly love - how can you enter Divine Love? If the fact that you are given by nature, you can't do, how can you hope for superfront, on a wonderful, in God? .. And here in this world we live.

A story about the paradise in some point, of course, allegory, because this is a world that died, the world to which we do not have access; We do not know what to be a sinless, innocent creature. And in the language of the fallen world, you can only with images, art, similarities to point out what happened and what no one else sees and does not know ... We see how Adam lived - as a friend of God; We see that when Adam ripened, reached some kind of wisdom and keeping through his admission to God, God led all the creatures to him, and Adam each creature gave a name - not a nickname, and then the name that expressed the very secret of this creatures. God, as if warned Adam: Look, look - you see the creature, you understand her; Because you share my keeping with me, because you can divide him in your other incomplete maturity, the depths of the creature in front of you are revealed ... And when Adam looked in all the creature, he did not see himself in it, because, although he was taken from the ground, Although he is his flesh and a soulful being part of this universe, real and spiritual, but in it there is also a spark of God, the breath of God, which the Lord blown into Him, making an unprecedented creature from him.

Adam knew that he was alone; And God brought a deep dream for him, separated from him a certain part, and Eva got up before him. St. John Zlatoust indicates how in the beginning in a person all the possibilities were laid and as gradually, as it matured, it began to manifest themselves not compatible in one creature and men's and women's properties. And when he reached the maturity, God divided them. And not in vain Adam exclaimed: it is flesh from my flesh, this is a bone from my bone! She will call his wife, because she would be rehydrated from me ... (Gen..22). Yes; But what did these words mean? They could mean that Adam, looking at Eve, saw that she had a bone from his bones, flesh from his flesh, but that she had the originality that she was a full-fledged creature, to the end of a significant, which is connected with the living God in a unique way as And he is uniquely connected with him; Or they could mean that he saw in her only the reflection of his own being. This is how we see each other almost constantly; Even when love connects us, we often do not see a person in it itself, but see him in relation to yourself; We look at his face, we look into his eyes, we listen to in his words - and we are looking for an echo of our own existence ... It is terrible to think that so often we look at each other - and we see only your mapping. Another person - we do not see; It is only the reflection of our existence, our existence.

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin:

The Lord clearly talks about whoever will enter the kingdom of heaven. First of all, he suggests that a person who wants to enter this kingdom must have faith in him, a true faith. The Lord himself says: "Who will believe and be baptized, will be saved, and who will not believe, will be convicted." The Lord predicts the condemnation of people to flour. He does not want this, Lord Mercy, but he, at the same time, says that people who do not match the high spiritual and moral ideal expects crying and teeth. We do not know what paradise will be, we do not know how the hell will be, but it is obvious that people who freely chose life without God, the life contrary to His commandments will not remain without formidable reward, primarily associated with the internal mental state of these people . I know that there is hell, I knew the people who left this world in the state of the ready-made inhabitants of Hell. Some of them, by the way, committed suicide, which I am not surprised. They could say that this is not necessary to do this, because a person is waiting for eternal life, but they did not want eternal life, they wanted eternal death. People who fought in other people and in God, after met by God, would not have changed. I think the Lord would offer them their mercy and love. But they will tell him: "We do not need it." There are a lot of such people in our earthly world, and I do not think that they will be able to change after the transition of the border separating the earthly world from the world of eternity.

Why should faith be true? When a person wants to communicate with God, he must understand him as it is, he must ask exactly to whom he draws, not imagining God for something or someone and who he is not.

Now it is fashionable to say that God is alone, but there are different ways to him, and what the difference, which one or another religion or confession or the philosophical school imagines God ─ still God alike. Yes, God alone. No many gods. But this one God, as Christians believe, is that God who has opened himself in Jesus Christ and in his revelation, in Holy Scripture. And, referring instead of God, to someone else, to the merits with other characteristics or to a creature, not a possessing person, or at all to a non-essence, we do not appeal to God. We appeal at best, for something or someone who we yourself came up with, for example, to "God in the shower." And sometimes we can contact both creatures that are different from God and God are not. It can be angels, people, nature of nature, dark forces.

So, in order to enter the kingdom of God, you need to have faith and be prepared to meet exactly with God, which in this kingdom is the king. So that you recognize him and he recognized you so that you are ready to meet with him.

Further. For salvation, the inner moral state of a person is important. Understanding "ethics" as exclusively spheres of intermediary relationships, especially in pragmatic dimension of human life: business, politicians, family, corporate relations ─ This is a very truncated understanding of ethics. Morality is directly related to what is happening inside you, and it is such a measurement of morality asks for the Nagorny preaching of Christ the Savior.

The Lord speaks not only about the external norms, formal norms of the Old Testament law, which were given ancient. He speaks about the state of the human soul. "Blessed with a pure heart" ─ Blessed precisely those who inside themselves do not have dirt do not have impulse to the vice, do not have the desire to do sin. And this state of the soul, he also estimates strictly, no less strictly as the external actions of a person. God of God, the Lord Jesus Christ gives new commandments, in no way accompatible in the framework of everyday morality. It gives them as completely immutable directions not to be relative, that is, the announcement of them relative. This is an unconditional imperative, from which the unconditional requirement of a completely new level of moral purity from those who will become worthwhile to enter His kingdom.

The Savior definitely decisively announces an unacceptable sloe in relation to nearby, prodigal thoughts, a divorce and marriage from a divorced, oath or earth, the opposing of evil, perfect against you, the showing creation of alms, prayer and fasting, receiving the corresponding moral reward from people ─ All those things that are normal and natural from the point of view of secular ethics.

Christ condemns human satisfaction with their moral state, with their moral merit. Obviously, such moral standards are not applicable to the philistine morality, reconciled with a certain measure of evil. With any measure of evil, a true Christian could not accept, and the Lord prohibits it. He suggests that any sinful movement of the soul ─ is a way away from the kingdom of heaven.

The Lord says that faith, the moral state of a person can not not be expressed in what he does. We know the words of the Apostle James: "Faith is dead without deeds." Similarly, the vicious condition of a person is expressed in evil deeds. We do not get unrevented by their good deeds, as Catholic legal on this. Formally made a good deed, having an expression in dollars, rubles, the number of services rendered and so on, does not provide a person to salvation in itself. It is important with what intention you make this business. But the person truly believes cannot refuse to help neighbor, it cannot pass by the suffering of a person in need of help. And the Lord suggests that the standards defined by him in the area, including good deeds, should multiply exceed the standards, data for the Old Testament world. Here is his words: "I tell you that if your righteousness does not exceed the righteousness of the books and Pharisees, then you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." What is the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees? This is the righteousness of the best people of society living without God's grace, society living on everyday laws, according to the laws of compromise with evil, according to the laws of fallen human nature. Scribes and Pharisees ─ This is not sacchadia of hell, these are moral authorities of the society who lived under the laws of the Old Testament Morale. These are humatic people, enlightened, religiously very active, not inclined to vices, who consider themselves to have the right to expose the apostates from the verymost morality of the people or family. These are not Mytari, who collected an occupational tax, this is not the harmnitsa ─ prostitutes, not drunkards, not tramp. This, speaking modern tongue, classic "decent people." Pharisees ─ These are the moral authorities of the world of this, which on our television screens are served as the most worthy people. It is their righteousness that the Christian should exceed, because this righteousness is insufficient for salvation.

Obviously, the Lord does not consider most people who are part of God's kingdom. He says: "Wide gates and spreads the path leading to death, and many go them; Because the grid and narrow are the path leading to life, and few find them. " We believe and always be believed in the mercy of God to every person, even to a sinner, even to the offender, even to not repentable. Recently, His Holiness Patriarch said that we will discuss in the church possible forms of prayers about suicides. It will not be the very formulas of the prayers who go with the usual refictional or with a regular paneir, when we sing: "With the saints of God, Christ, the soul of your servant." It will be a special prayer. Maybe we will ask for the Lord to take a man's soul showing mercy to him. And we believe in the mercy of God to each person: unbelieving, sinner, a criminal. But the entry into his kingdom is a special gift that, as the Lord says absolutely clearly, does not belong to most people.

The Lord Jesus Christ warns people from the passionateness of life, he offers his apostles, his followers of life, who speaking, that not everyone can accommodate it, but about the danger of philistine existence it clearly warns. This does not mean that the Lord announces his disciples with a certain public or moral elite. The kingdom of God is open to any person, regardless of the educational or intellectual level. But the level of morality necessary for salvation is radically different from the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, which worshiped in a worldly environment or in the Old Testament medium as the highest achievement.

The moral ideal, which is given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ, very radical. He will not fulfill human forces. After the Lord responds to a person, it is easier for a camel to enter the needle earner than the rich in the kingdom of God, the apostles ask him: "Who can be saved?" He replies that it is impossible for a person, God is everything. High moral plank, given in the Nagorno sermon, unattainable by human forces. Moral requirements in the Gospel are not just a system of prohibitions, which can perform human will. They are so high that no will is able to fulfill them.

Yes, education and external restrictions are important, but they are alone are not able to bring a person to achieving a moral ideal, but also to salvation. Rather, the free choice of personality, allowing God to act in her, in the soul, in the heart of man. Christian ethics says, first of all, not about strengthening will, not about self-improvement, not about coercion to do goodness, but about the action of the grace of God, the transforming person so much that the thoughts themselves are impossible. Without the action of God, without the sacraments of the Church, a person cannot become moral in the sense that is laid in the Nagorno sermon. Yes, we have to work in synergies with God to work on yourself, to make good deeds, to confront sin. But decisive in moral cultivation of the person is not a person, but God. And the understanding of this radically distinguishes Christian ethics from other ethical systems.

Speaks in three places. The first place is the promise of Christ, this robber, crucified with him: "True I tell you, now you will be with me in paradise" (Luke 23, 43). Paradise, which Christ says is the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God and paradise, which is very characteristic, is identified. The robber asks Christ: "Remember me, Lord, when you attain your kingdom!" (Luke 23, 42), - and Christ promises him entrance to heaven. It is noteworthy the interpretation of the blissful faeofilakt to this place: "For the robber, although he is already in paradise, or in the kingdom, and not only he, but also all those calculated by Pavel, but he does not enjoy all the possession."

The second excerpt, which refers to the paradise, is contained in the message of the Apostle Paul; He is associated with his personal experience: "And I know about such a person (I just do not know - in the body, or outside the body: God knows) that he was admired to heaven and heard the ineverance words, which a person cannot be retended" (2 Cor. 12 , 3-4).

Invoaking this place, the St. Nicodemus Svyatogorets says that "Paradise is a Persian word, meaning a garden planted with various trees ..." At the same time, he says that the "admiration" of the Apostle Paul to Paradise, according to some interpreters, means that "he It was dedicated to the mysterious and inevitable words about the paradise, which are hidden from us to this day. " As the reverend Maxim is said, during the contemplation, the Apostle Paul rose to the third sky, that is, "three heaven" - active Lyubomadrian, natural contemplation and the Tyintic theology, which is the third sky, and from there was admired to heaven. So he was dedicated to the secret of the fact that he was two trees - the tree of life, which grown in the midst of Paradise, and the tree of knowledge, in the secret of the one who was cherub and what was the fiery sword, with the help of which he guarded the entrance to Eden, as well as In all other great truths represented by the Old Testament.

The third place is in the revelation of John. Ephesi's bishop, among other things, it is said: "By winning the ladies to eat from the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of Paradise of God" (Rev. 2, 7). According to the St. Andrei Kesarisky, under the tree of life allegorically implies eternal life. That is, God gives the promise to "join the best of the future century." And on the interpretation of Arefa Caesarian, "Paradise is blissful and eternal life."

Consequently, Paradise, the eternal life and the kingdom of Heaven - this is the same reality. We will not delve into the analysis of the ratio of the concept of "paradise" with the concepts of "the kingdom of God" and "the kingdom of heaven." Obviously the main thing: Paradise is eternal life in communication and unity with God.

Holy Fathers about the paradise

The main feature of the teachings of the Holy Fathers on the creation of the world was, attention to the action of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God was in the created world from the very beginning of his creation, and Scripture (in the Hebrew version) likes this action to the bird sitting on the egg - this is exactly how the Hebrew text of St. Ephrach Sirin. The world was perceived as creative space, originally and continuously filled with life. This initial fullness of life makes primordial space with different, different from what we see now.

Rev. Isaac Sirin

Arguing about Rae, Isaac Sirin says that Paradise is the love of God. Naturally, when we are talking about love, we mainly have in mind the non-residential energy of God. Rev. Isaac writes:

Paradise is the love of God, in which the pleasure of all bliss. " But arguing about, he says almost the same: hell is the Beach of Divine Love. He writes: "I say that tormented in Geenne amazed by the scourge of love. And how bitter and brutally it is a torment of love!

The experience of the experience of God in humans is spilled. Everyone will be given from the Lord of Christ "in dignity", "as His Delivery." The ranks of students and students will be abolished, and in each will be discovered "acuity of all aspiration". The same God will all equally to file grace, but people will perceive it in accordance with their "capacity". God's love will spread to all people, but will act two ways: sinners it will torment, and the righteous - to please. Expressing the Orthodox Tradition, Rev. Isaac Sirin writes: "Love acts by the power of Duchos: she torments sinners, as it happens here to tolerate from each other, and having fun who followed their duty."

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

What does heaven look like?

First of all, Paradise is the place of the future stay of the righteous. The question of paradise is one of the most important. Without his decision, we cannot advance in such an understanding of Shestodnev, which would be an adequate modern worldview. In many apologetics, starting from the middle of the XIX century, parallelism was mainly studied in the achievements of natural sciences and data Shestodnev. But we see that the stories about the paradise often falls out of these works. Scientists usually say that this does not apply to science.

This is what Saint Andrei says (x in.): "I saw myself in paradise perfect and amazing, and, admiring the Spirit, I thought:" What is it? .. How did I find himself here? .. "I've seen herself clothered in the most Light apparel, as if exploding out of lightning; The crown was on the head of my woven of great colors, and I was obscured by the tsar's belt. Having rejoicing this beauty, wondering by the mind and heart of the unraded to God of God, I walked on him and having fun. There were many gardens with high trees: they were hesitated by the tops with their own and enjoyed their eyesight, the branches came great fragrance from the branches ... It is impossible to like the trees to like one terrestrial tree: God's hand, and not the human planted them. Birds in these gardens were countless ... I saw the Great River, current in the middle (gardens) and their filling. On the other side of the river there was a vineyard ... breathe there from four sides winds quiet and fragrant; The gardens were heard from their breath and produced a wonderful noise with their leaves ... After that, we entered the flame that I did not puzzle, but only enlightened. I started horrified, and again led me () turned to me and filed my hand, saying: "We must climb even higher." With this word, we found yourself above the third sky, where I saw and heard many of the heavenly forces, singing and salloneous God ... (going even above), I saw the Lord of My, as the once Isaiah-prophet, sitting on the throne, high and extomed, surrounded by seraphims. He was covered in crimson clothes, his face was shone in unfamiliated light, and he drew his eyes with love with love. I saw him, I fell in front of him on my face ... What's the reason for the vision of his face, it was impossible to express me, so it's impossible to express, so now, remembering this vision, I fulfill inevitable sweetness "Reverend Feodoron saw in paradise" Beautiful villages and numerous abode Having prepared by loving God, "and heard the" voice of joy and merry of spiritual. "

In all descriptions of Paradise, it is emphasized that earth words can only portray the heavenly beauty, as she is "extradited" and surpasses human comprehension. Also said about the "many abode" of Paradise (in. 14: 2), that is, about different degrees of bliss. "Some (God) will take great honors, others," says Saint Vasily Great, "because" the star from the star will be varied in glory "(1 Cor. 15:41). And since "in the midwife" at the father, then some are in a state more excellent and high, and others in the lower. " 3 However, for each of his "Abode" will be the highest accessible to him full of bliss - according to how much he approached God in earthly life. All the saints that are in paradise will see and know each other, and Christ will see and fill everyone, says the Rev. Simeon New Theologian. In the kingdom of heaven, "the righteous people will enlighten, like the sun" (Matt. 13:43), like God (1 in. 3: 2) and know it (1 Cor. 13:12). Compared to the beauty and light of paradise, our land is a "gloomy darkness", and the light of the sun compared to the triipostasic light is similar. Even those heights of the theology, which was brought by the Rev. Simeon during life, compared with the future of people's bliss in Paradise - it's like the sky, drawn by a pencil on paper, compared with this sky.

According to the teachings of Rev. Simeon, all images of paradise, found in the living literature - fields, forests, rivers, palaces, birds, flowers, etc., are only the symbols of Bliss, which is the ineven contemplation of Christ:

He teaches about the paradise as a higher creation of God in the earthly nature. Paradise is a special place, holy, the Lord went there. When he has not yet been separated, the river and irrigated the land flowed out of it, divided into four sleeves. As the holy fathers say, the paradise was on the mountain, had a large territory, and the river joined the land and paradise. Thus, the earthly world had its center in the east of the vertex, which was paradise. The altar of the Orthodox church is the symbol of paradise, and the temple is a symbol of the universe.

The land was like paradise. This was spoken by the pre-Christian jubileev book, and then St. Ephraim Sirin and other holy fathers. St. John Zlatoust says that Adam was created from the Eden Earth, talking about her virgin purity, that there was no evil on her, she was innocent and clean. His thoughts correspond to the thoughts of the saints of Symeon of the New Theologian, Nikita STIPHATE.

In the midst of Paradise was a tree of life. The river flowed out of it, streamlined the whole land. All this is important to keep in mind, because there is enough reason to think that the land that the paradise water came out was not quite such as the one for which we go. Rather, the Earth is the same, but now she is cursed, and there is no paradise river. Do not ignore it and try to understand. She is cursed "in Adam's affairs", according to the Word of God, but the most important part of this curse is that paradise from her with all the consequences of such an event.

How to get to heaven?

The Lord clearly talks about whoever will enter the kingdom of heaven. First of all, he suggests that a person who wants to enter this kingdom must have a true faith in him. The Lord himself says: "Who will believe and will be saved, and who will not believe, will be convicted." The Lord predicts the condemnation of people to flour. He does not want this, Lord Mercy, but he, at the same time, says that people who do not match the high spiritual and moral ideal expects crying and teeth. We do not know what paradise will be, we do not know what the hell will be, but it is obvious that people who freely chose life without God, the life contrary to it will not remain without formidable reward, primarily associated with the inner mental state of these people. I know that there is hell, I knew the people who left this world in the state of the ready-made inhabitants of Hell. Some of them, by the way, committed suicide, which I am not surprised. They could say that this is not necessary to do this, because a person is waiting for eternal life, but they did not want eternal life, they wanted eternal death. People who fought in other people and in God, after met by God, would not have changed. I think the Lord would offer them their mercy and love. But they will tell him: "We do not need it." There are a lot of such people in our earthly world, and I do not think that they will be able to change after the transition of the border separating the earthly world from the world of eternity.

Why should faith be true? When a person wants to communicate with God, he must understand him as it is, he must ask exactly to whom he draws, not imagining God for something or someone and who he is not.

Now it is fashionable to say that God is alone, but there are different ways to him, and what the difference, which one or another religion or confession or the philosophical school imagines God ─ still God alike. Yes, God alone. No many gods. But this one God, as Christians believe, is that God who has opened himself in Jesus Christ and in his revelation, in Holy Scripture. And, referring instead of God, to someone else, to the merits with other characteristics or to a creature, not a possessing person, or at all to a non-essence, we do not appeal to God. We appeal at best, for something or someone who we yourself came up with, for example, to "God in the shower." And sometimes we can contact both creatures that are different from God and God are not. It can be angels, people, nature of nature, dark forces.

So, in order to enter the kingdom of God, you need to have faith and be prepared to meet exactly with God, which in this kingdom is the king. So that you recognize him and he recognized you so that you are ready to meet with him.

Further. For salvation, the inner moral state of a person is important. Understanding "ethics" as exclusively spheres of intermediary relationships, especially in pragmatic dimension of human life: business, politicians, family, corporate relations ─ This is a very truncated understanding of ethics. Morality is directly related to what is happening inside you, and it is such a measurement of morality asks for the Nagorny preaching of Christ the Savior.

The Lord speaks not only about the external norms, formal norms of the Old Testament law, which were given ancient. He speaks about the state of the human soul. "Blessed with a pure heart" ─ Blessed precisely those who inside themselves do not have dirt do not have impulse to the vice, do not have the desire to do sin. And this state of the soul, he also estimates strictly, no less strictly as the external actions of a person. God of God, the Lord Jesus Christ gives new commandments, in no way accompatible in the framework of everyday morality. It gives them as completely immutable directions not to be relative, that is, the announcement of them relative. This is an unconditional imperative, from which the unconditional requirement of a completely new level of moral purity from those who will become worthwhile to enter His kingdom.

The Savior definitely decisively announces an unacceptable sloe in relation to nearby, prodigal thoughts, divorce and joining with a divorced, oath with sky or earth, the opposition of evil, perfect against you, the showing creation of alms, and the post, receiving the corresponding moral reward from people ─ all Those things that are normal and natural from the point of view of secular ethics.

Christ condemns human satisfaction with their moral state, with their moral merit. Obviously, such moral standards are not applicable to the philistine morality, reconciled with a certain measure of evil. With any measure of evil, a true Christian could not accept, and the Lord prohibits it. He suggests that any sinful movement of the soul ─ is a way away from the kingdom of heaven.

The Lord says that faith, the moral state of a person can not not be expressed in what he does. We know the words of the Apostle James: "Faith is dead without deeds." Similarly, the vicious condition of a person is expressed in evil deeds. We do not get unrevented by their good deeds, as Catholic legal on this. Formally made a good deed, having an expression in dollars, rubles, the number of services rendered and so on, does not provide a person to salvation in itself. It is important with what intention you make this business. But the person truly believes cannot refuse to help neighbor, it cannot pass by the suffering of a person in need of help. And the Lord suggests that the standards defined by him in the area, including good deeds, should multiply exceed the standards, data for the Old Testament world. Here is his words: "I tell you that if your righteousness does not exceed the righteousness of the books and Pharisees, then you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." What is the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees? This is the righteousness of the best people of society living without God's grace, society living on everyday laws, according to the laws of compromise with evil, according to the laws of fallen human nature. Scribes and Pharisees ─ This is not sacchadia of hell, these are moral authorities of the society who lived under the laws of the Old Testament Morale. These are humatic people, enlightened, religiously very active, not inclined to vices, who consider themselves to have the right to expose the apostates from the verymost morality of the people or family. These are not Mytari, who collected an occupational tax, this is not the harmnitsa ─ prostitutes, not drunkards, not tramp. This, speaking modern tongue, classic "decent people."
Pharisees ─ These are the moral authorities of the world of this, which on our television screens are served as the most worthy people. It is their righteousness that the Christian should exceed, because this righteousness is insufficient for salvation.

Obviously, the Lord does not consider most people who are part of God's kingdom. He says: "Wide gates and spreads the path leading to death, and many go them; Because the grid and narrow are the path leading to life, and few find them. " We believe and always be believed in the mercy of God to every person, even to a sinner, even to the offender, even to not repentable. Recently, His Holiness Patriarch said that we will discuss in the church possible forms of prayers about suicides. It will not be the very formulas of the prayers who go with the usual refictional or with a regular paneir, when we sing: "With the saints of God, Christ, the soul of your servant." It will be a special prayer. Maybe we will ask for the Lord to take a man's soul showing mercy to him. And we believe in the mercy of God to each person: unbelieving, sinner, a criminal. But the entry into his kingdom is a special gift that, as the Lord says absolutely clearly, does not belong to most people.

The word "hell" (Greek. κολασε - flour) comes from the verb κολαζο And has two values. The first meaning is to "trim the branches of the tree", the second is to "punish". The word it is used mainly in the second value. Moreover, in the sense that the person does not punish, but the person himself punishes himself, because he does not take the gift of God. The rupture of communication with God is punishment, especially if we recall that the person is created in the image and likeness of God, and this is exactly the deepest meaning of its existence.

Hell in Holy Scripture

Two sacred scriptures are clearly talking about Herde.

One of them is in the gospel text, where Christ speaks about the future court. Christ said:

"And this will go into the eternal flour, and the righteous to the eternal life" (Matt. 25, 46).

If this verse is associated with the previous "Go from me, damned, into the fire eternal, prepared and its" (Matt. 25, 41), it will become clear that hell is identified here with eternal fire, which is not prepared for a person, but for a devil And his angels.

The second place of the Holy Scripture, which contains the word AD, is located in the message of the evangelist John: "Perfect love is expelled fear, because in fear there is torment ( κολασε ). Fearing imperfect in love "(1 in. 4, 18). Of course, it is said here about the ADE not as the image of the existence of sinners after the second coming of Christ, but as a state of torment, which is alien to love and therefore is associated with fear.

In addition, the state of hell is transmitted in the Holy Scripture with the following words and expressions: "Fire Eternal" (MF. 25.41), "Darkness External" (Matt. 25, 30), "Geenna Fire" (MF. 5, 22) and etc. However, now the analysis of these expressions is not our task. We will return to them in another chapter when we consider the conclusions that should be made from the teachings and fathers about Rae and Herde.

Holy Fathers about hell

Start follows from Rev. Isaac Sirina, very brightly showing that there is paradise and hell. Arguing about Rai, he says that heaven is the love of God. Naturally, when we are talking about love, we mainly have in mind the non-residential energy of God. Rev. Isaac writes: "Paradise is the love of God, in which the pleasure of all bliss." But arguing about the hell, he says almost the same: hell is the Beach of Divine Love. He writes: "I say that tormented in Geenne amazed by the scourge of love. And how bitter and cruelly is the torment of love! "

Thus, hell is torment from the impact of God's love. Rev. Isaac said that sadness from sin against the love of God "worse than any possible punishment." Indeed, what a flour is - deny anyone's love and go against her! What a terrible thing is to behave inappropriately in relation to those who sincerely loves us! If this is said to compare with the love of God, you can understand the flour of hell. Rev. Isaac considers it inappropriate to argue, "that sinners in Geenne are deprived of the love of God."

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

From here it is concluded that the experience of the experience of God in humans is spilled. Everyone will be given from the Lord of Christ "in dignity", "as His Delivery." The ranks of students and students will be abolished, and in each will be discovered "acuity of all aspiration". The same God will all equally to file grace, but people will perceive it in accordance with their "capacity". God's love will spread to all people, but will act two ways: sinners it will torment, and the righteous - to please. Expressing the Orthodox Tradition, Rev. Isaac Sirin writes: "Love acts by the power of Duchos: she torments sinners, as it happens here to tolerate from each other, and having fun who followed their duty."

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

Hell in church life

Scriptures of the Holy Fathers of the Church (above we analyzed the testimony of some of them) have importance to us only within the framework of church life. After all, holy fathers are not just thinkers, philosophers, reflecting on the chapter topics. Not. They express the experience of the Church, interpret the revelation entrusted to her.

I will give two simple examples to show that the above teaching is the conviction and experience of the whole church.

The first example is the communion of the body and the blood of Christ. Divine communion acts in accordance with the state of a person. If a person is unclean, it is pledging him, if it is prefabricated for his cleansing or even more so in a state of oblivion, it acts in a different way.

The Apostle Paul writes about this Corinthians: "Who will eat this bread or drink the bowl of the Lord is unworthy, will be guilty against the body and blood of the Lord (1 Cor. 11, 27)." Below, he confirms his thought: "That is, many of you are weak and sick and dying," (1 Cor. 11, 30). And it happens because "who eats and drinks is unworthy, he eats and drink a conviction to himself" (1 Cor. 11, 29). The gentleman of the body and the blood of Christ, becoming life for people of peeled and burned, for unclean the condemnation and death, even a bodily death. Many illnesses, and sometimes death, according to the apostle Paul, the cause of their own in the unworthy communion of honest gifts. Therefore, the apostle gives such a advice: "Yes, he is the same man, and thus let him eat from bread and drinks from this" (1 Cor. And, 28).

The phrase of the Apostle Paul "Yes Test" should be compared with the Spirit of all his messages. According to them, the grace of God should enlighten the heart of a person, which is confirmed by the next quote: "For good grace to strengthen the hearts" (Heb. 13, 9). It is obvious from here that, starting to the divine communion, a person should experience in which spiritual state he is. For for cleansing, the sacrament becomes cleansing, for applicants - precipitated, for statement - by events, and for unclean and unrequisite - by the court and condemnation, hell.

That is why the liturgical begging God, that the divine communion is not to court and condemnation, but to leaving sins. Very indicative of the prayer of Saint Zlatoust: "SPO TURN OF US CHEENNE AND THE WORLD TEIN, SEE OF PRESSIBY AND SUCH MESSAY, WITH PURPOSE SOCIETY, TO LEAVE SILES, IN THE FORGOR OF SHIPS, FOR THE COMMUNICATION OF THE HOLY OF THE HOLY, in the legacy of the kingdom of heaven, Not to court or in condemnation. "

We see the same cleaner spirit and in the prayers of the "follow-up to the Holy Communion".

With the phenomenon of God, during the Second Coming, the same thing happens now during the Holy Communion. For those who have cleared and repented, God will become paradise. For those who have not cleared, God will become hell.

Another example is from, which is definitely a visible expression of the teachings of the Church. In the image of the second coming, as it is represented in the roasters of the temples, we see the following: The light of God comes from the throne, the fiery river from the same throne of God comes and the fiery river, relying the unskilled sinners. Source and light, and fire is the same. This is a wonderful expression of the teachings of the Holy Fathers of the Church, - the teachings considered by us above the two actions of the divine grace - by educating or puzzling - depending on the state of the person.

From the book of Metropolitan Ierofey (Vlasos) "Paradise and Hell"

Death and hell

At the fall of the first person and curing with his God, and in him and the whole human race, all people, after graduating from the death of their terrestrial wandering, descended to the underworld the Dasta of hell. Hell is in the bowels of the earth. There burns fairy Eternal, prepared by the devil and the agghelas of him (Matt. 25, 41), which, consequently, the fall of their preliminary creation of the real world. There Darkness is a pitch, there is tartar, there grinds the teeth, there is a stressful worm, there is a crying without consolation, unintended and vain.

Descent of Christ to hell

There are a variety of flour on a variety of sins; There are various degrees of flour, respectively, varying degrees of sinfulness. Death spiritual, death essential, struck by the human race in his hedlemen, expressing the power of his own and over the body of the earthly wanderer during his earthly wasting and other countless suffering, at the end of earthly wandering expresses this power the most terrible phenomenon: healing the soul from the body.

On the separation of the soul from the body, the power of death over a person receives complete development (here it is said about the times preceded by the Redeemer): the body is destroyed and the fatal will be accumulated in the depths of the earth, and the soul of every person, and wicked, and the Old Testament Righteous, descends into hell. The souls of wicked launched in the eternal lights, as finally belonging to eternal death; The souls of the righteous were designed to hell, in the dack of his less deep and terrible, where they stayed, languishing his life in Herde and comforting the hope of redemption. All the circumstances of the earthly life prove to the person that he is an exile on earth for a terrible crime; But only more proves this death. It does not have respect, no matter what is a high and important human. She is striking and youth, beauty, and genius, and power, and wealth. No man can dismiss the inexorable death that serves for the genus of human experienced proof of his fall, his sins before God, his execution. She testifies before the person that a person - the creation and a slave, outraged against his Creator and the Lord, that the most famous and most important works of people for the Earth do not mean anything for eternity that high human - abrasion is before God (Lux. 16, 15). Death - execution. Having hit every person, she proves that every person is a criminal; Having amazed all the people without exception, she proves that mankind is punishable for a crime, the general whole of mankind. Death, and the death prayer can be reverent, and the prayer of the righteous can sometimes stop the secretion of death, and push the hour of the HR (Is. 38, 5).

First two days after death

During the first two days, the soul enjoys relative freedom and can visit the places on Earth that the roads to her, but on the third day it moves to other spheres.
Here, Archbishop John simply repeats the doctrine, the famous church from the IV century. Tradition reports that an angel accompanied in the desert prep. Makariya Alexandria, said, explaining the church reciprocation of the dead on the third day by death: "When an offering is happening in the church on the church, then the soul of the deceased gets from the energic angel to relieve in grief, which feels from separation from the body, it receives because the sloopfulness and An offering in the Church of God for it was committed, which is why the good hope is born. For in the continuation of two days, the soul is allowed, together with the angels that are with her, walk on the ground, where she wants. Therefore, the shower, a loving body, sometimes wanders near the house in which it was separated from the body, sometimes near the coffin, which is put on the body; And thus spends two days like a bird, looking for nests to yourself. And the virtuous soul goes to the places in which we used to create the truth. On the third day, the one who rose from the dead commands, in imitating his resurrection, to raise every soul of Christian to heaven to worship God all sorts. "
In the Orthodox, the burial of the deceased prep. John Damaskin brightly describes the state of the soul that fell out with the body, but still on earth, powerless to communicate with the loved ones, which she can see: "Alas to me, a yoke feat of a soul, separating from a television! Alas, then picks up picks up, and stalling Yu! For angels, the eyes of the eyes are praying, loosely praizes: the people of the Ruta stretch, do not blame helping. The same, your beloved of my brotherhood, a thoughtlessness of our brief life, the supposed restraint from Christ, we ask, and the souls of our Grace "(the submission of the burial of the worldly person, a poem of self-person, voice 2).
In a letter to her husband mentioned above his dying sister Sv. Faofan writes: "After all, the sister will not die itself; The body dies, and the face of the dying remains. Goes only to other orders of life. In the body lying under the saints and then endowed, it is not, and in the grave it is not hiding. She else. Also alive as now. In the first hours and days it will be near you. "And just will not say," Yes, it is impossible to see it, and then here ... Severe this in thought. We, remaining, crying about the departments, and they are immediately easier: then the state is Otradnaya. Those who burned and then were introduced into the body, they found it very uncomfortable housing. Sister will feel the same. She is better there, and we are killed, as if I had trouble with her. She looks and, right, is divided by that "(" Shortless reading", August 1894).
It should be borne in mind that this is a description of the first two days after death gives general rulewhich in no case covers all situations. Indeed, most of the passages quoted in this book are not suitable for this rule, - and according to quite obvious consideration: the saints that were not at all tied to worldly things, they lived in the incessant waiting for the transition to another world, not even attached to the places, Where they did good deeds, but immediately begin their climb on. Others, like K. Ikskul, begin to climb earlier two days according to a special enactment of God's providence. On the other hand, all the modern "posthumous" experiments, no matter how fragmented, are not suitable for this rule: the endless state is only the beginning of the first period of the incremental soul to travel to the places of its earthly attachments, but none of these people stayed in a state of death Long enough to even meet two angels that should accompany them.
Some critics of the Orthodox teaching about the posthumous life are found that such deviations from the general rule of "posthumous" experience are evidence of contradictions in Orthodox teaching, but such critics understand everything too literally. The description of the first two days (as well as the subsequent) is by no means some kind of dogma; This is just a model that only formulates the most general order of the posthumous experience of the soul. Many cases both in Orthodox literature and in stories about modern experiments, where the dead were instantly alive on the first day or two after death (sometimes in a dream), serve as examples of the truth that the soul really remains near the Earth for some short time. (Genuine phenomena of the dead after this brief period of the soul freedom are much more rare and always happen to God for some kind of special purpose, and not on someone's own will. But by the third day, and often before, this period is coming to an end. .)

Nataria

At this time (on the third day), the soul passes through the legions of evil spirits, which block her path and accuse in various sins, in which they themselves were involved. According to various revelations, there are twenty such obstacles, the so-called "Nataris", at each of which one or another sin is expected; After passing one, the soul comes to the following. And only successfully passing all them, it may be a shower to continue his way, not being immediately plunged into Geenna. How terrible these demons and solarms can be seen from the fact that the Mother of God, when Archangel Gabriel informed her about the approach of death, prayed to his son to save her soul from these demons, and in response to her prayers the Lord Jesus Christ himself came from heaven Take the soul of the most preching mother and take her to heaven. (This visimo is depicted on the traditional Orthodox Assumption icon.) Truly terrible for the third day for the soul of the deceased, and for this reason it is especially needed by prayers.
In the sixth chapter, a number of patristic and agiographic texts are given about Naitaria, and there is no need to add something else here. However, here we can note that the descriptions of Naitaria correspond to the definition models that the soul is exposed after death, and individual experience can differ significantly. Unconscious details of the type of Number of Names, of course, are secondary in comparison with the main fact that the soul is truly shortly after death undergoing a court (private court), where the result of the "invisible brahi", which she led (or did not led) on earth against fallen spirits .

Continuing the letter to her husband of a dying sister, Bishop Feofan The Restover writes: W.the feat of the transition through Najaria begins will begin soon. I need her help! - Then, then in this thought, and you will hear her cry to you: "Help!" - That's what you should rush all the attention and all love for it. I think - the most real testing of love will be - if from the minute of waste of the soul, you, leaving the troubles about the body with others, will remove yourself and, alone, where you can, immerse yourself in the prayer about it in the new condition, about its unexpected needs. Starting so, be in the incessant cry to God - to her about help, in the continuation of six weeks - and further. In the legend of Theodore - Meszhets, from which the angels took to be separated from the solari, were the prayers of her elder. The same will be your prayers ... Do not forget to do this ... se and love! "
The critics of Orthodox teaching often incorrectly understand the "bag of gold", from which the Angels were "paid for the debts" of the blissful feodora; Sometimes it is mistakenly compared with the Latin concept of "ultra-voltage merit" of the saints. And here such criticism too literally read Orthodox texts. It means nothing to do with the prayers about the departed churches, in particular, the prayers of the holy and spiritual father. The form in which it is described is unlikely to eat even the need to talk about it - metaphorical.
The Orthodox Church considers the doctrine of ottomans so important that mentions them in many (see some quotes in the chapter on Najnia). In particular, the church emphasizes this teaching with all his dying children. In the "Canon on the outcome of the soul", readable by the priest in Odra dying church member, there are the following paths:
"The airproof prince of the rapist, the tormentor, the terrible ways of the attendant and is in vain in the spring, it is impossible to properly descend from the ground" (Song 4).
"Saints Angel with the sacred and honest hands are prevailed by me, Ladychitsa, Yako and those krles, not seeing dishonest and smradnago and mrachnago ideas of the image" (Song 6).
"Bottling the Lord of the Almighty, Gorky Names of the Chief of Miriorja Non-Mene, Foldfully Kingching, Due to Stragi, Sveva, Holy Virgin" (Song 8 ).
So the dying Orthodox Christian is prepared by the words of the Church to the upcoming tests.

Forty days

Then, successfully passing through Najaria and bowing to God, the soul for another thirty-seven days visits the heavenly monastery and hellish abyss, not yet knowing where it will remain, and only on the fortieth day it is appointed to her place until the resurrection of the dead.
Of course, there is nothing strange in that, having passed solaria and ending forever with earthly, the soul should meet with the present potworthythe world, in one part of which it will be forever. According to the revelation of Angel Pub. Makaria Alexandrian, the special church remembrance of the deceased for the ninth day after death (in addition to the general symbolism of nine Angelic Chins) is due to the fact that until now the soul showed the beauty of Paradise and only after that, during the rest of the forty-day period, she shows the torment and horror of hell, Before the fortieth day, she will be appointed where it will expect the resurrection of the dead and the terrible court. And here these numbers also give the general rule or model of the sampling reality and, undoubtedly, not all the dead completes their path according to this rule. We know that Feodorus really completed his visit to hell exactly on the fortieth - on earthly time standards - day.

Soul condition to a terrible court

Some souls after forty days turn out to be in a state of anticipation of eternal joy and bliss, while others are in fear of eternal torment, which will fully begin after a terrible court. Prior to that, changes are possible in a state of souls, especially due to the bringing bloodless victim for them (reconciliation on liturgy) and other prayers.

The teaching of the church on the state of the souls in the sky and in hell to the terrible court in more detail in the words of St. Mark Efesse.
The benefits of prayer, both public and private, about the souls in the hell, are described in the lives of holy devotees and in St. Scriptures. In the life of the martyr Perpetua (III century), for example, the fate of her brother was open to her in the image of a water-filled reservoir, which was located so high that he could not reach him from that dirty, unbearably hot spot where he was concluded. Thanks to her diligent prayer for the whole day and night, he was able to reach the reservoir, and she saw him in a bright place. From this she realized that he was delighted with punishment.
A similar story is in the life of the fading, which has already been imprisoned in our 20th century, the nuns of Athanasius (Anastasia Logacheva): "At one time, she took a prayer feat for his native brother Paul, in a drunken form, who worked. He went initially to Pelagae Ivanovna Blessed, who lived in the Diveev monastery, consulted that she would do to facilitate the afterlife fate of his brother, unhappy and wicked her terrestrial life. It was decided on the Council: to get old Anastasia in his cell, fast and pray for the brother, every day to read 150 times a prayer: the Virgin, Delo, Rejoice ... After the population, she had a vision: deep abyss, at the bottom of which lay bloody stone And on it - two people with iron chains on the neck and one of them was her brother. When she reported on the vision of Blessed Pelagae, the latter advised her to repeat the feat. After the second time, 40 days, she saw the same abyss, the same stone on which there were the same two faces with chains on the neck, but only her brother got up, looked around the stone, fell on the stone again, and the chain was on his neck. For the transfer of this Vision Pelagae Ivanovna, the latter advised the same feat for the third time. After 40 new days, Anastasia saw the same abyss and the same stone on which only one unknown person was already, and her brother left the stone and disappeared; The remaining on the stone said: "Well, you, you have strong intercessors on Earth." After this, Blessed Pelagia said: "Your brother was freed from torment, but did not receive bliss."
There are many such cases in the lives of Orthodox saints and devotees. If someone is inclined to excessively concluded in relation to these visions, it should probably say that of course, the forms that take these vision (usually in a dream) - not necessarily "photographs" of what the soul is in another The world, but rather, images transmitting the spiritual truth to improve the condition of the soul on the prayers of the remaining on Earth.

Depression evil on earth

When the human genus spent many millennium in a cruel enslavement from the fallen angel, then appeared on earth promised by God the Redeemer. Before, they start to describe this greatest and most wonderful event, take a look at the state of the ill-fated world, while the Lord lowered to the ground and became more developed for the renewal and salvation of mankind. The world was immersed on all his space in idolatry. People who hated each other, jealous of each other, watered the entire surface of the earth, the blood in fierce strucks, in which numerous peoples were died and disappeared and disappeared by the unwitting and selling in the markets of the Universe like a cattle or a soulless item. The disasters and death of mankind are recognized as the greatest gloom for mankind, and the conquerors who have been obscured by the blood of the congratulations were declared in the life of their gods. Another villain, distinguished by vile vices, is represented by a divine honor for death. Satisfaction with shameful passions was considered to be the highest pleasure. Some of the harmonious people have entered a clear intercourse with Satani, having entered into force of him, promoted the strengthening of his domination over the earth and humanity. This domination has achieved full development. Under this domination bowed and the elected people of Israel. It is extremely sumping into a number and falling in civil relations, the people subjected to the authorities of the peoples of idolatric. The inner, substantial force of him, concluded in communicating with God through the knowledge and performance of his will, was exhausted. Life in God, forming the purity of the mind and the heart, which the divine grace, enlightened by the man with a true spiritual mind and theology, was replaced in most school study of the law, connected to the negligence of a godly resident, which the books and Pharisees were so called the Jewish scientists of that time - tried to replace with pretendation and hypocrisy. These crushed scholars, performed contempt and hatred to all other versions of the people, slaves of passions that are not capable of faith in their unlimited and inflated attachment to earthly glory and terrestrial advantages capable of this attachment to all sorts of crimes, committees of these crimes, captured The authorities of God rejected his own creation, rejected God's commandments, introduced their ridiculous legends into him, seeking their own in the blindness to death, attracted them to her and the people led by them. Few, very few people remained loyal to God in his life, and from such a lifetime depending and the excitementful True God. Holy names are in the Holy Gospel.

Now go to the oldest spectacle. Prepare, predepen yourself with tears of repentance and, distract the mind and heart from all earth care, join the sitmons of the Holy Angels, to come out with them the sacred contemplation of the ceremony of God-words, so that together with them in the sacred surprise and joy to try: Glory to the highest god, and in the world, in man in favor (Lux. 2, 14).

For what reason there is hell if God is love?

Many prefer to think their relationship with God in categories of rewards and punishment and agree that God may condemn a person to eternal death for dislike for him.

Especially without going into details, take a look critically on the foregoing. After all, what is hell? In the literal translation from Greek - this place, devoid of light, that is, God, because the light is one of the most common names.

Thus, hell is nothing more than the state of the glory, the alienation of the creature from his Creator.

The distinguishing property of love is the desire of unity, the reunion of separated.

The legacy of the kingdom of heaven, understood as overcoming spiritual death, i.e. Disassembly and loneliness, we are found in the desire for God, which is this all uniting force.

Therefore, the salvation itself is associated soon with the restoration of man in pristine dignity, his recovery, rather than saving from condemnation, i.e. That "sending to hell", which Slogan says, made in the title of our conversation.

Saving - it means to be together with God, and hell is so worried because it is removed as much as possible.

So what exactly to explain the popularity of the opposite, seemingly obviously distorted model of the relationship of God and man? It is likely that such an understanding to some extent corresponds to the religious expectations of most believers who need a set of very concrete things, among them is invariably: health, success, well-being, posthumous guarantees, etc.

Slogan "Love me, or I will send you to hell" offers the linear logic of salvation, a certain agreement, observing the conditions of which, a person receives a guarantee of his posthumous well-being.

The purpose of religious activity in this case is not a connection with God, but the acquisition of this well-being, understood in the "spiritual" key.

This is conjugate with the desire to fight God, protect himself from his intervention in our life, because God wants all the time from a man that the person does not need. As if each of us owed something to him. And the "love", which man squeezes himself, is a kind of tax, fee for the guarantees, without which he cannot overcome the alarm and fear of death.

Was he hell created by God or where he originated, can I pray in hell, repent and is there any opportunity to escape from hell if you got there? Argued by Archpriest George Klimov, teacher of the department of biblical MDA.

The descent into hell is a fragment of icons from Ilinskaya Church in Vologda. Dionysius Grinkov, 1567/1568

God hell did not work

Hell, or Geenna Fire, in Orthodoxy is opposed to the kingdom of heaven. But if the kingdom of Heaven is eternal life and bliss, it turns out, hell is eternal life, only in torment? Or something different?

To answer this question, you need to agree on the terms, that is, what we understand under life. If we understand God under living, because it is life, and the source of life (in.1.4), then say that hell is life, we cannot. On the other hand, if Christ himself, pointing at those whom he condemns on a terrible court, says: "These will go into the flour eternal", and the word "eternal" here is meant in the meaning of "never ending time", and maybe "what "That goes beyond the scope of time," you can assume that if a person is experiencing flour, he suffers, it means that he is alive, his life continues. Therefore, it can be said that, indeed, hell is what inherits the soul after the terrible trial, connected to the body, forever.

The Orthodox Understanding of Hell was formulated quite fully in the era of the Ecumenical Councils, when our great church teachers lived, and since that time did not change qualitatively. The only question that is concerned about the Orthodox theology, when we are talking about the hell, is the question of Apocatastasis, the possibility of universal salvation. The foundations of this teaching were formulated Origen (III century).

However, it was never recognized as the teaching of Orthodox theology. But in each generation, the doctrine of Apocatastasse finds his supporters, and the churches have to make constant explanations about his infidelity. Difficulty with understanding this issue for many is due to the fact that in the Holy Scripture it is clear: God is love. And to understand how love can go to make your creation caused from non-existence, too love to send to eternal torment - it is impossible. The doctrine of Apocatastasis offers its answer.

In Psalm 138 there is a string: "Will it go to hell (hell), and there you are." Can there be somewhere in the created God somewhere such an area where the God-Creator is not?

The feeling that God is everywhere and fills themselves, everything, it was both the Old Testament Judea, there is also a Christian. According to the apostle Paul, the package or the eschatological accomplishment, which we are waiting, is very simple: "There will be God all in all" (1 Cor.15: 28) But then what question should be supplied: God - everywhere, but as I worry him And perceive?

If as love, if his will of the good and perfect, I coented my own, is not on debt or coercion, but at will and love, then my communication with him will indeed be a paradise. After all, in itself the state of bliss, happiness is experienced by a person only when what he wants is carried out. The Divine Will will be carried out in paradise. Actually, Paradise - because the paradise, that in it is only one divine will and will be. And a person will perceive this place as paradise only in one case - if his will is entirely and completely coincided with the Divine Will.

But if all is not the case, if my will does not agree with the will of God, if she deviates from her at least on iota, then the paradise for me is immediately ceased to be a paradise, that is, the place of bliss, pleasure. After all, there is something that I do not want. And, remaining paradise objectively, and for others, for me it becomes a place of torment, where I unbearable becomes from the presence of God, because his light, it does not heat it, and burns.

Here you can recall the expression of St. John Zlatoust: "God is because God has created a geenna." That is, God in his love for a person and the freedom given to him gives the opportunity to be either with God, or without him, depending on the state of the soul, and for this a lot of people responsible. Can a person bliss with God, if his soul wants to revenge, mowles, hurts?
But the god of hell did not work, just as she did not work. Hell is a consequence of the distortion of the will of the human, the consequence of sin, the territory of sin.

How did the devil hit the paradise?

If you need to be consistent with the will of God, then how a snake-devil got into paradise, who was riding a lot and crawled on the belly), not even embarrassed by the presence of God?

Indeed, on the first pages of the Bible, we read about how Adam with Eva in paradise talks to God, and this communication with him "in the reading of a fine" for our progenitors was blissfully. But at the same time there is a paradise in paradise in Paradise, is the devil. And he tempts in paradise by Evil Adam and Eve.

About how the devil got into paradise, theology does not say. There are assumptions that for the devil who puts up in Zmia, perhaps this place was not literally closed, there was no finality in solving his destiny, did not stand for him to cherub with a fiery sword, as later, after the fall, he was delivered For a person. Because God may have expected corrections from the devil. But the deception of man Devil entails the final curse of God to the devil. After all, before that, we never hear the words of the curse towards him. Maybe God, how loving his creation, still gave the opportunity to be in paradise and him? But the devil for the good did not use this opportunity.

The fact that Paradise is not a certain territory or an external state, objectively independent of the person, and the state, just directly related to his self-consciousness and the worldview, on the interpretation of some biblists, is stated in the first chapter of the Gospel from John, in the Prologue: "In it There was life and life was the light of people "(IN.1: 4).

It is thanks to communicating with the Lord, to taste from the Tree of Life, the progenitors felt the paradans - hea, that is, life and light, who were an integral part of their nature, Thus, the breath of life, which Scripture says. But the next verse: "The light in the darkness shines, and the darkness did not open it" (John 1: 5), he says about the time after the fall, when God, the Divine Light, becomes an external object for a person, since he left human nature: Holy Spirit leaves man. And the person becomes mortal, because it is no longer able to accommodate God.

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

And further like this: "So, if the light, which is in you - darkness, then what is darkness!" What does Christ say about here? Perhaps about the same thing that heaven and hell, like light and darkness begins in the man here, on Earth. In the Gospel of Luke, Christ already definitely says that: "The kingdom of God will not come to the way. For here, the kingdom of God is inside you "(LK.17: 20-21).

About the hell in the gospel there are no similar words, but based on the evangelical logic, it applies to hell. It can be said that the hell does not come notable. And there is blood pressure inside.

Of course, in the texts of Gospel and Old Testament, sensual, detailed description of hell is often found. Here we must understand that this is in a certain sense of anthropomorphisms, something adapted to the perception of a person. If we look at how the holy fathers argued about the hell, we will see that they have always been removed from the agenda these sensually detailed terrible images with frying rods, iron hooks and salt lakes.

Vasily Great about hellish torments wrote that those who do evil will resurrect, but not in order to fry in a frying pan, but "on the crop and shame to see the abomination of those sins that were made, because the most severe of all torment is an eternal shame and eternal shame. "

John Zlatoust, known to the tendency to the literal interpretation, commenting on the words of Christ about the gnage of the teeth and the worm in a frequent, about the eternal fire, does not apply to the images themselves, but says: "It is better to undergo countless lightning strikes than to see how the meek face of the Savior is distracted from us and Does not want to watch us. " And for Zlatoust, hell comes down to the fact that God derives his face from you. And what could be worse?

Is it possible to repent in hell?

In the gospel affair about the richer and nurses-Lazar, it is said that the rich, after hitting his cruel life in hell, rushed and asked the forefather Abraham to send the message to his relatives, so that they repent. So, in hell is repentance?

The question of repentance is a key issue of salvation. When the Lord in the terrible court sends sinners to hell, he testifies to this that a person condemns precisely for the unwillingness to bring repentance in his sins, for the unwillingness of corrections. After all, it would seem, well, there was a unbeliever man, but I came a terrible court, Christ came, everything was revealed, go, and then save!

But not so simple. It is no coincidence that the church constantly suggests that the time of earthly life is given to repentance.
There is a teaching of the church about the so-called mortal sins. They are so called, of course, not because they need a person to kill.

It is about the fact that, committing a mortal sin and not looking in it, a person dies every time for eternal life, every time it seems to take poison, and from an antidote - repentance refuses. Deciding to do this, it breaks a certain line, goes for the point of return, after which he can no longer repent, because his will, his soul is poisoned by sin, paralyzed. He is a live dead. He can realize that God is and God really, and light, and life, but he has already tried himself in sin and became unable to repentance.

Repentance does not mean to say: oh, Lord, sorry, I'm wrong. Genuine repentance - it means to take and change your life, with black on white. And life lives and is spent on sin. It was not left on good.

Examples of unrecognizance we see in the Gospel. When the Pharisees with Saddukes go to John the Baptist to be baptized on the shores of Jordan along with all the people, he meets them with the words: "The disintegration of the Echidnin, who inspired you to run from the future anger?" (Matt 3: 7). These words, on explaining interpreters, is not the question of the Baptist, and his statement that they, going to him, can no longer repent. And therefore they are the use of echidna, that is, the devil Chad, who, like his angels, was so rooted in evil, which repentance is no longer capable.

And the rich from Proverbs Abraham says: "Between us and you are approved by a great abyss, so that you don't have to go from here, too, they are also not moving from there" (LC 16:26). Nothing can do Abraham.

But this parable, told by the Lord himself, was told to them before his resurrection. And we know that on the resurrection of their own he descended and led everyone who wanted to go with him. In one of his messages, the apostle Peter says that Christ and the spirits of all sinners preached in the dungeon, and since the time of Noah washed by a flood, but repentable, brought out of hell.

There is no contradiction here. The person is warned that sin is the path to death. On repentance we have time - all life. To the terrible court, the church prays and for the deceased, those who did not have time to repent during their lifetime. And we believe, we hope that God hears our prayers. But we also believe that after a terrible trial, the time for repentance will not remain.

But if the image of God in a person is unable, can the moment when repentance is impossible? If a person cannot repent, it means that there is nothing left in it, and the devil did not beat, of course, but still dismantled "a piece of territory"?

When we talk about the form of God, you need to understand what it is expressed. There is the image of God, and there is a similarity of God. The image connected to the likeness makes a person worthy of God. Their combination and talks about the consent of the will of a person with the will of God.
The image of God is in every person, likeness - not in every one. Creating a man by his word, God says: "We will create a person in the image of our and like our likeness (Gen. 1:26) and the image here - there is something that is invested in a person from the beginning and non-profitable, his divine qualities - Eternity and Freedom . Similarity - the potential that a person should reveal himself.

Tell God we can travel through the fulfillment of the commandments, life in the will of God. As having an uncomfortable image of God, a person chooses his free will - in hell or paradise. We can not stop your existence.

To say that the devil won, it would be possible to the coming of Christ. And the victory of the devil was expressed, first of all, in the fact that every soul, and the righteous, and the sinner, descended to hell. But after the Lord's death death varied, you can already ask, and St. John Zlatoust this question at one time set - why the Lord Devil left, because it would be possible to erase him into powder and not torture anyone else?

The devil was "faced" to a person like Jue - so that the man had the opportunity to grow in good, to resist evil, freely choosing God, that is, prepared his soul to life in paradise, where God will be all in everyone. Or free to reject God.

We said that paradise and hell begin here and now. Is there a few people who, having in themselves the image of God, do not seek to like God at all, do without God, do not want to be with him? And although a person in fact without God cannot live, live real, genuine life, he often consciously suits himself a life where God is not, and lives calmly. And he gets himself from the fact that God prepared for him. But if on Earth he does not want to be with God, what are the foundations to think that he wants to be with the Lord after death?

In a conversation with Nicodemus there are such words: "Believer in him (the Son of God), it is not sued, and the unbelieving has already been convicted, because he did not believe in the name of the only society of God" (Ying.4: 18). And then Christ will say: "The court is that the light came to the world; But people more thanked the darkness more than the light, because their cases were evil "(Ying.4: 19). What are these words tell us about? It is that a person himself chooses for himself, with whom he to be and how to live him. Unbelieving was already convicted, but unbelieving in the sense that he had never heard anything about God, did not know, did not understand and therefore did not believe, and suddenly it turned out that he was. And unbelieving in the sense - deliberately not believed that he is about God and about Christ as the Savior learned. And it was unbelieving his own himself.

Are prayers from hell heard?

What exactly are those who have not likened to God, if they deliberately chose life without God, do not repent of anything?

Hellic torments will be that passion, in us are available, will not be able to be satisfied, and this feeling of dissatisfaction in the perspective of eternity will become unbearable. A person who has not resorted to God for the healing of his passionate, damaged to the sin of nature, will always be something passionately and will never have the opportunity to fulfill his desire. Because in hell, passions are not satisfied, God will not create the conditions that a person got used to enjoy on Earth.

In the Gospel of John it says that the will of God, "he does not come to the court, but he switched to death" (JN5: 24). That is, in essence, this is the person himself, his will, his passionality or freedom will be determined - where to go, in hell or paradise. This will connect with the like.

- Or maybe a sinner in hell to pray? Or does he have such a desire that does not occur?

If we pray for just appeal to God, then judging by the parable of the richer and Lazar, and from many testimonies of Pateriks - such a prayer is possible. But if we talk about prayer as communicating with the Lord and its effectiveness, here, also judging by the parable of the richer and Lazar, it can be seen that such a prayer in hell is not heard.

You can remember the words of Christ: "Many will tell me that day: Lord, Lord, if we are not your name I expelled demons" (MF.7: 22). This can also be understood as a prayer, but it is not effective. Because there was no real fulfillment of the will of God, but there was one pride. And therefore such a prayer is not able, probably, change a person. A person who did not cultivate the kingdom of God, did not seek him, did not work on him, I don't know if I could wait for the requested.

- What is the difference between hellish flour to a terrible court and after?

After a terrible trial there will be a resurrection from the dead of all people, recreation of the spiritual new human body. Not only the souls will appear before God, as it comes to a terrible court, but the souls reunited with bodies. And if the terrible court and to the second coming of Christ's souls were in the monitoring of paradise or hellish torments, then after a terrible court, the person or paradise or paradise, or Hell, or Hell.
- Can those who are in hell see each other's suffering?
- There are revelations on this topic in Catema, for example, in a story about how Macarius is the Great, going through the desert, saw a skull, who, as this Macaria broke out, turned out to be a skull of the Egyptian priest. Holy began to ask him, and the skull told about his bitter torment. The devotee, specifying, asked: "Tell me, and there is someone more severe torment, what do you have?" Skull says: "Of course there is. I am standing on the shoulders of one bishop. " And further about him begins to tell.
For us, these testimonies are not in vain. You can minimize the curtain of the mystery of hellish torments, to imagine that shame when there is no place to hide anywhere.
- Why in the chants of the Great Saturday, when the descent of Christ is remembered, there are words "and from hell all the freedom"?

We sing this in the sense, in which we say that "Christ saved all of us." The coming into the world of Bozhochelovka, his suffering, death, resurrection, the Sanctuary of the Spain in Humanity - do not depend on the will of the person himself. But from the will of a person depends - to accept this common to all the gift of salvation so that it becomes his personal gift, or reject.

Therefore, we say that Christ is descended in hell in order to save everyone. But who is he saving? Of the legends, we know that Christ after his resurrection brought out of hell of the Old Testament Righteous and Running Sinners. But we have no information that Christ brought everyone. And if someone did not want to go to them? We also have no information that since then the hell is empty. On the contrary, legend speaks about the opposite.

In the church there is an understanding of the nonlinearity of the time, which is expressed in the fact that we do not remember, for example, about Christmas, which was 2013 years ago, or about the resurrection itself, which was in Judea about 2,000 years ago, and experiencing these events here and now.

This is not an accurate understanding. There is a doctrine on the uniqueness of the sacrifice of Christ. It was only committed, everything for everyone. But what is accomplished on the Great Saturday, on the Easter itself, and for every holiday church is the opportunity to join this reality, which, as a given, already exists. Enter this reality, become its participants.

After all, we are not to blame for, that they were not born at the time when Christ went on the ground. But Christ brought salvation for each person, and every person gave "equal opportunities", regardless of time, to join the reality of his suffering, his celebration.

Christ himself says: "There is an hour and now there is", "the time comes and has come." On the liturgy, when the priest during the Eucharistic Canon prays at the throne, he is about the coming of the kingdom of heavenly in force, universal resurrection speaks last time. Why? Because the Lord has already given all this as a reality. And our task is to enter it, become its partakers.

Church of Christ is the reality of the kingdom of God on Earth. Promotion to the Church and to all that she is ready to give, and shows a person the reality of an eternal blissful life. And only the one who opens this reality may hope that she and after a terrible court in its entirety will reveal.

The kingdom of God has already come. But hell is not inactive.