Toll Houses + Unhealthy polemics at NFTU is not good.

[joasia]

Maria,

The term, toll-house, may be from a later time, but the belief in judgement of our souls has always been the teaching of the Church fathers. Many Orthodox saints have described the battle of the demons over the departed soul. I'm just wondering what your specific objection is since there have been many explanations from Greek, Alexandrian and Egyptian Orthodox saints although you think it is only a Russian concept. I believe that the Russians learned it from the Greeks so they are just passing on the teaching. If they decided to give it a certain name to explain the complexity of the soul's situation during this trial, it was probably due to the fact that our created minds can not explain such a world beyond our understanding and therefore we make analogies. The holy fathers of the Church didn't give it a name; they just described what was happening, but it comes down to the same thing... there is a judgement to face.

And in addition, the Orthodox Church has a clear understanding of what happens to the soul after this life. The Church has developed prayers for them and specified certain days that are significant from the time of repose: 3, 9, 40. I don't know if that is specified in the Seven Ecumenical Councils, but it is certainly an established tradition of our faith and we honor it.

These are just my simple thoughts.

In Christ,
Joanna

[Maria]

Dear Joasia,

Indeed, I believe that our souls will be judged immediately after death, and then we will wait for the Last Judgment of Christ when all will be judged.

However, I object to the labels of "heretic" by people who are passionately promoting Toll Houses or those who are passionately objecting to them. Personally, I am trying to avoid both extremes. Yes, I believe that we must be sober and watchful, and prepare for death by repentance, humility, and true charity, but Christ has not revealed the existence of "Toll Houses" and neither have any of the Seven Ecumenical Councils defined it as necessary of belief. There are no anathamas attached to those who refuse to believe or to those who believe in Toll Houses.

Life After Death has not been defined. It remains a Great and Holy Mystery. Perhaps that is why Christ and His Holy Church have not defined much about this Mystery, except that Universalism is a heresy, and that there is a great gulf that separates Heaven from Hell.

All that is necessary for salvation is that we repent.

In Christ,
Maria

Maria,

The term, toll-house, may be from a later time, but the belief in judgement of our souls has always been the teaching of the Church fathers. Many Orthodox saints have described the battle of the demons over the departed soul. I'm just wondering what your specific objection is since there have been many explanations from Greek, Alexandrian and Egyptian Orthodox saints although you think it is only a Russian concept. I believe that the Russians learned it from the Greeks so they are just passing on the teaching. If they decided to give it a certain name to explain the complexity of the soul's situation during this trial, it was probably due to the fact that our created minds can not explain such a world beyond our understanding and therefore we make analogies. The holy fathers of the Church didn't give it a name; they just described what was happening, but it comes down to the same thing... there is a judgement to face.

And in addition, the Orthodox Church has a clear understanding of what happens to the soul after this life. The Church has developed prayers for them and specified certain days that are significant from the time of repose: 3, 9, 40. I don't know if that is specified in the Seven Ecumenical Councils, but it is certainly an established tradition of our faith and we honor it.

These are just my simple thoughts.

In Christ,
Joanna

[Priest Siluan]

Life After Death by St. John Maximovitch, a description of the first 40 days after death

http://www.orthodox.net/articles/life-a ... vitch.html

PS: Please read too the Footnotes

[Matthew]

Yes, a 'private' revelation that found in the writings of all the saints that talk about it, and is in the liturgical texts of the Church.

Hello Maria,

I understand your feelings on the matter. I would just like to say that you seem to be approaching the issue somewhat from a juridical point of view, that because "it is not specified as required dogmatic belief in one of the 7 ecumenical councils" then it is not necessary for salvation and we should not believe that, or behave in a manner suggesting that, the Church has a solid position on this spiritual and theological question. As Fr Augustine points out it is clearly present in the liturgical texts of the Church which is part of the fabric of Orthodox faith and life which is common and the heritage for us all. Rather than a juridical set of required beliefs enumerated in the councils on one hand and a set of optional ideas for the rest of the traditions of the Church, ought we not to approach this issue as all other issues as a part of a the living experience of the Church's life, faith, and experience and preserved and interpreted by the liturgies and lives of the saints and their personal experiences preserved for us hundreds and more than a thousand years later in the lives recorded in the synaxarion? I think it is clear that the teaching was clarified as time went on and, as Joanna notes, this involved adopting new terms as the accumulation of experience and accounts and teachings of the Saints and Fathers grew, "toll houses" perhaps being one of them. The ideas however are consistent with the ancient and simpler references to be found in earlier centuries.

Symeon

[Hieromonk Enoch]

I would say that the evidence for the Dormition and Assumption/Resurrection of Our Lady is the same as for the particular/partial judgment. Both are found in the Fathers and liturgical texts; actually, there is more 'evidence' for the 'toll-house' view of the partial/particular judgment in the Scriptures, Fathers, and liturgical texts. Yet, is one free to publicly state that Our Lady's body was never taken to Heaven? Or that Our Lady's body and soul were never re-united and she becomes Queen of the Universe? Why is there now a different standard for the abundant mention in the Fathers, Scriptures, and liturgical material about the particular/partial judgment? Just because some people have embrace exaggerated views on this matter (perhaps), does not negate the reality of it. Just as just because the Papists have repeatedly fallen into the false views of Marian immortalism and that she never underwent any kind of death is no reason to reject the Dormition and Assumption/Resurrection of the Most Holy Mother of God.

-Fr. Enoch (formerly Fr. Augustine)

[Matthew]

One more thing I would like to point out in addition is that, yes we can say that there is some question among Orthodox Christians on this issue and there is much debate on it, and that is something that you have rightly pointed out, Maria. But we should also consider among which sector, or of what sort of Orthodox Christians are they who are calling the Toll House tradition of personal post mortem judgement into question? If we go back to when all this really became a hot debate, at least on the North American Orthodox scene, it was largely something that became a point of debate with the publishing of blessed Seraphim Rose's serials (later made into a book) on the Soul After Death. And who was it that led the attack and has since been largely responsible for its ongoing contention? OCA's Archbishop Lazar Puhalo aka Ron Haler, who has been publicly calling for an about face of the Church in its stance towards transsexuality. He also believes and publicly teaches that death entered the world and the curse upon creation preceded the Fall of Adam and Eve by millions of years, totally severing the direct relationship between sin and death categorically taught in ALL the Holy Fathers. That is about as liberal as it gets. Anyway, if people still want to say that the True Church is non-commital on this issue, why then was Puhalo commanded by the united ROCOR Synodal decision and judgement to drop his campaign against Father Seraphim on this very issue--judging that Puhalo was wrong and that Fr. Seraphim taught correctly? Furthermore, and this pretty much says it all, when Puhalo refused to comply and kept publicizing that the "Toll-House Theory is a heretical gnostic myth," he was summarily defrocked after being sternly warned and found incorrigible. And today, the same characteristics can be seen. It is not the members of the TOC churches that really debate this point. Rather, it is rejected and fought against mainly by the liberals in the EP, and SCOBA jurisdictions -- people who clearly want to make The Orthodox Faith palatable for the Protestants and worldly minded heterodox who find such teachings offensive, and wish to sanitize it from anything that might hinder that ambition. These are truly people who distort the truth to their own destruction.

[Hieromonk Enoch]

Icxyprion,

Fr. Michael Azkoul also considers the Toll-house view to be an heresy and he is a priest of the GOC under Abp. Kallinikos. He wrote a book calling Fr. Seraphim and his works neo-Gnostic. There are TOC people who have gone into this foray.

In Christ,

Fr. Enoch