If the soul is in hell, how can I help? “Honestly”: they were already in hell. what happens to a person after death? Hell and heaven are not “places,” but states

There is a state of the soul that removes it from the Kingdom of Heaven - the fall of a person due to his weakness, due to ignorance. Here the fall and the desire to rise, the desire of the mind and heart for Heaven, and at the same time the desire of the flesh for earth, are combined.

This is an unearthly joy, at times cheerful, especially after any virtue, and remorse that follows a fall. This state of souls on earth is the beginning of an imperfect state beyond the grave, where conscience reproaches, but faith and hope strengthen. The sinner, redeemed by Jesus Christ, is healed in hell for failure to perform proper repentance, lamenting how he offended the Lord. Contrition is inherent in an unresolved state; it is impossible in the state of the rejected. Feeling an aversion to evil on earth, but unwillingly doing what is forbidden and for some reason not having time to blot out their crimes on earth with prayers, tears, good deeds and other signs of repentance, such sinners go to hell after death and, without renouncing the Lord Jesus Christ, there they bow their knees in His name, as they worshiped Him on earth. If, according to the testimony of God Himself, what is asked is given only to the one who asks, then, of course, the nature of the afterlife - bliss or torment - depends on our earthly life. If you have not led a truly Christian life, then your destiny beyond the grave is Gehenna, but if life on earth was in the spirit of Christ, according to His Commandments, then your destiny after the grave is paradise. The unresolved afterlife state - hell - corresponds to an absent-minded, inattentive Christian life on earth, as a result of which a person passes into the afterlife without having accomplished the fruits of true, active repentance on earth. The state of the soul after death, beyond the grave, is non-autonomous, that is, the soul cannot freely begin a new activity. She cannot accept a new way of thinking and feeling and generally cannot change herself and become different, the opposite of what she was on earth. But in her, what has begun here on earth can only be revealed even more. If you have not led a truly Christian life, then your destiny beyond the grave is Gehenna, but if life on earth was in the spirit of Christ, according to His Commandments, then your destiny after the grave is paradise. The fact that the afterlife has earthly life as its basis is evidenced by the Word of God, which gives to earthly life the meaning of sowing time, and the afterlife - the time of harvest: what is sown is what is reaped. Even in ancient times, the pagan world knew the moral law of self-knowledge and attention to oneself: which way are we going? Complete independence of the soul is possible only with the body, as an essential component of a person, otherwise the present life would have no purpose and value in relation to the future. According to the teaching of the Holy Apostle Paul: he who sows to his flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life (Gal. 6, 8). The Lord Jesus Christ Himself taught that everyone who does not believe is already condemned. Consequently, the state of his soul, while it remains in unbelief, is the beginning of the eternal life of Gehenna.

And such an unbeliever after death, just as he was already condemned on earth for unbelief, is not subject to the private judgment of Christ, but directly enters the afterlife state that corresponds to him - Gehenna. The evil created by man will develop more and more in eternity. This development explains the ever-increasing torment in hell - as a consequence of the incessant sorrowful effect on the senses. After all, constant sensation dulls the senses, and the soul becomes indifferent, insensitive, which is inconsistent with its immortality. And finally the soul gets used to grief, to constant punishment. The painful sensation no longer produces the same grief. And if there is no sorrow, then there is no torment. From the words of Jesus Christ it is clear that Gehenna can be within us, just as the Kingdom of God is within us. Are there many calm people among those living with passions? The pleasure of passion is immediate. The passion is satisfied, but immediately it ignites with renewed vigor. It's good if it's satisfied! And if not? Unsatisfied passion produces sorrow, anger, and hatred. This is the beginning of Gehenna within us! A soul that finds pleasure in indulging passions, after the grave, of course, will not meet the object that delighted it on earth. If the soul on earth acted without Christ and not according to His most holy will, then in the afterlife this alienation from Christ will become a disastrous and desperate lot. Let us conclude everything we have said about the beginning of this Gehenna afterlife on earth with the testimony of the Word of God that its prerequisites are on earth. A person who does not love his neighbor remains in death, that is, in such a state of mind when he is at a distance from God. This state is opposite to the state of paradise, and already on earth it is the beginning of the afterlife Gehenna state: enmity, malice, hatred, a state completely alien to love. Such a spiritual and moral state of the soul on earth, naturally, must have a correspondence beyond the grave. This truth is contained in the words of Jesus Christ, He says that the unbeliever on earth is already in a state of condemnation. The condemned state on earth has a correspondence beyond the grave - Gehenna. * * * As our Orthodox Church teaches, the location of souls whose fate in a private court is not finally decided in the afterlife is called differently in the Holy Scriptures. So, the most common names are: hell, the underworld, the prison of spirits, further countries of the earth, the heart of the earth. All these names are identical, meaning a painful afterlife state of the soul, still unresolved. The souls who perished, condemned while still alive and having lost the Kingdom of God, move directly from the earth behind the grave into special compartments - the gates of hell, which in the first period constitute, as it were, the threshold of the future Gehenna, the state of the condemned in the second period. Some holy teachers of the Church, for example Saint Ambrose of Milan, taught that heaven, the state of righteous souls of the first period, is only the threshold of Heaven, the blissful state of the second period. The general name for the state of sinners after death is hell. All other names are: Gehenna, in which the worm does not die and the fire does not go out; a fiery furnace in which there is weeping and gnashing of teeth; lake of fire; pitch darkness; a terrible abyss for the most evil spirits; tartare; an eternal land of darkness where there is no light. All these names found in the Holy Scriptures constitute the names of the compartments, the gates of hell. Hell of the second period is no longer the same as in the first period, and therefore hell and other names have a difference, as can be seen from the Apocalypse (Rev. 20: 13-15). And indeed, what constituted punishment only for hellish souls in the first period can no longer be punishment for a completely complete person, consisting of soul and body, in the second period. Therefore, the Word of God attributed to this new state of the soul with the body, as completely different from the state of the first period, a new name, more or less defining the afterlife state of hell through comparisons, similarities and symbols, as can be seen from the description of these states. Thus, one compartment is called hell, another Gehenna, the third Tartarus, the fourth lake of fire. Souls who perished and were condemned while still alive and who lost the Kingdom of God move directly from the earth behind the grave into special compartments - the gates of hell, which in the first period constituted, as it were, the threshold of the future Gehenna, the state of the condemned in the second period. Hell and Gehenna must have their own specific areas separating one state from the other. Where are hell and Gehenna according to the teachings of the Word of God? Their future homes will also correspond to the spiritual nature of souls. Thus, the Church teaches that the nature of hell and Gehenna fully corresponds to the nature of the souls of these states. Hell and Gehenna contain everything necessary for death, that is, for torment. And the inhabitants of Gehenna themselves will not agree to be in heaven for even one hour, because for them everything that is true, beautiful and good, which makes up the life of the good, is alien and painful. Where is the place where unrepentant sinners are destined to suffer forever beyond the grave? Where is the Throne of God? Where are the limits of the world? When and how will the world end? These questions have occupied people from the creation of the world to our time, and humanity has used and continues to use all the efforts of the mind to solve them. The Word of God itself leaves this question without a final answer. However, from many places in Holy Scripture it is revealed that the place of hell is inside the earth. Immediately after the fall of the ancestors, God, angry for violating the law given by Him, determines punishment for the criminals - death for a person consisting of soul and body, death for both soul and body. But created immortal in soul and body for eternity, man could not be destroyed even after the fall, just as the fallen angels were not destroyed. Consequently, death is only a punishment for man, a punishment for the soul and a punishment for the body. Punishment, but not destruction! And an immortal man still remains immortal. The truth is that the purpose of punishment is to correct oneself, to make amends for the crime. So that God can justify the guilty and stop the further development of evil. Therefore, punishment is a blessing for those who break the law. What is death and what does it consist of for the soul and for the body? For the soul, death consists in its separation from God. But for the body, death consists in separation from the soul with which it was so firmly and mysteriously united, and in transformation into the earth from which it was created. One fate befalls both soul and body, as they are inextricably linked to each other - removal from God. This is the meaning of any punishment, extending into the posthumous state. By the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground from which you were taken, for you are dust and to dust you will return (Gen. 3:19). This means that the earth provides shelter for both body and soul, therefore, for the immortal soul that has angered God, He determines both the place of residence and the place of punishment in the earth. It was not for nothing that human consciousness, guided by the spirit, determined such a place of imprisonment for the guilty soul. After all, it should be devoid of everything joyful, located far from the living, hidden in the earth, and, moreover, in its depths. God’s words that man would return to the earth sank deeply into his essence: peoples of all times imagined hell precisely within the earth. According to the ancients, hell is located under the earth, which they imagined as a plane, and is located at the same distance from the surface of the earth as it is from the sky. There was an opinion that once in hell there was no way out. But Plato says that after a year of torment, the waves carry us to another, calmer place. Not only the Kabbalists, but all Jews place hell inside the earth. And the simple Jewish people assign a place to hell in the air. Here are the words of popular philosophy: “The soul, after the death of the body, remains immortal and does not immediately achieve heavenly joys. She wanders in this world for a whole year, and especially around her body, and suffers a lot from the demons that are in the air. Here she is cleansed of vices, and this is the highest Gehenna. The infidels will be kept in hell forever, but the Jews - only for a time. There are two hells: one is higher and the other is lower.” It is difficult to decide who borrowed from whom the view about the place of hell in the air - the Greeks from the Jews or the Jews from the Greeks, because later the Greeks also placed their hell in the air. This is evidenced by Plutarch, who, without himself defining a place for hell, cites evidence of this from his other contemporaries, explaining the verse of Homer: “the soul, flying out of the body, came to hell,” taking hell for a dark, invisible place, no matter where it is was in the air or underground. God’s words that man would return to the earth sank deeply into his essence: peoples of all times imagined hell precisely within the earth. All the righteous of the Old Testament - representatives of the popular faith - believe that hell is inside the earth. Thus, Patriarch Jacob, being crushed by grief over the death of his beloved son Joseph, wants to go to hell with him, considering him dead. The long-suffering Job, amid trials, remembers the afterlife, calling it a dark and gloomy land, a land of eternal darkness, where there is neither light nor human life: before I depart; - and I will never return - to the land of darkness and the shadow of death, to the land of darkness, which is the darkness of the shadow of death, where there is no structure, where it is dark as darkness itself (Job 10: 21-22). The fate of Korah and his accomplices, according to the prophecy of Moses, came true: the earth beneath them settled; and the earth opened its mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the people of Korah, and all their goods; and they went down with all that belonged to them alive into the pit, and the earth covered them, and they perished from the midst of the community (Num. 16:31-33). The holy King David calls the posthumous state of souls hell, that is, located in the depths of the earth: You delivered my soul from hell (Ps. 85:13). The holy prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel see hell in the depths of the earth. Our Lord Jesus Christ testifies that hell is in the earth when He says about Himself that the Son of Man is to be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. This is evidenced by His descent into hell, which was necessary in order to bring out from there all the Old Testament righteous who were waiting for Him with faith, according to Hosea’s prophecy: I will redeem them from the power of hell, I will deliver them from death. Death! where is your sting? hell! where is your victory? (Hos. 13, 14.) Saint John Chrysostom expresses his opinion about the location of hell in his solemn prayers on Holy Saturday and on the Day of the Resurrection of Christ. Majestic hymn on the morning of Great Saturday, after the reading of the Six Psalms and the Great Litany, starting with two touching and at the same time elegantly poetic troparions, of which in the first the burial of the Lord is sung, in the second His descent into hell. “The noble Joseph, having taken your most pure body from the cross, wrapped it in a shroud and, anointing it with fragrances, laid it in a new tomb.” “When You tasted death, O Immortal Life, then You killed hell with Your Divine light. When You raised the dead in the underworld, all the Heavenly Powers cried out: Life-Giver Christ our God, glory to He.” After this, all the clergy, and in monasteries the entire brotherhood, go out with lighted candles to the middle of the temple, stand in front of the shroud and begin to proclaim praises to the Lord in the so-called church charter, connecting them with the verses of the 118th Psalm. Of these praises, let us recall those in which it is most clearly mentioned that hell is inside the earth: “You went underground, Bearer of the light of justice, and raised the dead as if from sleep, driving away all the darkness of hell” (v. 56). “He who holds the earth in his hand, who was put to death in the flesh, is now held under the earth, delivering the dead from the dominion of hell” (v. 17). “Having listened to Your Father, You, the Word, even descended to terrible hell and resurrected the human race” (v. 59). “You went underground, having created man with Your hand, in order to restore many people from the fall with omnipotent power” (to v. 80). “Arise, O Merciful One, who draws us out of the abysses of hell” (to v. 166). “Having voluntarily descended into the earth as if dead, You raise up those who have fallen from there from earth to heaven, O Jesus” (v. 38). “Although You were seen dead, yet, as God, remaining alive, You raise up those who have fallen from there from earth to heaven, O Jesus” (v. 47). In the last two praises the Church declares not only the location of hell, but the location of heaven. In the synaxarion of Great Saturday it is read that on this day we celebrate the burial of the Lord and His descent into hell, that He descended into hell with His incorruptible and Divine soul, separated by death from the body. Expressions are used about hell as a deep abyss, which, as is clear from the entire service, is recognized as underground and located inside the earth (Triodion). We see the same opinion about the location of hell and heaven in the service for Holy Pascha. The opinion about the place of hell is most definitely expressed in the irmos of the 6th song of the canon: “You, Christ, descended into the underworld of the earth and crushed the eternal rivets containing prisoners.” The synaxarion on the 6th canto says: “The Lord has now snatched human nature from the treasures of hell, raised it to heaven, and brought incorruption to the ancient heritage. However, having descended into hell, He did not resurrect everyone, but only those who chose to believe Him. The souls of the saints from time immemorial, held by need, are freed from hell, and given to all to ascend to heaven.” Here again it is indicated that heaven is in Heaven. Wherever the Church uses the word “hell”, she represents it as being inside the earth: the underworld of the earth, the womb of the earth, the underworld of hell, the last earths, the underworld, the land of weeping, the place of darkness. The statement that hell is inside the earth is the teaching of the Orthodox Church. All the holy fathers and teachers of the Church thought so: John the Virgin, Epiphanius of Cyprus, Athanasius the Great, Basil the Great, Cyril of Alexandria, Demetrius of Rostov, John Chrysostom and others. Saint Epiphanius of Cyprus clearly indicates the location of hell within the earth, describing in his “Word on Holy Saturday” the salvation of people by the God-man: “Why is there such silence on earth? What does this silence and great silence mean? The silence is great, for the King fell into sleep. The earth was afraid and fell silent, because God in the flesh fell asleep. God in the flesh fell asleep, and hell was horrified. God fell asleep for a short time, and raised up those who slept from ancient times, from Adam. Now is salvation for those who are on earth and from time immemorial for those who are under the earth, now is salvation for the whole world, both visible and invisible. Now God comes from Heaven to earth, from earth to earth. The gates of hell are opening, and you who have slept from eternity, rejoice! You who sit in mortal darkness, accept the great Light! The Lord is with the servants, God is with the dead, Life is with those who die, Light is with those in darkness.” * * * Persons of both sexes, that is, male and female, enter hell, just like heaven, after the private judgment of Christ, on the 40th day after death. Temporarily, the souls of Christians who have fallen into mortal sins, who have brought repentance, did not despair of their salvation, but did not have time to bear the fruits of repentance, go to hell. Sinners go to hell whose fate has not been finally decided at a private trial. The souls imprisoned here remain temporarily. In addition to the fallen evil spirits, for whom eternal torment was prepared from eternity for their apostasy, those of people who, while living on earth, were constantly in union and communion not with good Angels, but with evil spirits, become his heirs and accomplices. Thus, according to the teachings of the Lord, in community with fallen rejected spirits there are all those who are unmerciful, hard-hearted, alien to deeds of love and mercy, and therefore cannot be in the Kingdom of love beyond the grave. After death they inherit a state corresponding to the mood of their souls, they inherit Gehenna. According to the teachings of the Orthodox Church, immediately after death those condemned on earth go to Gehenna: unrepentant, bitter sinners, unbelievers, freethinkers, blasphemers, misanthropes. They are directly and irrevocably cast into Gehenna, as hopeless and decisively lost to the Kingdom of God. The wicked, that is, those who do not believe in Christ, heretics and those Orthodox Christians who spent their lives in sins or fell into some mortal sin and did not heal themselves by repentance, inherit eternal torment along with the fallen angels. In addition to the fallen evil spirits, for whom eternal torment was prepared from eternity for their apostasy, those of people who, while living on earth, were constantly in union and communion not with good Angels, but with evil spirits, become his heirs and accomplices. The distinctive character of the unresolved state of souls is similar to that painful state of the soul on earth in which life takes precedence over destruction. Likewise, the souls of an unresolved state, despite their sinful gravity, are full of faith and hope in God the Redeemer, who took their sins onto His shoulders. And in this mood of spirit, they, together with the inhabitants of heaven, kneel before the Lord Jesus Christ and His Most Pure Mother, singing a solemn song of praise: “Alleluia.” Those destined for salvation are in hell for the time being. They are there now, just as they were before. After his death, John the Baptist entered hell to preach to them about the Savior who had come to earth. So the Orthodox Church says in the troparion written in his honor: “The memory of the righteous is with praise, but the testimony of the Lord, the Forerunner, is sufficient for you: for you have shown in truth and the most honorable of the prophets, as in the streams of baptism you were worthy of the Preached One. Having suffered for the truth for the truth, rejoicing, you preached the gospel to those in hell of God, revealed in the flesh; who takes away the sin of the world and gives us great mercy.” The Lord Jesus Christ Himself finally descended to such souls of an unresolved state with His Divine soul. “The deified soul,” writes Saint John of Damascus, “descended into hell, so that both on earth the Sun of righteousness would shine, and under the earth the Light would illuminate those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death. So that just as on earth Christ preached peace, gave remission to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and therefore was the author of the eternal salvation of those who believed and the accuser of the unbelief of those who did not believe, so in hell, may every tribe of heaven, earth and hell worship Him, and thus, having loosed those who were bound from eternity , finally rose from the dead, showing us the way to salvation” (“A detailed presentation of the Orthodox faith. Book 3. Chapter 29). The Savior descended to those souls who had faith and hope, but to those who did not know Him and to those who stubbornly rebelled against faith in Him, He did not descend into Gehenna. Just as on earth, he did not go where he did not foresee any possibility of faith. This is the distinctive character of the inhabitants of hell who have the opportunity to become inhabitants of heaven: faith and hope carried by souls from earth to hell. There is no such thing in Gehenna. In the first period of hellish life, since the soul exists without a body, then torment belongs only to one soul. The removal of sinners from God - the Source of life, light, joy and generally bliss - is the first, main reason for torment. Since the soul in the first period is without a body, moving away from God constitutes internal, spiritual torment for it. It is said that in hell, which has many gates, in the first period there are two states of souls: unresolved and condemned. Therefore, the torments of both have their differences. The internal spiritual torment of souls in an unresolved state is gratified by hope in God, who does not want the death and destruction of sinners. These souls admit themselves guilty of hellish torment and, along with all the inhabitants of paradise, bow their knees before the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and thereby more and more accept into themselves the grace that heals infirmities and replenishes what is missing. Therefore, it cannot be said that the souls of the unresolved state were completely removed from God, just as those condemned in Gehenna for unbelief were removed from Him. The infidels cast into Gehenna do not bow their knees to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Torment is a state of the soul that is completely opposite to bliss, an unnatural state and therefore painful. This is a state in which the soul with all its powers and feelings suffers a special, never-ending torment. According to the teachings of the Orthodox Church, the life of saints is opposite to the life of those souls who will not be worthy of bliss at a private trial. The state of souls imprisoned in hell and hell, their activities in relation to God and themselves constitute internal, spiritual torment. They correlate their sins and actions with the activities of moral beings, good Angels, saints, as well as with the lives of other people who are with them in hell or in Gehenna. And finally, the soul from hell interacts with those still on earth. This is an external activity. Consequently, for the soul in Gehenna, the torment in the first period will be both internal and external. Since the soul and body participated in the evil activities of man, in his sinful actions, then there must be reward for both soul and body. Therefore, in the first period, the torment will be incomplete, imperfect, unlike the second period. The soul and body participated in the evil activities of man, in his sinful acts, and retribution must be given to both soul and body. Imperfect torment in the first period, and perfect in the second, is both internal and external. The parable of the rich and righteous Lazarus represents the afterlife state of souls of the first period. The Savior spoke about souls in the afterlife (about the unfortunate rich man, Lazarus and Abraham), and about the rich man’s brothers still on earth. Here is the afterlife of the first period. If a rich man, according to the word of Jesus Christ, suffers in a flame, then, of course, in that subtlest ethereal heat, which corresponds to the subtlest ethereal nature of the soul and the evil fallen angels, since God is only Spirit. And to this ethereal matter, that is, the soul and evil angels, corresponds the Gehenna fire of the subtlest nature: eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). The human body, as material, after its union with the soul, in the second period will correspond to fire, whose nature is coarser. As for the souls of an unresolved state, which, although they died in sins (and therefore were condemned to torment), but at the same time laid the beginning of repentance on earth and had in the depths of their souls the seeds of goodness, although not yet fully revealed, the Holy Scripture did not deign to reveal nothing definite for us. However, the mercy of God and the power of the merits of Christ the Savior, which extend to people even before the Last Judgment, as well as the justice of God itself, which, while punishing evil, cannot leave good without any reward, give us the right to believe that the torment of such souls is softened by some a joy. These souls are not hopeless. And although they cannot get out of their state on their own, they crave and expect outside help for this and are able to use it. Our Orthodox Church confesses this: the souls of people who have fallen into mortal sins, but who do not despair at death, but who have repented even before separation from real life, but who have not had time to bear any fruits of repentance, descend to hell and suffer punishment for the sins they have committed, without being deprived of , however, hopes for relief from them. The Apostle Paul testifies to the internal and external life and activity of souls in an unresolved state when he says that their activity regarding God is expressed in kneeling before the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And with worship comes standing before God, and to some extent, the vision of God. With all this is connected also hope in God, and therefore, to some extent, joy in the Lord, consolation, joy. And since, according to the teachings of the Church, these souls, after repentance, without despair, passed into the afterlife, there remains hope for God’s endless mercy towards them. Beyond the grave, the state of the souls of repentant sinners, although painful, is still imbued with hope. How painful it is, it burdens the soul with the burden of sin, but how imbued with hope it calms it. A constant alternation of contrition and tranquility - this is their internal activity regarding themselves. Worshiping God, they are therefore not alien to respect and reverence for everything holy; they also give honor to the servants of God - the holy Angels and righteous souls. Their activity regarding God, the holy Angels and the holy saints of God is joined by their activity regarding those still on earth. The latter is expressed in the desire and hope for help from the living to improve their afterlife condition. So, if the souls of the unresolved state have some consolation, then we can assume about those in hell that they worship the Lord Jesus Christ together. This is the internal and external activity of souls in an unresolved state. The Eastern Patriarchs believe similar things about such souls in their “Confession of the Orthodox Faith.” The activity of lost sinners, just like that of righteous souls in paradise, is of three types: in relation to God, in relation to their neighbor and in relation to themselves. In relation to God, their activities consist of hatred of Him, blasphemy of Him and desire for what is contrary to His will. The inner torment of the soul consists in itself: in a clear and detailed consciousness of the sins with which souls offended God in this life; in remorse, which will awaken with all its force beyond the grave; in painful languor and melancholy from the fact that the soul’s attachment to the earthly and carnal can no longer find satisfaction, and its desire and taste for the heavenly and spiritual are not revealed and can no longer be revealed. And, finally, in despair and in the desire to stop existing. Self-consciousness, which makes the soul a personal being, will not leave it even in Gehenna. The activity of the forces of the soul will continue there. Thinking, cognition, feelings and desires are different from the manifestation of these forces in heaven. The properties of the internal activity of the soul, its self-consciousness in hell are completely opposite to the state and internal activity in heaven. The objects of the soul's activities in Gehenna, both internal and external, are lies, and their father is the devil. Everything sinful and contrary to God was the subject of the power of thinking on earth. Evil will be the subject of thinking activity even beyond the grave. Freethinking, striving to destroy the moral order on earth, and beyond the grave, as disagreeing with the will of God, will belong to the kingdom of the enemy of God and man, to the kingdom of the devil. The God-given spiritual power of knowledge can, due to the evil will of man, deviate from its natural, true purpose to the unnatural, when the subject of the activity of knowledge becomes the corruption and destruction of oneself and one’s neighbor, the spread of everything immoral. The knowledge of evil, according to the law of endless development, passes into the afterlife, into the kingdom of evil, and here it continues to develop in eternity. And in Gehenna there are many objects for continuing the activity of malicious knowledge, for its further improvement in the direction opposite to the true, good and beautiful. The properties of the internal activity of the soul, its self-consciousness in hell are completely opposite to the state and internal activity in heaven. If on earth the activity of the senses was the opposite of the true, the good and the beautiful, and the senses constantly exercised themselves in the unnatural and illegal, then beyond the grave their action will correspond to that on earth, and will be filled not with joy, but with inexpressible bitterness. The habit of feelings towards sin will not find satisfaction here. And deprivation of what you want is already suffering. Despite the increased desire of the senses for satisfaction, they will never receive it. An unnatural state of the soul, painful, contrary to its nature, is called a passionate state. Passions are ulcers, illnesses that on earth are healed by holy Baptism, repentance, communion, prayer, fasting, and attention to oneself. On earth, grace, which heals everything that is weak, heals passions. The effect of passions is known to everyone, and what work it takes to overcome them! Earthly passions are either overcome by grace, or satisfied by the person himself. In the first case he is the winner, in the second he is the loser. Since the soul is tightly and mysteriously connected with the body, and they mutually influence each other, the state of the soul is reflected in the state of the body, and vice versa. In a similar way, passions - mental and physical - mutually influence both the soul and the body. The passionate state of the soul is not only manifested in the visible actions of a person, but also in the state of the body. Particular pallor and gnashing of teeth are an expression of envy, malice, and anger. To what extent on earth do human passions lead? To the point of self-forgetfulness, if they are not satisfied and at the same time not healed. But the constant satisfaction of passions upsets all the powers and abilities of the human soul. The soul, having passed beyond the grave with its passions, remains there in a painful state and, not cured on earth, here can no longer get rid of its passions. And just as an untreated disease develops more and more, so beyond the grave the passionate state of the soul, according to the law of life, will develop more and more, reaching terrifying proportions. In Gehenna there is no healing, no liberation from passion, there is no longer grace for sinners and no satisfaction of passions, but there is only the wrath of God. Unsatisfied passion is a state of mind that fully corresponds to Gehenna. The constantly unsatisfied passionate state of the soul finally leads it into despair, into bitterness, and then into the state of the evil spirits themselves - blasphemy and hatred of saints. The development of passions cannot stop according to the law of life. If in earthly life the objects of the mind and heart were God and the Kingdom of Heaven, then after death the soul achieves what it wants. On the contrary, if the object of the soul on earth was the world with all its sins and temptations, then beyond the grave there will be no such object for the soul. The habit of sin, of fulfilling one’s passions, which has made the passionate state of the outcasts seem natural, will incessantly torment the soul for all eternity. The object of the desires of the saints is constantly growing and being satisfied, while the passions of the condemned are developing, but do not have an object in which they would be embodied. This is what the internal torment of sinners in Gehenna consists of! Irresistible passions - hopeless, never eradicated - torment and will torment the soul for all eternity. And we can affirmatively conclude that the effect of passions beyond the grave is much stronger than on earth. Everything acquired by the soul on earth, both good and evil, passes with it beyond the grave, determining the state corresponding to the qualities of the soul. Saint Gregory of Nyssa testifies to this: “If someone has completely immersed his soul in the things of the flesh, then such a person, even if he was no longer in the flesh, will still not be free from the lusts and desires of the flesh. Just as those who spent their lives in unclean places, even if they were moved to the purest and freshest air, still cannot immediately free themselves from the smell that remains with them, so those who are mired in the flesh will always carry with them the smell of the flesh.” Unsatisfied passion is a state of mind that fully corresponds to Gehenna. The constantly unsatisfied passionate state of the soul finally leads it into despair, into bitterness, and then into the state of the evil spirits themselves - blasphemy and hatred of saints. Thus, death, according to his teaching, destroying the union of the soul with the body, does not in itself cleanse the soul, mired in sensuality, from its carnal passions and habits. These passions and habits continue to exist and, due to their dissatisfaction, are a source of torment for the soul. Whoever sins in any way is tormented by it, unless he is healed on earth. The Apostle Paul testifies: do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap: he who sows to his flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life (Gal. 6:7-8). Crying is a visible, external expression of a state of mind, imbued with real joy or sorrow, therefore they sometimes cry from joy, but always from sorrow. Awareness of one's sinfulness, remorse, and lamentations about the irrevocable cause a state of mind called despair. This internal torment of sinners in Gehenna is called in the Holy Scriptures weeping and gnashing of teeth: then the king said to the servants: having tied his hands and feet, take him and throw him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth; for many are called, but few are chosen (Matthew 22:13-14). The place of imprisonment of sinners is not only impenetrable darkness, it also contains unbearable torment. Such states of mind on earth are expressed by these visible signs: crying and gnashing of teeth. Man, consisting of spirit, soul and body, is a spiritual and moral being, the purpose of which is already shown by his very image and his likeness to God. The apostles call on us: be merciful, just as your Father is merciful (Luke 6:36); for let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus (Phil. 2:5). Man was created for eternity. A spiritual and moral being must also lead a moral and religious life. In order for a person to fulfill his purpose or God’s will for him, the Lord gave him conscience as the beginning of a moral and religious life, a spiritual life that will continue beyond the grave - in eternity. Consequently, conscience is an inseparable companion of the soul, an accessory of the human spirit. Conscience is intended to constantly remind a person of what he should be on earth and beyond the grave, according to the purpose for which he was created. If the spirit is a necessary, essential part of a person, then conscience, according to the Apostle Paul, belongs to every person. But why are its manifestations different among different peoples at different times? And even among persons with similar views on life, the internal, and therefore external, activity of conscience is not the same? We find the answer to this in the Word of God and in examples from life. Some live according to the spirit, others according to the flesh. The first recognize the requirements of conscience as obligatory for themselves, the others do not! Conscience is intended to constantly remind a person of what he should be on earth and beyond the grave, according to the purpose for which he was created. The demands of conscience are the demands of the very spiritual nature of man. By fulfilling them, a person fulfills his purpose, without fulfilling, not considering himself obligated to listen to his inner voice, he acts against nature, rejects his purpose, does not recognize the purpose of his existence. The Word of God testifies to conscience as an attribute of the spirit, which already existed among the first people. If the conscience of the first parents had not spoken immediately after their fall, then why would they be afraid and hide from God, why should they cover their nakedness? Shame - an expression of conscience - prompted them to do this. Shame, prudery is a feeling that is part of the human spirit. The meaning of shame is a person’s desire to hide his nakedness, weakness, ugliness, to hide what is unnatural to him - vice, passion, in short, his evil. At the Last Judgment and in the second period of the afterlife, a complete man will again arise, consisting of spirit, soul and body. And since weakness, infirmity can be both spiritual, moral, and bodily-physical, a person’s desire to hide his unnaturalness from the eyes of the people around him, or the shame of a condemned person, will go to the extreme. Two human natures correspond to two shames: physical and moral. However, spiritual and moral shame is its main essence. Shame is an expression of conscience and is inseparable from the human spirit. Shame is common to everyone: children, elders, the rude, the educated, the stupid and the intelligent. Only to varying degrees! And everyone will be subjected to this shame to one degree or another at the Last Judgment and in the second period of the afterlife. Spiritual and moral shame is an expression of an offended conscience or a violated internal law. In the Holy Scriptures, conscience is called an internal law, written in the heart of every person. Shame is part of the spiritual nature of man, and since only man is gifted with the spirit, then shame is characteristic only of man and, being an accessory of his spirit, shame gives him the consciousness of imperfection and weakness. It is shame that protects a person from bad deeds and punishes for the evil done. Conscience, as the beginning of religious and moral life, is the highest moral force in man, hidden in a being of spiritual nature. This is the consciousness of what a person should be according to his purpose. Shamelessness is the highest degree of spiritual depravity, consisting in the rejection of truth and the adoption of evil. This moral state is characteristic of fallen spirits and condemned sinners. The activity of the mind, will and heart makes it clear to us how much we are fulfilling our purpose - to live according to God, according to the law of conscience. A person’s entire life, the activities of his mind, will and heart are controlled by conscience. Life - human activity on earth - must be consistent with the demands of conscience. Why does life and deeds according to the demands of conscience give a person, even on earth, so to speak, an anticipation of unearthly joy, fun, tranquility, peace, which are the beginning of eternal blissful joy beyond the grave? If on earth, among everything hostile to a person who is in constant struggle, virtue cheers the soul, then what can we say about that afterlife state of the righteous, which will be completely free from everything hostile? Truth, peace and joy are the blissful lot of heavenly life! The effect of conscience on the soul, and, consequently, on man, is twofold. Here on earth it is initial. And beyond the grave - perfect. There it will be inner bliss or torment, peace or remorse. If every deed on earth immediately affects the state of conscience, if after every wrong deed mental torment follows, then what will these torments be like in Gehenna, where only one evil develops? Life is development. As experience shows, evil in human personalities can develop to such an extent that one can say about it the same thing that is said about habit in general, that it becomes the second nature of a person. Having mastered evil, the person behind the grave is in a state of fallen spirits. Life in Gehenna is an endless development of evil. Life - the development of good or evil - can only change on earth. A bad, vicious person becomes a good Christian, and a good person becomes bad. Repentance, with the assistance of grace, which heals weakness, changes evil into good. And those who lead a presumptuous life forget God out of pride, are abandoned by grace, and man follows the path of development of evil. Eternal evil is followed by eternal condemnation of conscience, which punishes transgressors of the law. Having mastered evil, the person behind the grave is in a state of fallen spirits. Life in Gehenna is an endless development of evil. Life - the development of good or evil - can only change on earth. Through the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of one's demands with the help of willpower, the conscience is satisfied or offended. In the first case, it imputes merit to the person, in the second - guilt. For merit, as for a deed in accordance with the law, she promises a reward. For guilt, as for an unauthorized deed, contrary to the law, conscience threatens punishment. Good is promised to those who obey their conscience, and punishment to those who oppose them. The Apostle Paul attributes such an action of conscience to the pagans: the work of the law is written in their hearts, as evidenced by their conscience and their thoughts, now accusing, now justifying one another (Rom. 2, 15). So, the condemned who are in Gehenna, seeing the saved who are in paradise (of course, only in the first period of the afterlife), according to the testimony of St. Macarius of Egypt, do not see other prisoners next to them. And St. Athanasius the Great in his “Sermon on the Dead” writes that until the Last Day of Judgment, sinners in Gehenna do not recognize each other, despite the fact that they are together. They are deprived of this consolation too. External torment consists of being with other equally unfortunate souls, and especially with evil spirits, and in other torments of Gehenna. All this, however, serves only as a beginning and a foretaste of future eternal torment. This beginning is so great and terrible that anyone who saw and experienced it, if only it happened to someone, would not be able to retell what those condemned in the first period endure in Gehenna. Just as the Apostle Paul could not tell the inhabitants of the earth about the paradise to which he was taken. The activities of lost souls in Gehenna are of a nature characteristic of evil spirits. Since on earth these souls were completely alien to love, filled with malice, hatred and gloating, then with this spiritual mood opposite to love, they remain beyond the grave in Gehenna. Their attitude towards those living on earth is very similar to the feelings of evil spirits. As a result of their voluntary falling away from love for God, they become increasingly hardened in hatred of God and man. Although their mind and will remained with them, they received the wrong direction. Now the goal of all the activities of their mind is evil. And the will is directed towards the fulfillment of evil intentions. The desire for evil and destruction for those on earth is what all the activity of lost souls in relation to the living is directed towards.

"Dear editors!
I read with interest the article about the three-day descent of Jesus into hell. Quite a lot has been written recently about the presence of the souls of our deceased contemporaries in the next world. But at the same time, none of them talks about being in something that would somehow resemble hell. Those who have experienced clinical death talk about traveling along a long corridor, about the radiance of an unprecedented light that envelops the deceased with love, about meetings with deceased relatives, about the beautiful paintings and wonderful music that opened up to them, but no one has ever talked about hell. So maybe there is only heaven? After all, God loves man and forgives him..."
Y. Veltman, Altai Territory

There are many points of view on what happens to a person after death. In the Bible (book of Ecclesiastes) there is the following phrase: “And the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.”

From the point of view of Orthodoxy, when the deceased realized that he had died, he was still confused, he did not know where to go and what to do. For some time his soul remains near the body, in places familiar to it. The first two days the soul is relatively free. Then she will move to another world, but in these first minutes, hours and days she can visit places on earth dear to her and people who were close to her.

Archbishop Anthony of Geneva wrote: “So, a Christian dies. His soul, purified to some extent in the very exodus from the body, thanks only to mortal fear, leaves the lifeless body. It is alive, it is immortal, it continues to live in the fullness of the life that it "began on earth, with all its thoughts and feelings, with all its virtues and vices, with all its advantages and disadvantages. The life of the soul beyond the grave is a natural continuation and consequence of its life on earth."

Archbishop Anthony explains the fact of the immutability of personality as follows: “If death were to radically change the state of the soul, it would be a violation of the inviolability of human freedom and would destroy what we call a person’s personality.” The Archbishop develops this idea further: “If the deceased Christian was pious, prayed to God, hoping in Him, submitted to His will, repented before Him, tried to live according to His commandments, then after death his soul will joyfully feel the presence of God... But if the deceased in earthly life lost his loving Heavenly Father, did not look for Him, did not pray to Him, blasphemed, serving sin, then his soul after death will not find God, will not be able to feel Him. His dissatisfied soul will begin to yearn, torment... The expectation of the resurrection of the body and the Last Judgment will increase joy the pious and the sorrow of the wicked."

Archbishop Luke says the following about the state of the human soul after death: “In the immortal human soul, after the death of the body, eternal life and endless development in the direction of good and evil continue.” The most serious thing in these words is that at the moment of death of the body, all further development of the soul in the direction of good or evil is determined. In the afterlife, there are two roads before the soul - to the light or from it, and the soul after the death of the body can no longer choose the road. The road is predetermined by human life on earth.

The reader is right that the stories of our contemporaries, who looked behind the curtain of the afterlife, are similar to each other. This is passing through a dark tunnel, light that can instantly overcome any space and pass through everything material, compression of time, unsuccessful attempts to contact those living on earth, seeing your body from the outside. Many people talk about otherworldly nature - plants, animals, birds, heavenly music, singing. A wave of literature about those who saw the “other world” splashed out in the early 1970s. Doctors were especially eager to write about this. The pioneers here were Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, author of On Death and Dying (1969) and Death Does Not Exist (1977). Among other serious works, one can highlight the books by J. Meyers “Voices on the Edge of Eternity”, Osip and Haraldson “At the Hour of Death”, D. Wikler “Journey to the Other Side”. But the books by R. Moody “Life After Life” (1976) and “Reflections on Death After Death” (1983) attracted the greatest attention.

In his first book, Moody analyzed 150 cases in which people who had experienced clinical death clearly remembered what happened to them. True, Moody himself emphasized that his patients who experienced out-of-body existence described their experiences in words that are only analogues or metaphors. Due to the different nature of the “other world,” these sensations cannot be adequately conveyed.

60 percent of the “returnees” experienced an indescribable feeling of peace, 37 percent hovered over their own body, 26 remembered panoramic visions, 23 entered a tunnel, 16 were fascinated by an amazing light, eight met with deceased relatives. However, among the “returnees” there are also descriptions of hell.
To the question, “if there is heaven, then there is also hell?” The first among doctors to try to answer was the American resuscitator Dr. Rawlings in the book “Beyond the Threshold of Death.” It all started with a postal worker's heart attack, which happened right in Rawlings' office. In the intensive care unit, the patient came to his senses sporadically, but then his heart stopped again. The doctor was amazed by the patient's reaction. The resuscitation process is extremely painful and patients usually beg to be left alone, especially if electric shock is used. Here the patient literally shouted: “Continue, doctor, continue, for Christ’s sake! I don’t want to go there anymore! This is real hell!”

In the first minutes after the doctors’ victory, the patient told the incredible. “Lord Jesus, doctor, I was... in hell! It’s impossible to describe, but I swear it’s true... At first there was some kind of dark tunnel through which I flew without touching the walls, and then THIS... A dark crimson space, and in there is a huge lake, in which instead of water there is a blazing bluish fire, emitting an unbearable stench. And hundreds, thousands, and maybe millions of silent, gloomy people on the shore... Faces... You should have seen their faces! I recognized my dead uncle among them... Impossible I could even imagine that it was possible to leave or escape from this place, it was worse than the most terrible prison, and on the faces of all the people it was written that their despair was immeasurable, there was no hope. None of them spoke to me, did not come up, were not surprised at my appearance: they just stood and looked at this terrible flurry of fire. It was hot, there was not a drop of water anywhere... And suddenly - I looked over the crowd, a figure shrouded in light and also silent was moving: I recognized Him, it was He, Jesus! And then I mentally prayed, saying: “Lord, help me, you can get me out of here!..” He didn’t seem to pay any attention to my words, but as he walked away, he suddenly turned and looked at me... At that very moment I found myself in the operating room and - God sees! - how happy I was to find myself here again, in my body..."

From another resuscitated patient, Rawlings, after exclaiming “Lord, forgive me my unbelief,” learned that he, having flown through some kind of black tunnel, ended up in a “terrible place.” It was like a huge and completely dark cave filled with snakes. Snakes crawled over him, crawling into his ears and nose, causing unbearable pain. Some evil-minded creatures, invisible in the darkness, inspired horror with their mere presence. And suddenly, in the midst of this horror, he saw a flash of light, hearing at the same time a voice: “Come back, they begged you...” Then he saw his body from the side, and saw a woman praying nearby, who repeated: “Lord, don’t take him, this soul is still did not purify herself for Eternal Life!..."
As you can see, there is not so little evidence of a person going to hell after clinical death. However, there is another aspect to this. There is no reason to claim that the bright light for someone in a state of clinical death always comes from God. The devil's servants may dress themselves as angels to confuse people. Let us remember that in Latin “imitator of light” is Lucis-ferre or Lucifer. Lucifer is so beautiful that he is sometimes called the "morning star." Could this be the same “angel of light” that people who lived an unrighteous lifestyle saw? Is it possible that instead of an angel of light, Lucifer appears to a person? The Bible answers this question in the affirmative. The Second Epistle to the Corinthians says: “And it is not surprising: for Satan himself disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore, it is not a great thing if his servants also disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness; but their end will be according to their works.”

A deceiver pretending to be God cannot deceive believing people. These people easily distinguish the devil from God. If a person was close to God during life, then he will recognize Christ at the moment of death and will not confuse Him with the devil. In what cases can a person expose deception? “Comprehensive love is what should emanate from the divine light, and not just a glow,” says E. Kubler-Ross, a researcher of this issue. It is no coincidence that Christian teaching states: “God is love.” In this sense, an interesting case is described by one from American doctors.

This happened in one of the clinics where plasma was extracted from blood donors. While reviewing tests for hepatitis and AIDS, the doctor noticed positive tests for one of the donors, who could infect others. He got into a conversation with this self-confident, large young man of 21 years old. He said that he had recently been in an accident and needed a blood transfusion, and then he even fell into a coma.

During resuscitation, he observed himself outside the body. He was very surprised; a heavenly and beautiful light surrounded him on all sides. This guy didn't see any pictures of his past life, and there was no mention of him killing a man during a store robbery a few years ago. Only “love and peace” surrounded him. “I felt just great,” he told the doctor. “You know, this light never even reproached me for the fact that even before this incident I killed two more people. I was very happy. I knew that I should be in hell, but instead - a beautiful light. I wanted to say that I had sinned quite a lot, but I could not say a single word. I obeyed and fell silent."

After more carefully studying the stories of people who experienced clinical death, the ratio of positive and negative impressions about the afterlife turned out to be 50 to 50. However, many experts are confident that the number of positive examples about life after death is significantly exaggerated. It is interesting that sometimes in so-called “good” cases people observed devils on the way to the divine light. This speaks of the eternal struggle between good and evil.

One of these people, a certain Li Marin, saw “demons in a black tunnel.” “The darkness was so bright and obvious that I could have burned if I touched it,” he says.

It is interesting that the fully recorded story about being in hell, as it turned out today, appeared much earlier than the stories about going to heaven after clinical death. The return of man from the other world in modern history was recorded in 1970. But back in 1948, George Godkin from Canada described a state between life and death caused by a long-term serious illness. “I was taken to a place called hell. I not only saw hell, but also experienced incredible torment in it: mental and physical. The darkness of hell was so terrible that it pressed on me with terrifying force. This darkness was heavy, immense and, seemed endless. It made me feel... terrible loneliness. The heat was so strong that I was tormented by terrible thirst. My eyes were bloodshot and seemed to be popping out of their sockets. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth so that I couldn’t move it. quickened, and it seemed to me that there was not enough air, and I was about to suffocate. My whole body was immersed in a terrible heat, a little more - and I would burn all over. The hot air passed through the body, burning it with a terrible heat. The agony of loneliness in hell "It is difficult to express in words, since a person does not have words to describe all these horrors. It must be experienced."

And here is how the famous German actor Kurt Jurgent describes his experience of going to hell these days. "I felt that life was leaving me. I experienced the greatest horror. How is it that I will no longer live? I looked up at the lamps in the operating room, these domes began to change. Soon ... I saw devils in front of me, grimacing in front of me me. I tried to defend myself from these devils and push them away from me, but they were approaching me. Then the light and lamps turned into a transparent dome, which began to suck me in. A fiery rain began, the drops were huge. They flew past me, but did not touch me ". They fell near me, and tongues of flame grew out of them and devoured me. I could no longer even scream, and only devils were jumping around me and screaming loudly. I was filled with a feeling of despair and hopelessness... the feeling of fear was so terrible that it shocked me. I realized that I was in hell, and the flames could incinerate my body at any minute. At that moment, the dark figure of a person began to grow near me. It was a woman in black clothes, very thin, without a mouth. Just looking at her gave me goosebumps. She reached out her hands and pulled with incredible strength, and I followed her. I felt her icy breath, she dragged me to where the crying was heard. This crying became stronger and stronger, while not a single person was visible. Then I asked the woman to answer, who is she? The voice answered: “I am death.”

I gathered all my will and thought: “I will not follow her further, I want to live.”

Among the cases of going to hell, you can find different descriptions. The external side may differ from patient to patient, but everyone experienced a terrible sensation. Moreover, every person who has experienced a journey to hell and back says that it was the most terrible event in his life.

Hell has always been associated with two main components: fire and devils. And these two basic concepts have been preserved from ancient times to the present day. It is noteworthy that recently, in, say, the United States, the number of people who have observed terrible scenes at the moment of death has been increasing. This now accounts for approximately 18 percent of all cases. Researchers Osis and Haraldson say these figures differ significantly from generally accepted reports that only heaven and bliss await a person after death. This is explained very simply: medical workers have become more sensitive to what people say in their dying state. And each of the people can draw the obvious conclusion. Only by working on our soul do we have a chance to get to eternal heaven and nothing else. A person's life does not end with the last beats of the heart. But what kind of life a person will have in the afterlife depends on him.

Alexander Okonishnikov,
"HONESTLY"

Alexander Tkachenko

Enraged Rottweiler

If God is Love, why does He punish sinners so cruelly? What is fiery Gehenna? Where did hell come from and what is the nature of hellish torment? The Holy Fathers answered such questions one and a half millennia ago, but do we know these answers today?

“I will be equal with eternity. Those who enter, abandon your hope...” In Dante’s Divine Comedy, these words are written above the entrance to hell. And the very description of hell that the Italian Renaissance author gave in his poem became a textbook for the entire European culture for several centuries. According to Dante, hell is a vast space specially equipped for the torment of sinners who end up there. And the more serious the sins of a deceased person, the more terrible suffering his soul is exposed to in hell after death.

In general, the idea of ​​posthumous retribution for evil committed exists among almost all nations. Despite the many and varied religious beliefs in our world, it is hardly possible to find one among them that would deny the idea of ​​punishing sinners in the afterlife. And the Christian religion is no exception to the general rule; it also claims that people who commit sin will suffer in hell.

But this is where the problem arises. The fact is that Christianity is the only religion in world history that claims that God exists - Love. Moreover – Love is sacrificial! The God of Christians became a Man, lived among people, suffered all sorts of hardships, voluntarily accepted a painful death on the cross... God, who came to suffer for the sins of people, God, who knows what suffering is - there is nothing like this in any religion in the world.

And suddenly this good God promises unrepentant sinners such afterlife torments, which were not even imagined in the Jewish religious consciousness before Christ. In the Old Testament understanding, the souls of dead people went to Sheol, a place of unconscious residence, a land of eternal sleep. But Christ says quite definitely: the souls of the righteous go to the Kingdom of God, the souls of sinners go to fiery Gehenna, where their worm does not die and the fire does not go out. The image of hell as a fiery punishment for sins, a place of eternal torment, Gehenna, appears precisely in Christian doctrine.

What does it mean? It turns out that Christ, Who cried out of compassion for the grief of others, Who even on the cross prayed for the forgiveness of His tormentors; Christ, who did not condemn a single sinner (with a huge number of whom He communicated in His earthly life), suddenly suddenly changes his attitude towards them after their death? Does Christ really love people only while they are alive, and when they die, He turns from a loving and caring God for them into a merciless and inexorable judge, moreover, into an executioner and punisher? Of course, we can say that we are talking about sinners who themselves deserved their punishment. But Christ taught his disciples not to repay evil for evil. It turns out that this was said only for people, and God himself rewards sinners for the evil they have done with such terrible suffering that it’s scary to even think about it? For several decades of a sinful life - eternal torment... But why then do Christians claim that God exists - Love?

Many people have such questions. But it is easier for believers to resolve their confusion. Anyone who has turned to Christ in prayer and at least once in his life has felt the reciprocal touch of the Hand of God no longer needs any explanation. A believer knows that God is Love already from his experience of communicating with this God. But for an unchurched person, the question of eternal punishment for sins that have an end often becomes a serious obstacle in understanding Christianity.

Christ really spoke about fiery Gehenna. But what is Gehenna and why is it fiery? Where did this word come from and what does it mean? Without understanding this, it is simply impossible to correctly understand the words of Christ about the posthumous fate of unrepentant sinners.

Spiritual cesspool of paganism

Reading the Gospel, it is not difficult to verify that Christ did not use theological and philosophical terms in his sermon. Speaking about the Kingdom of Heaven with fishermen and winegrowers, He used images that were understandable and close to the simple people who then inhabited Judea. The language of the Gospel is an allegory, a parable, behind which stands spiritual reality. And to treat the Gospel metaphors as a direct description of this reality would be, to say the least, naive. Reading the parable in which the Lord likens the Kingdom of God to a mustard seed from which a tree grows, it is unlikely that anyone will seriously puzzle themselves with the problem - how many branches were there on this tree, and what breed of birds did Christ have in mind? But in discussions about Gehenna, the modern reader of the Gospel is for some reason inclined to understand the words of Christ literally. Meanwhile, in Gospel times, any Jew knew what Gehenna was and where it was located.

Ge-Ennon in Hebrew means the valley of Hinnom. It began right outside the city wall of Jerusalem. It was a gloomy place, associated for Jews with the most terrible and disgusting memories. The fact is that after concluding a Covenant with God, the people of Israel repeatedly violated this Covenant, deviating into paganism. And the Valley of Hinnom was a place of worship of Moloch and Ashtoreth, whose cults were accompanied by unnatural depraved orgies with temple prostitution, castrati priests and human sacrifices. Tophetes were built there (literally from Phoenician: places where people were burned) and the most disgusting and cruel rituals that only existed in ancient paganism were performed. Babies were thrown onto the hot hands of the idol Moloch, and they rolled into the fiery interior of the idol. And in the temples of Astarte, the virgins sacrificed their innocence to her. From the Valley of Hinnom this horror spread throughout Judah. Even in the Jerusalem Temple, King Manasseh installed an idol of Astarte. Such lawlessness could not continue indefinitely, and the prophet Jeremiah, having gathered the Jewish elders around him, predicted the fall of the kingdom of Jerusalem to the people of Israel precisely in Ge-Hennon for their apostasy from the True God.

In the 6th century BC, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar conquered Judea, destroyed Jerusalem, plundered and burned the Temple. At the same time, the greatest shrine of the Jewish people, the Ark of the Covenant, was lost forever. Thousands of Jewish families were driven to Babylon. Thus, spiritual depravity, the center of which was the Valley of Hinnom, ended for the Jews with the era of the Babylonian captivity.

When the Jews returned from captivity to their native land, He-Henna became for them a place that evoked horror and disgust. Garbage and sewage from all over Jerusalem began to be brought here, and a fire was constantly maintained here to prevent infection. Ge-Ennon turned into a city dump, where the corpses of executed criminals were also thrown out.

The Valley of Hinnom became among the Jews a symbol of the death of paganism and debauchery. The stench and fire that never went out in the landfill reigned where the spiritual infection that destroyed Israel during the time of Nebuchadnezzar once spilled out.

Gehenna was a part of their life for the Jews, as understandable as burning the chaff after threshing the grain. Christ used these images so that the people listening to Him would be imbued as deeply as possible with the thought of the destruction of sin. The words about the unquenchable fire and the undying worm are a literal quote from the last verse of the book of the prophet Isaiah, also very familiar to the Jews. And there these words refer not to the souls of dead sinners, but to the corpses of God’s enemies.

Behind all these terrible symbols, of course, there is an equally terrible spiritual reality. Fortunately, it is impossible for us to fully comprehend it, since this reality is fully revealed only to unrepentant sinners after death. But you can at least partially understand the causes of hellish suffering by familiarizing yourself with the doctrine of the passions, which was compiled by the Holy Fathers of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Enraged Rottweiler

What are passions? Imagine that you have been given a puppy of a fighting or service breed, say, a Rottweiler. A wonderful gift! If you raise a dog properly, train it, teach it to obey commands, then it will become a loyal friend and reliable protector for you. But if such a puppy is not given proper upbringing, then in a few months you will find a powerful, fanged monster in your house, which will begin to dictate the terms of your life together. Such a dog turns into an evil, uncontrollable beast, capable of biting, maiming and even killing its careless owner.

Passion works in a similar way - a certain property of the human soul, which was initially useful and necessary. But, misused by man, this property has changed, becoming a dangerous and evil enemy for him.

The Church teaches that man is an amazing creature, the only creation that God created in His Image and Likeness, investing in him reason and creativity. But man was not created for blissful idleness. The meaning of his existence should have been joyful co-creation with his Creator. Having received power over the material world from God, he had to preserve and cultivate the Garden of Eden, and subsequently, by multiplying and filling the face of the Earth, turn the entire Universe into Paradise. For this lofty goal, God endowed human nature with colossal creative potential, a huge number of different forces, properties and abilities, using which to fulfill God’s will for himself, man would become a real king of the created world. But God did not create him like an automaton, rigidly programmed to carry out this plan. Such co-creation could only be realized in a free union of mutual love and trust of two personalities - God and man. And where there is no freedom, there can be no love. In other words, man was free to choose - to follow the will of the God who loves him, or to violate it. And man could not resist this freedom...

Tainted Gift

After the Fall, he did not lose the qualities and properties received from God. It’s just that these qualities suddenly turned into a set of time bombs for him. Only by fulfilling God's plan for himself could a person use his abilities for good. In any other case, they became a source of misfortune and destruction. A simple analogy: an ax was invented and made for carpentry. But if you use it for other purposes, you can cut down a fruit-bearing garden, chop off your own leg, or kill an old pawnbroker.

So sin has distorted all the properties of the human soul. Instead of recognizing himself as the image of God, man acquired narcissism, pride and vanity, love turned into lust, the ability to admire the beauty and greatness of creation - into envy and hatred... All the abilities that the Lord so generously endowed man with, he began to use contrary to their purpose. This is how evil entered the world, this is how suffering and disease appeared. After all, a disease is a disruption of the normal functioning of an organ. And as a result of the Fall, all human nature turned out to be upset and began to suffer severely from this disorder.

By committing any sin, a person violates the will of God and forces his nature to work differently from how it was intended by God. If this sin becomes a source of pleasure for a person and he commits it again and again, the degeneration of natural properties used for sinful joys occurs in him. These properties go beyond the control of the human will, become uncontrollable and require more and more portions of sin from the unfortunate person. And even if later, seeing that this is the path to death, he wants to stop, it will be very difficult to do so. Passion, like an enraged Rottweiler, will drag him from sin to sin, and when he tries to stop, he will show his fangs and begin to mercilessly torment his victim. This action of passions can easily be traced in the tragic fate of drug addicts and alcoholics. But it would be naive to think that hatred, fornication, envy, anger, despondency, etc. - less destructive for a person than an irresistible craving for vodka or heroin. All passions are equally terrible, since they have a common source - human nature crippled by sin.

Fire, worse than fire

The suffering that unsatisfied passion causes to a person is very reminiscent of the effect of fire on the human body. It is no coincidence that the Holy Fathers, speaking about the passions, constantly used images of flame, burning, burning coals, etc. And in non-church, secular culture there was no better definition for passions. Here we have “inflamed with passion”, and “burned by passions”, and the famous Lermontov: “... one, but fiery passion”, and the popular advertising slogan: “Light the fire of passion...”. It’s easy to light it, but putting it out later is incredibly difficult. But for some reason people treat this fire very lightly, although we all know its effects from our own experience. In some it smolders, in others it burns, and in others it burned to the ground before our eyes. To be convinced of this, just look at the chronicle of criminal incidents in any newspaper.

…Man. Teetotal. With higher education. During a family scandal, he hit his wife and accidentally killed him. Then he strangled his young daughter so that she would not betray him. Then he realized what he had done and hanged himself.

…Woman. Teacher. Out of jealousy, she doused her rival with sulfuric acid.

…Another woman. Deciding to commit suicide, she drank a bottle of vinegar essence. Her life was saved, but she remained disabled for the rest of her life.

...Father of two children. Director of the institution. A very conscientious worker. In just a few months, he squandered a huge amount of government money on slot machines. At the trial he said: “When I played, I did not control myself...”.

People don't control themselves. The fire of passion burns them unbearably, demanding them to commit sin again and again. And in the end, he drives them into prison, into a hospital bed, into a grave... This is very similar to madness, but our lives are literally overflowing with such stories. And if death would end this suffering, it would be the greatest benefit for man. But the Church directly says the opposite. Here are the words of the monk about the passions operating in the soul of a person after the death of the body: “... The soul, being in this body, although it struggles from passions, also has some consolation because a person eats, drinks, sleeps, talks, walks with kind people your friends. When she leaves the body, she is left alone with her passions and therefore is always tormented by them; busy with them, she is scorched by their rebellion and tormented by them, so that she cannot even remember God; for the very remembrance of God comforts the soul, as the psalm says: “I remembered God and rejoiced,” but even this passions do not allow it.”

“Do you want me to explain to you with an example what I am telling you? Let one of you come, and I will shut him up in a dark cell, and let him, even though only for three days, not eat, drink, sleep, talk to anyone, sing psalms, pray, and not remember at all. about God - and then he will know what the passions will do in him. However, he is still here; How much more, after the soul leaves the body, when it surrenders to passions and remains alone with them, will the unfortunate one endure?”

Passions are compared to fire, but this is not entirely correct. Because passions are much worse than fire. Fire can torment a person only for a short time, then the body’s defensive reaction is triggered and the person loses consciousness. Then he dies from painful shock.

But when the fire of passion torments a person all his life, and after death only intensifies many times over...

This is why sin is terrible because it gives birth to passions in a person’s soul, which after death will become an unquenchable hellish flame for him.

Lies of hell

“My Architect was inspired by the truth:
I am the highest power, the fullness of omniscience
And created by first love...
...You who enter, abandon your hopes.”

When I asked the angel: “Where are our evangelical Christians, our Pentecostals? I want to go to them.” I saw a lot of familiar faces. But I was wondering how they were, where. "Where? - I say. And he says: “Who?” I say: “Like who? Well, my brothers and sisters in faith. Well, okay, where are the Orthodox then?” The angel replied: “And here there are neither one nor the other. Here are the children of God.” Do you understand, friends? There is no division in heaven. There are God's children there, and it doesn't matter what denomination they were. Important. What was in their hearts and who they served. All who served the Lord Christ are in heaven. And those who served themselves, in each denomination, in hell they are divided, the torment in hell is terrible for them. They each have their own cauldron of resin. It's horrible. It's horrible. But these people - they knew the truth, but did not believe it. Friends, if you know the truth, do not brush it aside. Believe that everything that is said in this Book, here in this Book, is all true. This is all true to the last point.

We descended further. We went down to the very bottom. In one of the circles I saw my grandmother. Yes, dad's mom. My kind, affectionate, wonderful grandmother. The demon pulled out her tongue with tongs. The tongs are hot. From these tongs, the whole tongue, the whole body catches fire, it all becomes charred. And so, when the ashes were supposed to dissipate and the torment should stop, it happened again - he unclenched the pincers, his tongue fell out, and in this place the ashes came together and everything became the same again, and the torment continued. She screamed, but she couldn't say anything. She looked at me with bulging eyes and stretched out her hands. I couldn't stand it because I couldn't help her. I couldn’t reach out to her and cool her tongue. It turns out she was slandering. She slandered. I understood why the neighbors were not friends with her. This is scary to say. It hurts to say. Her son, my dad, was in heaven. And his mother stayed there forever. I couldn’t move from my place, and if it weren’t for the angel, I probably would have stood there and stood there, crying and screaming. I screamed for her.

I don’t know how we ended up even lower, but I saw a door. A room, and the door from it is black, smeared as if with sewage. People came through this door, as it seemed to me - because some of them were beautifully dressed; even the suits seem to be from Versace, or, conversely, Montana sports jeans; or beggars in rags; or girls in fishnet stockings. But they all had ugly faces. Just muzzles, friends, not faces. They came. These are demons who walk the earth, who seduce people. They came to report to their master. He was sitting behind a closed door. When the door opened slightly, I also saw the foot of the throne. He disguises himself as the Lord. He doesn't want anyone to see his face either. But the throne was ugly. It was disgusting and disgusting to look at. I closed my eyes, but I managed to hear them report, and how one demon in an expensive suit with a laptop took something out of his pocket. This was something I couldn't see. This something was a soul. I understood this when he replied: “Here, master, another soul. Tie her up.” And the door slammed. I couldn't move. I asked the angel: “How can this be? Another person died and they were captured?” He says: “No. Otherwise, that soul would have been in one of the circles. And this one is still alive. He made a covenant. He made a covenant. Sold my soul. Now the devil will tie her up, take her to a place, put her in chains, and place a demon there. This person will get up, walk around, do his business. But it won't be him anymore. His bound soul will sit in the depths. And the demon to whom he gave his flesh will walk the Earth in his place.” I remembered how they say about evil people: “a soulless person.” Soulless, because there is already a captive soul there. Captive soul. The enemy will release it only when hell gives up its souls and the sea gives up its dead. This is what the Lord said. So He wrote it down. When you meet such people with empty, cruel eyes, you understand that it is about them that the Word of God says: “Do not pray for such people, for they are not for salvation.” Until that moment I didn’t understand. Lord, how can this be? There's something I don't understand. Well, why not for salvation? Why not for salvation? Yes, because they voluntarily gave themselves. And they gave it up so voluntarily that they were tied up, tied up by the enemy. And a demon already inhabited his body. The family still thinks this is their wonderful dad and wonder how he has changed overnight. Colleagues think that their colleague is wonderful, that what happened to him, that he has changed like this, that he seems to be the wrong person. They are surprised. Well, they are surprised, then they get used to the fact that this is walking evil. And this walking evil seduces others like themselves. I didn't want to see anything anymore. I was so scared and creepy that I was only afraid of one thing - to be thrown into the lake of fire that we passed through. Or into that lake of sewage, in which souls floundered, trying to get out, who cried out to the heavens that they could see. The celestials don't see this. It is closed to them. They see the Earth and their loved ones for whom they pray. They come to the foot of the throne of God and pray to the Lord. And the Lord sends angels to stop the sinner, if possible. And those souls in hell - they do not even have the opportunity to warn their loved ones where they are. And how terrible it is for them when their loved ones, remembering them on the anniversary of their death, say good words: “how holy he lived, how he loved people.” If this is not true, the demons are bullied. They intensify the torture, and for every kind word about the deceased they feel even worse. From there he shouts: “Be silent.” But people don't hear. They are lying. After all, most people know what the deceased was like during life, and they are disingenuous. If you know that he was not like that during his lifetime, remain silent. Keep quiet. Don't add to his torment. Or tell the truth about him: “Yes. He wasn't a saint. He was a sinner." Tell the truth. His torture there will not increase from this. They will not weaken, but they will not strengthen either. They will remain like this until the coming of Christ, until the judgment. I remembered how I was when I was at the funeral of a obviously unpleasant person. But popular wisdom says: “It’s either good or nothing about the dead.” And, as a rule, we begin to praise, not realizing that our lies make them even worse...

I didn’t notice how we began to rise higher and higher. We found ourselves again near this curtain. We crossed the threshold of the veil, and I inhaled this incense deeply. He revived me. And the angel turned me to face the veil, gently pushed me with his shoulder and said: “It’s time for you.”

My friends, I left easily and freely, but when I rolled down, it was such pain. I flew into my body with pain. With pain and screaming. But I was ashamed - compared to the torments of hell, it was not painful. It was bearable. I fell silent. But I heard someone else screaming. I opened my eyes. I thought: “Who can scream like that?” And I saw: a room, tiled walls. A woman in a white robe is sitting on the floor, her robe is wet. There's a spilled bucket lying upside down nearby, and a mop. And she sits and points with her hand: “Uh, uh.” She doesn't just scream, she also moans.

I sat down. I couldn't see clearly. I realized: they didn’t sew up my head. I say: “What are you shouting?” Oh, I wish I hadn't asked that. The poor woman became white as a sheet. I tell her: “Don’t be afraid. Do not scream". But she got down on all fours and quickly, quickly - and into the door. She crawled out.

I felt cold. I began to look around and saw that I was covered with only one sheet. On my leg there is a medical history number written in green paint. On the other is the first and last name, and the date of death. I knew how the dead were registered. I am a doctor. I spent more than one day in the morgue while taking exams in anatomy and surgery. But why am I here? - I thought, “I was just in heaven.” Oh yes, the Lord said, “You will return.” What to do next? Lord, you won’t allow me to be cut alive, will you? They’re going to open me up now, I thought. My stomach hurt terribly. Looking down, I saw a cut. Yeah, I've already been tried. I caught it with my hand, but there was no blood. Strange, I thought.

** This site offers testimonies of people who saw torment in hell and what awaits sinners. They talk in detail about how they ended up in the underworld and what happened next after that. The human soul in hell is a reality, there is no mystification in this. But unfortunately today we are too busy with our own affairs and problems. And if you think about what is happening in our lives, you can see how the mass of different information does not allow us to hear the main thing. And the main thing is that Jesus Christ rose again and gave us the opportunity, through his victory over death, to have an eternal inheritance. And we must be sure that heaven will help us and that everything has already happened. All that remains now is for each of us to accomplish our salvation and become doers of God’s will. In scripture, Jesus Christ said that we should seek His kingdom first (Matthew 6:33-34) and not be concerned about others. But we are all caught up in living for our own pleasure and not hearing the call of heaven for us.
** Editor's note

I can’t believe that the Lord will allow people to suffer eternally in hell. He is the ideal of love and mercy, how can he allow the eternal (!) hellish (!!) torment of people? You can’t gain so much in your entire life and then be subjected to torture forever.

Hieromonk Job (Gumerov) answers:

Dear Oleg! Since the afterlife is divided into heaven and hell, your letter inevitably implies a statement that you do not directly make: after the end of history, all people should be in heaven. In response to your letter, the question inevitably arises: where should Divine Justice place the people guilty of the brutal extermination of tens of millions of people (the leaders of the most odious totalitarian regimes of the 20th century). Where will Justice place the people who, with sophisticated and vile cruelty, killed schoolchildren, pregnant women, and helpless disabled people? How do you imagine the life in paradise of those who left this world with unhealed ulcers of their criminal conscience, in malicious enmity with God? Life in paradise will be built on the principles of perfect love. How is the harmony of a blissful life in the Kingdom of Heaven possible with the participation of those whose souls are ossified in a state of satanic malice?

When talking about heaven and hell, it is unacceptable to be guided by a simplified legal view that has nothing to do with the laws of spiritual life and a correct understanding of the nature of good and evil. Heaven and hell begin in the human soul. The saints, having purified themselves and sanctified themselves by deeds and deeds of love, were so united with God while still on earth that they experienced heavenly bliss within. The Kingdom of Heaven for them is the absolute fullness of joy, which began here. For others, sin and crime have become the meaning of life. They rejected Divine love, trampled His commandments and deliberately chose darkness rather than light. Hell for them is only the logical conclusion of what they had during their lives. If they, having free will, chose darkness, then how can they be forcibly sent to heaven?

Two exclamation points after the word “hell” show that you are fundamentally opposed to hell. But then the entire structure of spiritual and moral life is destroyed to the ground. If a person, risking his life, saved others, and a criminal, who made cruelty and killing people his profession, receive the same reward (paradise), then good and evil are equalized. The fundamental difference between them disappears.

In the letter there is one exclamation point after the word “eternal”. Confusion about the eternity of hell again reveals a narrow legal understanding of the issue. Hell is eternal not because Divine Justice wishes it so, but because a soul fused with sin remains that way forever. And if she remains like this forever, then the gates of heaven are forever closed to her. If on earth, despite Divine calls to repentance and despite the edifying examples of the saints, sinners with unshakable persistence choose darkness, then how will they be transformed and corrected in hell, being deprived of God’s guiding grace. If hell re-educated sinners, they would be saved without Jesus Christ, who is the only way to salvation.

Denial of hell testifies to the corruption of human nature. Here a hidden or obvious reconciliation with sin and the incompleteness of our faith are revealed. The Son of God, having diminished Himself, united with our limited human flesh, took upon Himself all the sins of perishing humanity. In order to save us from eternal death, He drank the full cup of bitter suffering, sorrow, humiliation and went to the most painful death. Why are we not horrified by the cynicism with which humanity, like the prodigal son, insults the greatness and holiness of its Heavenly Parent? The Holy Fathers, fully aware of the vile essence of sin, were amazed at Divine forbearance. May we never imagine such lawlessness as to call God unmerciful! Oh, how wonderful is the mercy of God! Oh, how amazing is the grace of God and our Creator! What a force that dominates everything! What immeasurable goodness, why<Он>Our nature in us, sinners, again leads to re-creation! Who has the strength to glorify Him? He raises up those who have transgressed His commandment and those who have blasphemed Him, and renews the foolish dust(St. Isaac the Syrian. Words of asceticism. Homily 90).

The Savior of the world, by His death on the Cross, deprived the devil of power over the human race and destroyed the power of death. I will redeem them from the power of hell, I will deliver them from death. Death! where is your sting? hell! where is your victory?(Hos. 13:14). After the Resurrection of the Savior, people themselves drive themselves into hell, choosing darkness rather than Light.