Posthumous ordeals of the soul and the terrible judgment of God. Orthodox faith - ordeal-alphabet. Sins for which they are punished in ordeals

Orthodoxy gives us not only hope for eternal life, but also, lifting the veil of mystery, shows what is happening beyond life and death. Tradition tells us that after separation from the mortal body, the soul undergoes trials, called ordeals. What is the meaning of these tests? The soul must reveal what it has acquired in a short earthly life. What are the virtues? What vices?

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The tests of the soul for good and evil are not symmetrical. For three days the soul stays at the tomb, getting used to its new existence. She needs to learn to exist in a new, unusual world for her, to see not with her eyes, hear not with her ears. It becomes clear that in bodily existence was seen as a kind of vague picture through the smoked glass.

From the third to the ninth day, the soul contemplates the heavenly tabernacles, passing the test of grace and a test for virtue. From 9 to 40 - sees pictures of hellish torment and is tested for sins and passions.

But what does being tested by good or evil mean? Cognition on earth is mediated and rational. There is an object or object of cognition, a cognizing subject and a cognitive process, always incomplete, because, no matter how hard the subject tries, he cannot exhaust the cognized.

But the soul, freed from the bodily shell, cognizes in a completely different way - uniting with the cognized, becoming a part of it. The soul, if its essence is not too distorted, obscured by the freedom of manifestation and passions, is characterized by a striving for deification, merging with the higher essence, which is God.

However, God, as the Fathers of the Orthodox Church have repeatedly emphasized, is outside the created world. His good energies are present in this world, manifesting in the form of virtues.

So, the first six days, according to the number of days of Creation, the soul comes into contact with the Glory of God, seeking union with good energies, of which the most important are three: Faith, Hope and Love.

• Connecting with the energy of Faith manifests itself in a deep personal experience of God as the source of salvation and eternal life. This is the same Faith about which it is said: "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed and say to this mountain:" go from here to there, "and it will pass and nothing will be impossible for you."
• Energy of Hope is the affirmation of the human being in the Divine Being, the hope of resurrection from the dead and the life of the future age, built on energy of love... But it is said: "God is Love."

But the question is that the original pure nature of the soul will be so distorted that its merging with the energies of virtues will be difficult or impossible.

From 9 to 40 days, according to tradition, the soul goes through ordeals - it is tested by sinful passions: anger, idle talk. A soul succumbing to these passions is doomed to torment, which it has prepared for itself. After all, if on Earth passions can be quenched for a while, and their fire can be weakened, then outside of a short human life there is no support for passions. And the soul burning with them incinerates itself. In this, and not in popular prints with devils at boiling cauldrons, the meaning of hellish torment.

After 40 days, the soul goes to worship God and there, according to the results of the tests, the place is determined where it will be until the Last Judgment - in hell or in paradise.

So, what kind of ordeals does the soul go through after death?

1. Word... In a word, you can heal and cripple. The word is one of the beginnings of the world. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." And verbal sins are not a trifle. Not only idle talk and idle talk, but also obscenities, incitement, rudeness,.
2. Lying... There are many sins associated with lies. But the most abhorrent among them is perjury and perjury.
3. Slander - a lie raised to a power.
4. Gluttony - any gratification of base passion. Not only excessive food, but also drunkenness, tobacco smoking, drug use.
5. Laziness, the manifestations of which are trash, idleness and parasitism.
6. Theft - a group of sins united by the appropriation of someone else's. This can be theft or fraud, as well as the appropriation or use of stolen goods.
7. Avarice, greed and hoarding... Especially sinful are those who gave money at interest. However, even those who did not give alms to the poor. Bribe takers are also in this category.
8. , extortion, robbery and robbery.
9. Cheating... Including body kit, bribery and unrighteous trial.
10. Envy, the desire for other people's goods.
11. Pride, swagger, arrogance.
12. Anger, vindictiveness, rancor.
13. Hatred.
14. Murder, including in thoughts, in a word, unborn (abortion).
15. Sorcery... Fortune telling, divination, appeals to psychics, summoning the souls of the dead, in general, any heinous witchcraft.
16. Fornication - different from adultery. Fornication includes any depraved manifestation, including viewing pornography and masturbation. As well as cohabitation outside of marriage, erotic fantasies and other excesses.
17. Adultery, in other words, adultery.
18. - unnatural connections.
19. Heresy... Both the distortion of faith and unbelief in general.
20. Unmercifulness... Cruelty and insensitivity to those near and far.

This list quite exhaustively describes all the qualities of a distorted soul, a soul that has departed from God. But in the created soul, already at the moment of creation, there is a striving for deification, a return to its source. And the further the soul departs from this nature, the more it suffers.

Should I take it literally?

There are several views on the posthumous existence of the soul. According to one, all detailed descriptions of the beatitudes of the righteous and the torment of sinners must be taken literally. According to another, these descriptions are allegorical. An allegory is necessary here because a person who is in the epicenter of earthly life, where the bodily prevails over the spiritual in sensations, is not able to imagine the world in which the soul exists and the ways of its interaction with this species. In order to realize the need for an earthly search for ways to Salvation, a person is shown gross, bodily pictures of hellish torments.

The danger of this approach is manifested in simplification. Under the influence of cunning philosophies, the sacred is reduced to the ridiculous - God, in the form of a bald old man in a sheet, the righteous, having fun with chants in paradise, and hell, more reminiscent of a bath with beer and crayfish.

Meanwhile, an overly down-to-earth, detailed picture of the posthumous existence contradicts the mystical tradition of Eastern Christianity.

This tradition is fully expressed already in the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, which include the most important postulates of the Eastern Church.

In particular, the distinction between cataphotic (positive) and apophatic (negative) theology. Cataphotic theology gives us a certain set of knowledge about God - knowledge that is clearly insufficient and imperfect, since God is outside of everything. The apophatic path is the path of denying everything that has an objective nature and, therefore, is not a god. Having exhausted all the limits of the knowable, we come to the place where the possibilities of reason are exhausted. And it is there, in the mystical darkness, that the One who is the Cause of Being is hidden.

In fact, the only positive statements that this approach gives us are "God is" and "God is good", which, in essence, means the famous "God is Love".

Realizing that God is higher than the possibilities of knowledge, we must understand that all our views on the existence of the soul, Eternal Life, Resurrection from the dead are symbolic. These are pointers to things beyond our understanding.

In this sense, the ordeal of the soul is a deeply symbolic act. Its meaning is how far the immortal soul is from its immortal source, to which it belongs more - to the sacred or the sinful. In the first case, the soul unites with God, in the second, with the derivatives of centrifugal forces of falling away from God, materialized in the form of demonic spirits.

Christian and Buddhist view

It is interesting to compare the understanding of the ordeal of the soul in the Orthodox tradition and, for example, in the "Tibetan Book of the Dead." In both cases, the soul is tested. In both cases, the obstacle to successfully passing this exam is the tormenting passion. In the Tibetan version, they create some kind of illusory reality, which is the source of suffering. The more the soul is exposed to passions, the more reality is distorted.

Since the idea of \u200b\u200bendless rebirth is supported in Buddhism, depending on the degree of turbidity, a new birth in the world of celestials, people, animals, hungry ghosts or inhabitants of hell is possible.

With all the differences between Orthodoxy and Buddhism, we see numerous parallels here. And above all, the most important one: the soul of a deceased person is tested for qualities acquired during earthly life, which can either bring it closer to the original reality, or move it away from it.

God or Void are two different things

However, are they really so different? The mystical darkness of Dionysius the Areopagite and Shunyata of Nagarjuna - isn't it the same thing, just understood differently in different cultures? By the way, if we turn to the patristic sources, then we will find amazing revelations there. For example, the Monk Anthony the Great noted that God is not only good, but also unchanging and impassive. How does dispassion fit together with goodness?

The Monk Anthony explains that the words that God rejoices for the good and rejects the evil should not be taken literally. In fact, the Almighty is not at all happy or angry - after all, he is above the passions. So what's going on? God is absolute good and good, therefore when we are good, explains Anthony, we enter into communion with God by similarity, when we are evil, we turn away from Him by dissimilarity. By being virtuous, we connect with the divine energies that permeate everything. Not being virtuous, we unite with the tormenting demons.

This reasoning fully corresponds to the analogous reasoning of the followers of Tao, that only following the principles of Tao is correct. In what sense, however, is correct? Correct means saving.

Returning to the torture demons with whom the unrighteous soul unites, we cannot say anything about their nature, up to whether they are animate creatures, or simply some kind of process of falling away from the original nature of God. But if we recognize that the violation of harmony between the Eternal and the created, leads to suffering, then the suffering of the soul itself is already evidence of its falling away from God. Repentance and repentance for sins can restore peace of mind.

Help of the living

Can the living help the deceased go through the ordeal? In a sense, yes. The deceased person can no longer repent of the sins he has committed and the soul can only regret the wrong years. But relatives and friends can intercede for the deceased, praying for him. As already mentioned, the ordeal of the soul after death is divided into three stages:

• Stay of the soul at the tomb - 1-3 days.
• Test of virtues - 3-9 days.
• Vices test - 9-40 days.

From these dates, there are traditions of commemoration on days 9 and 40. In each of these periods, the relatives of the deceased can choose a prayer that is most appropriate to the current state of the soul of the deceased. There is a prayer for the newly departed, prayers for the repose of the soul of the deceased for 9 and 40 days. The hotter the appeal of those close to God, the less the soul perished. After all, they will not sincerely ask for a bad and evil person.

And, of course, the influence of the prayers of the departed church ministers is especially great. You just need to understand that the funeral service for the deceased is not a tribute to fashion, and the funeral service cannot help an unbaptized person. Therefore, in any case, a person should during his lifetime take care of what awaits him beyond life and death and help himself: consciously accept baptism.

At one time, the chief prosecutor of the Holy Synod, the famous Konstantin Pobedonostsev, wrote that not a single people, except for the Russian, has developed a funeral rite with such depth and virtuosity. This testifies to the special attitude of the Russian people to the mystery of death and eternal life. Today, after a long period of forgetting the origins, we can turn to them again.

Tests take place between earth and heaven, where the spirits of evil from heaven act (see Ephesians 6: 12), - on the border of the material and spiritual worlds. The soul that has left the body sees terrible, black demonic images (murins, or Ethiopians); passing through them, accompanied by Angels, in certain places in the airspace, she is detained and interrogated regarding individual sins. For the torture of souls passing through the air, separate courts and guards have been established by the dark authorities in a certain order. On the layers of the heavenly, from earth to heaven, there are sentry regiments of fallen spirits. Each department manages a particular type of sin and tortures the soul in it when the soul reaches this separation. The air demonic guards and courts are called in the paternal writings ordeals, and the spirits who serve in them are called tax collectors.

In the time of Christ he was called a tax collector and a collector of government duties. The publicans allowed themselves all means of violence, all sorts of tricks, nit-picking, countless abuses and inhuman plunder. The name of the tax collectors spread from people to demons guarding the ascent from earth to heaven, according to the similarity of the office and its performance. They resort to fiction and deceit, combining slander with shamelessness and impudence in order to snatch the soul from the hands of the angels and multiply by it countless numbers of hellish prisoners. Demons provide a list of sins related to this ordeal, and Angels - good deeds committed by the soul during life. If good deeds outweigh evil, the soul goes to the next test. If the number of evil deeds exceeds the good and the Angels have nothing to show for the justification of the soul, the demons take the soul to hell. The mercy of God sometimes makes up for the lack of good deeds against the prevailing number of evil. The list of good deeds is kept by the Guardian Angel, which is given to each person at baptism; the list of sins is kept by a demon sent by Satan to every soul in order to promote the fall. The soul of a person who has sinned but repented of this sin is not tortured during the ordeal in this sin. During ordeals, unforgiven, forgotten sins, deeds, the sinfulness of which a person did not know, are brought against the soul. The souls of people who were distinguished by special holiness, accepted by a martyr's death, repentant sinners who received special mercy from God are not subjected to ordeals - their souls freely go to paradise.

The doctrine of the posthumous ordeal of the soul is contained in the ancient Church Tradition and in church prayers, in the works of church writers - Saints John Chrysostom, Ephraim the Syrian, Macarius the Great, Cyril of Alexandria, etc. The most famous story about the posthumous ordeals is the vision of St. The Monk Theodora, described in the life of the Monk Basil.

The Church proclaims and reminds us the doctrine of ordeals in order to plant soul-saving fear in our hearts and prepare us for a safe transition from temporary life to eternal life.

The Orthodox Church considers the teaching about ordeals to be so important that it mentions them in many divine services. In particular, the Canon for the Exodus of the Soul, read by a priest at the bedside of a dying member of the Church, contains the following troparion: "The air prince of the rapist, the torturer, the terrible ways of the guard, and this vain verbal examiner, bless me, go unrestrainedly leaving the earth." (canto 4).

THE TRAVELING OF THE BLESSED THEODORA

Reverend Basil the New (X century) in his youth he left the world and fought in the wilderness, endured torment for Christ's faith, but remained unharmed among them. He was discerning and healed the sick by prayer. Among those who visited the saint was Gregory, who became his student and subsequently wrote a detailed life of his teacher. When Saint Theodora, who served the Monk Basil, died, Gregory very much wanted to learn about her afterlife and often asked the holy ascetic to reveal this to him. Through the prayers of the blessed, Gregory saw in a dream the eldress Theodora, who told him how her soul went through the ordeal after death and how the power of the prayers of Blessed Basil helped her.

Saint Theodora was helped by the Monk Basil the New, who gave the holy Angels a bag of gold coins - the treasures of their prayers to God - to pay off the demons, since Saint Theodora looked after him in his old age.

After going through all the ordeals, on the third day after the separation of the soul from the body, the soul of Saint Theodora appeared and bowed before the Throne of God of unapproachable glory, surrounded by the Seraphim, Cherubim, and countless Heavenly Host. After this, Saint Theodora for 6 days was shown the paradise abodes of the holy apostles, prophets, martyrs and saints. Then, on the 9th day after death, the soul was brought a second time to worship God. After that, for thirty-one days, the soul was led through hell, where the terrible torments of sinners were shown to it. On the fortieth day, the holy Angels led Saint Theodora to the monastery of her venerable father Basil in paradise, where she, like everyone who has gone through ordeals and private judgment, must be until the day of the Last Judgment, which will be at the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In a dreamy vision, Gregory was vouchsafed to see Blessed Theodora in the light monastery, which was prepared by God for the Monk Basil. In this monastery, filled with heavenly glory and filled with ineffable blessings, blessed Theodora, through the prayers of the saint of God, was installed. Thus, to whom she diligently and industriously served in this world, in the monastery of that one she was vouchsafed to dwell in eternal life, according to his holy prayers. Seeing her, Gregory rejoiced and enjoyed a long conversation with her, as if he were talking to her in reality.

Gregory asked Theodora how she parted from the body, how she endured mortal suffering, what she saw after her death and how she passed the air spirits.

She began to convey to him the following: "Child Grigory! You are asking me about a terrible thing, which is even terrible to remember. I saw faces that I had never seen either before or after, I heard sayings that I had never heard before. And What will I tell you? Then all that fierce and sinful of my deeds appeared before me, which I had forgotten about, but through the prayers and help of our father, the Monk Basil, all this was not imputed to me and did not deter me from entering this monastery And what can I tell you, child, about a bodily illness, about the most severe sufferings that the dying endure? Just as if someone thrown into a strong flame, grief, seems to fade away and turn to ash, so mortal illness destroys a person. Indeed, death is fierce for sinners like me, for I tell you the truth that I was a doer of sinful deeds, but I do not remember my righteous deeds at all.

When I approached the end of my life and the hour of separation of the soul from the body came, I saw a multitude of Ethiopians standing around my bed; their faces were black as soot and tar, their eyes burned like coals of fire, and their whole appearance was as terrible as the sight of fiery hell. And they began to make noise and confusion: some roared like cattle and beasts, others barked like dogs, some howled like wolves; while all of them, looking at me with fury, threatened me, pounced on me, grinding their teeth, and wanted to immediately swallow me. They also prepared charters, as it were, in anticipation of a certain judge who had to come there, and unwrapped the scrolls on which were written all my evil deeds. And my poor soul was in great fear and trembling. Then I endured not only mortal torments, resulting from the separation of the soul from the body, but also the most severe suffering from the vision of those terrible Ethiopians and their terrible fury, and for me it was like another death, more grievous and fierce. I tried to turn my gaze away from seeing in one direction or the other, so as not to see me the terrible Ethiopians, not to hear their voices, but I could not get rid of them, for there were countless numbers of them everywhere and there was no one to help me ...

Already exhausted completely from such suffering, I suddenly saw two light-bearing Angels of God who appeared to me in the form of beautiful youths, whose beauty it is impossible to describe. Their faces were brighter than the sun, their eyes looked tenderly at me, their hairs on their heads were white as snow, a golden glow spread around their heads, their clothes shone like lightning and were girded with golden belts on their chests. Approaching my bed, they stood to my right, quietly talking to each other. Seeing them I rejoiced and looked at them with heartfelt emotion. The black Ethiopians, seeing them, shuddered and retreated away. And here one luminous youth angrily told them:

- "O shameless, accursed, gloomy and vicious enemies of the human race! Why do you always rush prematurely to the dying and with your shameless noise frighten and confuse every soul that is separated from the body? But now stop your joy, since you will gain nothing here. there is no part in this soul, because God's mercy is with it. "

At such words of the bright youth, the Ethiopians immediately became agitated and began with shouts to show the writings of my evil deeds, done from youth.

- "How can we not have a part in her? And whose sins are they? Didn't she do this and that?"

So speaking, they were waiting for death. "

And then death came roaring like a lion; her appearance was very terrible, she had some semblance of a man, but she had no body at all and was made up of nothing but naked human bones. She carried with her various instruments of torture: swords, arrows, spears, scythes, sickles, iron horns, saws, axes, adzes and other unknown instruments. Seeing all this, my humble soul trembled with fear; the holy angels said to death:

- "Why are you delaying? Release this soul from the bonds of flesh, quickly and quietly release, for it does not have many sinful burdens."

Immediately death came to me: taking an ax, cut off first my legs, then my hands, then with the help of another tool destroyed all the other parts of my body and separated the limbs from the compositions. And I had neither arms nor legs, and my whole body was numb. Death took and cut off my head, so that I could not turn my head and it was a stranger to me. After all, death made a solution in a bowl and, lifting it to my lips, gave me drink.

And the solution was so bitter that my soul, not having the strength to endure the bitterness, shuddered and left my body, as if forcibly torn off from it. The holy angels immediately took her into their arms. Looking back, I saw my body lying soulless, senseless and motionless. Taking it off, as one pulls off one's clothes, I looked at him with immeasurable surprise. At this time, demons, appearing in the form of Ethiopians, surrounded the Angels who held me, and began to cry, showing the writing of my sins:

- "This soul has many sins, so let it give an answer before us."

The Holy Angels then began to look for good deeds in my life and, with the help of the Lord God, by whose grace I did good, they found them. They brought to mind everything that I only did good - when I gave alms to the poor, when I fed the hungry, or gave water to the thirsty, or clothed the naked, or brought a stranger to the house and laid him to rest, or served the saints - when I visited a sick or prisoner into the dungeon and helped them; they remembered when I came to church with zeal and with emotion and heartfelt contrition prayed there, listening with attention to the singing and reading of church prayers and chants, when I brought incense and candles or some other kind of offering to the church, or poured wood oil into lamps, so that they glow before the icons, and kiss the most honest icons with reverence; they recalled when I spent time with restraint and when I fasted on Wednesdays and Fridays and at all holy fasts and how many bows I did and stayed at night vigils; they pointed to how I cried with contrition over my sins and sometimes wept for them for whole nights, how I confessed my sins to God and with contrition repented of them before my spiritual father, satisfying the Truth of God with my contrition and heartfelt repentance; they recalled everything that I did good to my neighbors, how I was not angry with those who were at war against me, how I patiently endured any annoyance and reproach myself, did not remember evil and repay evil with good, how I humbled myself when people attacked me, how I was sick in her heart and grieved over someone else's misfortune, as she gave a helping hand to someone or helped someone in a good deed or turned him away from evil; They recalled that I turned my eyes away from vanity, kept my tongue from oaths, lies, slander and all vain words - all this and all the other smallest good deeds my holy Angels collected, preparing to put them on the scales against my evil deeds. The Ethiopians, seeing this, gnashed their teeth at me, wanting to kidnap me from the hands of the angels and bring me down to the very bottom of hell.

At this time, our Reverend Father Basil unexpectedly appeared there and said to the holy angels:

- "My masters, this soul has served me a lot, pleasing my old age: I prayed to God to grant it to me, and the Lord sent down this soul to me."

Having said this, he took out from under his clothes a bag filled with something (I think it contained only pure gold) and gave it to the holy angels, saying:

- "When you go through airy ordeals and evil spirits begin to torture this soul, you will redeem it from its debts by this. By the grace of God, I am rich and have collected many treasures with my labors and then my own, - and so I give the bag to this soul, which served me." ...

After these words, he walked away. The crafty demons, seeing this, were perplexed, and then, sounding the air with weeping, they disappeared.

Meanwhile, the saint of God, Vasily, came again and brought with him many vessels of pure oil and precious peace; opening the vessels one by one, he poured oil and ointment on me, so that I was filled with spiritual fragrance and at the same time changed and became a light being.

The Monk Basil again said to the holy angels:

- "My masters, after you have done everything necessary for this soul, bring it into the abode prepared for me from the Lord, and let it abide there."

Having said this, the saint became invisible; The angels took me and carried me through the air to the east.

When we ascended from the earth to the height of heaven, we were first met by the airy spirits of the first ordeal, during which they are judged for the sins of the tongue, for every idle, abusive, profane, nasty word. Here we stopped, and the demons brought scrolls to us, on which were written all the frivolous words I had spoken from my youth - everything that I said unreasonable and bad, especially the blasphemous and ridiculous speeches that I allowed to utter in my youth, like this happens to many. There appeared before me all the shameless worldly songs that I once sang, all my outrageous exclamations, all my frivolous speeches, and the demons lied to me with all those, indicating the times, places and faces when, where and with whom I indulged vain conversations and angered God with my words, not imputing to myself that it was a sin and not confessing it to my spiritual father. Seeing all this, I was silent, like a voiceless one, because I did not have anything to say to the wicked spirits: they denounced me quite rightly, and I wondered how they did not forget anything, for many years have passed since all these sins were done by me, and I have long forgotten about them and never thought about what I did in my mind; they quoted all my words, as if they had just been uttered by me, remembering everything in detail and to the subtleties of how it was in reality. And when I was silent with shame, at the same time trembling with fear, the holy angels, in opposition to those my sins, presented something of my good deeds, done in the last years of my life, and since they could not outweigh the weight of my sins, then the deficiency was made up from what was given by my reverend father Basil. So they redeemed me and carried me higher.

Here we approached another ordeal, called the ordeal of lies, where every false word is tortured, especially perjury, invoking the name of God in vain, false testimony, violation of vows given to God, incomplete confession of sins, and the like. The spirits of this ordeal are very ardent and fierce - they tested me very persistently, not missing a single detail. And I was convicted from them of two sins: precisely in the fact that sometimes in some small things I allowed myself to lie, without imputing it to be a sin, and also in the fact that many times, being ashamed of my sins, I brought my spiritual father an incomplete confession. As for perjury and perjury, these sins, by the grace of Christ, were not found in me. All the same, the demons triumphed over the sins of lies found in me and already wanted to kidnap me from the hands of the Angels who guided me, but they, putting some of my good deeds against those sins, and filling the missing from the one given by the Monk Basil, ransomed me and carried me higher without hindrance.

After that we reached the third ordeal, which is called the ordeal of condemnation and slander. Restrained there, I saw how grave the sin is to slander someone, dishonor, blaspheme, and also laugh at other people's vices, forgetting about our own. All who surrender to the power of this sin are cruelly tortured by evil spirits, as a kind of antichrists, anticipating the power of Christ, who has to come to judge people, and who made themselves judges of their neighbors, while they themselves are more worthy of condemnation. But in me, by the grace of Christ, they could find little of any of such sins, for I strictly vied for myself all the days of my life, taking care not to condemn or slander anyone, or laugh at anyone, or blaspheme anyone ; and if sometimes I had to hear someone condemning another, then I paid little attention to the condemning one, and if I added something of myself in this conversation, then only such that could not serve the neighbor in a certain offense, and even then she immediately stopped, looking yourself for this little. However, even such offenses were made a sin by the torturers. But the holy angels redeemed me as a gift from Saint Basil and began to rise higher with me.

And we have reached the fourth ordeal, called the ordeal of gluttony. The evil spirits of this ordeal immediately ran out to meet us, rejoicing, as if they had acquired something. They were very disgusting in their appearance, representing all the abomination of gluttony and drunkenness; while some of them held dishes and pans with food, while others - bowls and mugs with drink - and I saw that that food and drink were like stinking pus and unclean feces. The demons, who held both, had the appearance of satiated and drunken; they rode with various beeps and did everything that drunkards and feasting people usually do, swearing at the souls of sinners brought to them. Having blocked our path and bypassed us like dogs, they immediately exposed all my past sins of gluttony, when I indulged in excess in food and drink and ate through force and without any need, when I, like a pig, started eating in the morning without prayers and the sign of the cross, or when fasting she sat down at the table earlier than the rules of the church charter allowed. They also presented bowls and vessels on which I got drunk, indulging in drunkenness, and even indicated the number of bowls I had drunk, saying: “She drank so many bowls at such and such a feast and with such and such people; at another time and in another place She drank so many cups to the point of unconsciousness; moreover, she feasted so many times with the sound of flutes and other musical instruments, indulging in dances and songs, and after such feasts she was hardly brought home - so she was exhausted from immeasurable drunkenness. "

Presenting all such and similar gluttony, the demons triumphed and rejoiced, as if they already had me in their hands, and were already preparing to grab me and bring me down to the bottom of hell. I trembled, seeing myself being exposed by them and not having what to answer them. But the holy Angels, having taken a great deal from what was given by the Monk Basil, laid a ransom for me. The demons, seeing this, were confused and cried out:

- "Woe to us, for our labor perished, our hope perished."

With these words, they began to throw charters into the air in which my sins were written. Seeing this, I had fun and walked freely from there. Rising higher with me, the Angels began to talk to each other like this:

Truly, this soul has great help from the saint of God Vasily: if his works and prayers did not help her, she would have endured a great need, passing through the airy ordeals.

Then, having boldness, I said to the holy angels:

- "My masters, I think that no one who lives on earth knows what happens here and what awaits a sinful soul after its death."

The Holy Angels answered me:

- "Do not the Divine writings, constantly read in the holy churches by the lips of the clergy, testify to everything that happens here? But those addicted to earthly vanity neglect all this, supplying all the sweetness of life in daily overeating and drunkenness: every day they eat without measure and get drunk, putting aside the fear of God; and, having a womb in their place of God, they do not at all think about the future life and do not remember the Word of God, which says: Woe to you who are satiated today, for you are hungry. laughing now, for you will weep and weep (Luke 6:25)... They think of little faith that everything that is said in the Divine Scripture is the essence of a fable, and they disregard what is written, "feasting with tympans", like the gospel rich man: "and every day they feasted brilliantly" (see Luke 16:19). However, those of them who are merciful to the poor, benefiting the poor and the needy and helping those in need of help, they receive forgiveness of their sins from God and go through the ordeal without hindrance, for the sake of their mercy, for Holy Scripture says: charity delivers from death (Tov. 4: ten). Thus, those who do charity receive eternal life; for those who do not try to cleanse their sins with mercy, it is impossible to avoid these trials, and they are abducted by the gloomy publicans whom you have seen; subjecting these souls to cruel torture, they bring them down to the very bottom of the places of hell and keep them in chains until the Last Judgment of Christ. It would also be difficult for you to escape this fate if you did not receive redemption from the one given to you by the Monk Basil. "

Thus, talking, we reached the fifth ordeal, called the ordeal of laziness, in which all days and hours spent in idleness are tested, and parasites who live by someone else's labor, who themselves do nothing, are tortured, as well as mercenaries who receive remuneration for a work that should be done properly. do not execute. In the same ordeal, those who do not give praise to God and are too lazy to go to Matins, to the liturgy and to other services of God on holidays and Sundays are also tortured. Despondency and neglect of one's soul is also experienced there, and every manifestation of both is strictly exacted, so that very many people of the worldly and spiritual order are thrown from this ordeal into the abyss. During this ordeal, I was subjected to many trials, and it would have been impossible for me to be free from his debts if my poverty had not been made up for with the gifts from the Monk Basil, by which I was redeemed and through this I received freedom.

After that, we went through the ordeal of the duty. On it we were also stopped, but, having given little there, we soon passed it, for there was no sin of duty on me, except for a minor offense I had committed in childhood through unreason.

From there we came to the ordeal of avarice and avarice, but even then we soon passed. For, with the assistance of the Lord God, I did not care about many acquisitions and was not avaricious, but I was content with what the Lord sent me, I was not mean either, but what I had I zealously gave to those in need.

Climbing higher, we met the ordeal of recklessness, where all sorts of covetous people and robbers are tested, as well as all those who give their silver in reward and acquire riches by lawless means. The evil spirits of this ordeal, diligently investigating everything about me, did not find anything that I was guilty of, and gnashed their teeth at me in rage. We went higher thanking the Lord God.

After that, we reached the ordeal of unrighteousness, in which all unrighteous judges are subjected to torture, who take a bribe and justify the guilty, but condemn the innocent. In the same place, the withholding of wages to hired workers is tortured, any incorrectness in the scales of the merchants is tortured and every untruth is exacted. But we, by the grace of Christ, went through that ordeal without special obstacles, giving little to the publicans.

Just as safely we passed the subsequent ordeal of envy, without giving anything there, because I did not envy anyone. During this ordeal, they also experienced sins of enmity and hatred, but I, by the grace of Christ, and in these sins turned out to be innocent. Seeing this, the demons flew into a rage and grunted at me, but I was not afraid of them and happily climbed higher.

In the same way, I went through the ordeal of pride, where the haughty spirits exact the sins of vanity, self-conceit, and magnificence. There, they diligently torture whether anyone showed disrespect and disobedience to parents or elders who received authority from God, as well as other sins of pride and conceit. There we put very little of what was given by the Monk Basil, and I became free.

Then we reached the ordeal of anger and rage, but even there, although the air torturers were fierce, we did not receive much from us, and we went on, rejoicing in the Lord God who saves my sinful soul through the prayers of my venerable father Saint Basil.

After that, we reached the ordeal of malice, in which those who hold grudge against their neighbors and repay evil for evil are mercilessly tortured, and then are reduced by evil spirits to tartarus. But the mercy of God helped me there too, for I did not hold anger against anyone, did not remember any evil about the troubles I had done, but had a kindness towards all those who were hostile to me and, according to my strength, showed love for them, conquering evil with the good. Thus, no sin of malice was found on me during this ordeal, so that the demons wept out of rage, seeing that my soul freely departed from them; we began to ascend further, rejoicing in the Lord.

Ascending higher and higher, I asked the holy Angels who had guided me:

- "I implore you, my lords, tell me: how do the terrible air authorities know about every evil deed of all people living in the world, such as, for example, about my evil deeds, and moreover not only about those that are clearly created, but even about those that are done in secret! "

And the holy angels said to me:

- "Every Christian from holy baptism receives from God the Guardian Angel given to him, who, invisibly keeping a person, day and night instructs him in every good deed throughout his life until his death hour and writes down all his good deeds throughout his life created so that, as a reward for them, a person could receive from God mercy and eternal reward in the Kingdom of Heaven.Likewise, the prince of darkness, who wants to draw the human race to his destruction, assigns to a person one of the evil spirits, who, constantly following the person, watches over all his evil deeds done from his youth, with his intrigues seduces him into criminal acts and writes down everything that a person has done evil.Then, going back to ordeals, this evil spirit inscribes every sin in the corresponding ordeal, which is why the air tax collectors are aware of all the sins committed by people. ”And when the soul of any person is parted from the body and begins to depart to His Creator in the heavenly villages, then the wicked du chi, standing in the ordeal, block her path, showing all her recorded sins. And if there are more good deeds in her than sins, then the demons will not be able to keep her. If in her more sins are found than good deeds, then the demons hold her for a while and imprison her, as it were, in prison, where, by the permission of God, they torture her until that soul receives redemption from their torment, through the prayers of the Church and through alms. , created in memory by her neighbors. If any soul turns out to be so sinful and disgusting before God that it will have no hope of salvation and will expect its eternal destruction, then the demons immediately cast such a soul into the abyss, in which a place of eternal torment is prepared for themselves. , and in this abyss they keep her until the Second Coming of the Lord, after which she must be tormented forever in the fiery hell with her body. "

It should also be noted that only those who have been enlightened by faith and holy baptism ascend and accept such tortures. Unfaithful pagans, Saracens and all gentiles in general do not follow this path. While still alive in body, they are already dead in soul, buried in hell; therefore, when they die, demons immediately, without a great trial, take their souls as rightfully theirs, and bring them down into the abyss of hell.

When the Angels announced all this to me, we entered the ordeal of murder, in which not only robbery is experienced, but every wound, every blow struck anywhere, on the shoulders or on the head, as well as all sorts of choking or pushing done in anger. All this is thoroughly tested during the ordeal and relies on the scales; but we passed it safely, putting in a little for ransom.

We also passed the ordeal of enchantments, poisoning with hereditary herbs and invoking demons for the purpose of magic. The spirits of this ordeal were like four-legged creepers, scorgpions, snakes, vipers and toads, and their gaze was very terrible and disgusting. But there, by the grace of Christ, no sin was found on me, and we immediately went through the ordeal, without giving anything to the evil publicans. In a rage, they shouted at me and said:

- "Here you come to the ordeal of fornication. Let's see how you avoid it" ...

When we were climbing higher, then I asked the holy angels who guided me:

My lords, do all Christians go through these ordeals and can a person go through them without any torture and terrible torment?

The Holy Angels answered me:

- "For the souls of the faithful there is no other path that leads to heaven, and all come this way, but not all are subjected to such tortures as you were subjected to, but only sinners like you who did not commit perfect confession of their sins before their spiritual father, ashamed of the wicked If someone sincerely and in truth, without hiding anything, confesses all his deeds and with heartfelt contrition repents all the sins he has committed, then the sins of such a person, by the mercy of God, are invisibly blotted out, and when the soul it comes through ordeals, the air torturers, straightening their books, do not find in them any manuscripts of her sins and cannot do her any harm, so that that soul ascends unhindered and with joy to the Throne of Grace. would have repented of all your sins, would not have endured such formidable tortures during ordeals. ”But now it has helped you that you have long ceased to commit mortal sins and virtuous She passed the last years of your life, especially the prayers of your venerable father Vasily, whom you served for a long time and diligently, helped you. "

Thus, talking, we came to the ordeal of fornication, which tortures all fornication, all prodigal thought and dreaming, as well as passionate touches and covetous touches. The prince of this ordeal sat on his throne, clothed in foul and stinking clothes, sprinkled with bloody foam, and many demons were before him. Seeing me reaching them, they were greatly amazed, and then, carrying out the writing of my prodigal deeds, they denounced me, indicating with whom, when and where I sinned during my youth.

And I had nothing to argue with them, and trembled with fear, filled with shame. Then the Angels said to the demons:

- "But after all, for many years she did not do prodigal deeds and, fasting, in purity and abstinence, she lived all the last years of her life."

The demons answered them:

- “We know that she has long ago lagged behind the prodigal sin, but nevertheless she belongs to us, because she did not completely and not completely sincerely repent before her spiritual father for the sins she had committed before, hiding much from him; and therefore, either leave her to us, or redeem her with good deeds. "

The angels gave them much of my good deeds and even more of the talent of the Monk Basil, and, barely getting rid of the cruel misfortune, I was carried away from there.

After that, we reached the ordeal of adultery, in which the sins of those living in marriage and not observing marital fidelity, but desecrating their bed, are tortured, as well as all kinds of abductions of virgins for the purpose of corrupting them and all sorts of fornication. Here falls are tortured and those who dedicated themselves to God and made a vow to keep their lives in purity and virginity, but then did not keep this vow. At this ordeal, I was also exposed as an adulteress and had nothing to say in my defense, so that the merciless torturers, bad and unclean spirits, already intended to kidnap me from the hands of the angels and bring me down to the bottom of hell. But the holy angels entered into a dispute with them and presented all my subsequent labors and exploits, and thus redeemed me with all my remaining good deeds, which put everything there to the last, leaving at the same time very much of what was given by the Monk Basil. They put all this on the scales against my iniquities and, taking me, carried me on.

Here we are approaching the ordeal of Sodom's sins, which is tortured by the unnatural sins of men and women, sodomy and bestiality, incest and other secret sins that are ashamed to even remember. The prince of this ordeal had a very nasty and ugly appearance and was covered with stinking pus; his servants were like him in everything: their stench was very intolerable, a vile and terrible look, excessive rage and ferocity. Seeing us, they hurriedly went out to meet us and surrounded us, but not finding in me, by the grace of God, anything for which they could bring to their judgment, they ran away in shame; we gladly went further. Rising higher, the Angels said to me: - "Here you, Theodora, saw the terrible and vile ordeals of fornication. Know that few souls go through these ordeals unhindered, since the world lies in evil, people are very weak and addicted to adultery from youth There are few, very few people who mortify their carnal lusts, and therefore rarely anyone passes these ordeals freely and unhindered; on the contrary, there are very many people who, having reached this ordeal, perish here, for the torturers of fornication kidnap people addicted to fornication and The princes of prodigal ordeals even boast, saying: "We alone, more than all other air tax collectors, replenish the number of those cast down to the bottom of hell, who in this way seem to be related to us, undergoing the same fate with us." Therefore, Theodora, thank God for the fact that, through the prayers of your venerable father Basil, you have passed these ordeals and you will no longer experience any evil and will not know fear. "

Meanwhile, we have come to the ordeal of heresies, where wrong philosophies about faith, deviations from the Orthodox confession of faith, unbelief, doubts about the truths of the revealed doctrine, blasphemy against holy things and similar sins are tortured. I passed this ordeal without any trial and was already close to the gates to the Heavenly Kingdom.

Finally, the evil spirits of the last ordeal, called the ordeal of hard-heartedness, met us. The torturers of this ordeal are very cruel and fierce, but their prince is especially fierce, having a very dull and mournful appearance, breathing the fire of rage and mercy. At the ordeal, the souls of the unmerciful are tested without any mercy. And if someone, although he accomplishes many deeds, will constantly observe fasts and fervently pray, and also preserve his undefiled purity, but at the same time turns out to be unmerciful and closes his heart for his neighbor, he is cast down from there into hell and is contained in the abyss and, thus he himself remains without mercy. But we and this ordeal, by the grace of Christ, passed without special obstacles thanks to the prayers of the Monk Basil, who gave us much from his good deeds for my redemption.

Thus, having passed all the terrible ordeals, we with great joy approached the very gates of the Heavenly Kingdom. These gates were like a bright crystal and an ineffable radiance emanated from them; at the gates stood light-looking youths who, seeing me carried with angelic hands, were filled with joy, rejoicing that I had gotten rid of the airy ordeals, and having met us with love, led us through the gates into the Heavenly Kingdom. And what I saw and heard there, about the child Gregory, - continued Blessed Theodora, - it is impossible to tell about it in detail! I saw that the human eye did not see, the ear did not hear, and that did not come to the man's heart (1 Cor. 2: 9). Finally, I appeared before the Throne of Divine glory, surrounded by Seraphim, Cherubim and many heavenly soldiers, always praising the Lord with ineffable songs. Here I, having fallen, bowed down to the invisible and unknown God. And the Heavenly Powers sang a sweet song, glorifying Divine mercy, which no human sins can overcome. At that time, from the Throne of God's glory, a voice rang out, commanding the holy Angels who guided me to show me all the heavenly abodes of the saints and all the torments of sinners and then to place me in the monastery of Saint Basil. And the holy Angels took me everywhere, so that I saw many beautiful villages and abodes, full of glory and grace, - abodes that were prepared for those who love God. I saw there apostolic, prophetic, martyr's, monastic and other monasteries, special for each order of saints. Each monastery was of unspeakable beauty, its breadth and length was equal, I would say, to Constantinople, but at the same time it was distinguished by incomparably greater beauty, having many bright chambers not made by hands. Everywhere in the monasteries of those there was a voice of spiritual joy and joy, and the faces of the merry righteous were visible, who, seeing me, rejoiced at my salvation, met me with love and kissed me, praising the Lord, who delivered me from the enemy's nets. Having finished the tour of the heavenly abodes, I was brought down to the underworld of the earth and saw the terrible and intolerable torments prepared in hell for sinners. Showing them, the holy Angels said to me:

- "Look, Theodora, how cruel torments the Lord delivered you, through the prayers of His holy saint Vasily."

Walking around the abysses of hell, I heard and saw there crying, screaming and bitter sobbing of those in those torments. Some of them cried out: "Woe to us"; others sighed: "Alas, how hard it is for us!"; still others cursed their birthday.

After all, the Angels who guided me led me to the monastery of Saint Basil, which you see, and placed me here, saying:

- "Nowadays the Monk Basil creates the memory of you."

And I realized that I had come to this place of rest on the fortieth day after my separation from my body. "

The Monk Theodora related all this to Gregory in a dream vision and showed him the beauty of the monastery in which she was, and all its spiritual riches, collected by many labors and later by the blessed father Basil.

Here the vision ended. At the end of it, Gregory rose from sleep and pondered a lot, marveling at what he saw and heard from Blessed Theodora. In the morning he went to the Monk Basil in order to receive from him the usual blessing. The reverend asked him:

- "Child Gregory, where were you that night?"

He, as if knowing nothing, answered:

- "Slept, father, on my bed."

The elder said to this:

- "I know that you rested on the bed in body, but in spirit you were in a different place. Or have you forgotten that God revealed to you that night in a dream vision? So you got what you wanted so badly: you saw Theodora, heard about her transition to the future life from her and was in my monastery, which, by the grace of Christ, was prepared for me for the sake of my small labors. Thus, you contemplated everything that you wanted to know. "

Hearing such words, Gregory knew that his dream was not a false dream, but a real revelation from God, requested by the prayers of the monk; then, having thanked God, he bowed down to his spiritual father, after which he received from him a proper instruction ...

May we be worthy of the fate of those who love God, too, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom honor and glory are with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever. Amen.

How the soul lives after death

What are ordeals?

In the 19th century, Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow, speaking about the state of mind after death, wrote: “It should, however, be noted that just as in the depiction of objects of the spiritual world for us, clothed with flesh, features are inevitable, more or less sensual, human-like, so, in particular, they are inevitably allowed in the detailed teaching about the ordeals that go through the human soul at separation from the body. Therefore, we must firmly remember the instruction which the angel of St. Macarius of Alexandria, as soon as he began to talk about ordeals: "here take earthly things for the weakest image of heavenly ones." It is necessary to represent the ordeals not in the gross, sensual sense, but as much as possible for us in the spiritual sense, and not get attached to the particulars that different writers and in different legends of the Church itself, with the unity of the main idea of \u200b\u200bthe ordeals, are assigned different. " These highly significant words of the angel must never be diminished when we come into contact with messages about that world. For our human psyche is very inclined to take images for reality, as a result of which completely distorted ideas are created not only about heaven, hell, ordeals, etc., but also about God, about spiritual life, about salvation. These distortions easily lead a Christian into paganism. And a pagan Christian - what could be worse?

What earthly and heavenly things are spoken about here? About ordeals, which for all the simplicity of their earthly depiction in Orthodox hagiography have a deep spiritual, heavenly meaning. There is nothing like this in any of the religious teachings. Even Catholicism, with its dogma of purgatory, distorted the picture of the posthumous state of man. Purgatory and ordeals are fundamentally different things. Purgatory, in the views of Catholic theologians, is a place of torture to compensate for the lack of human merit in satisfying the justice of God. Ordeals are a judgment of conscience and a test of the spiritual state of the soul in the face of God's love, on the one hand, and devilish passionate temptations, on the other.

Church tradition says that there are twenty ordeals - twenty certain tests of the state of the soul before, if you like, her home, which we call the Kingdom of God. These are twenty steps of ascent to this house, which can become the steps of a person's fall, depending on his condition.

Somewhere in the 50s, one bishop was dying - an old, dear, pleasant person, but it was difficult to call him a spiritual and ascetic. His death was very indicative - he looked around him all the time and said: “Everything is not so, everything is not so. Not at all! "

His surprise is understandable. Indeed, although we all understand that "everything is not so" there, nevertheless we involuntarily imagine that life in the image and likeness of this life. We represent both hell and heaven according to Dante, and the ordeals, again, in accordance with those pictures that we look at with curiosity in simple brochures. Whether we like it or not, we cannot in any way renounce these earthly ideas.

And, surprisingly, some help in understanding this issue can be provided by modern science.

For example, nuclear physicists who study the world of elementary particles argue that in the macrocosm - that is, in the world in which we live - there are no concepts that can adequately express the reality of the microcosm. Therefore, in order to somehow present them to the general public, physicists are forced to find and invent words, names and images taken from our usual experience. True, the picture is sometimes fantastic, but understandable in its components. Well, for example, imagine - time flows backwards. What does it mean - backward, how can this time flow in reverse? First the duck falls, and then the hunter shoots? This is absurd. But one of the theories of quantum mechanics in this way indicates the processes taking place in the intra-atomic world. And it seems that we are beginning to understand something ... although not understanding anything.

Or take the notion of a wave particle, called in English "waveicle". If you think about it, then this is a rather absurd expression - a wave cannot be a particle, and a particle cannot be a wave. But with the help of this paradoxical concept, which does not fit into the framework of our common sense, scientists feed on expressing the dual nature of the nature of matter at the level of the atom, the dual aspect of elementary particles (which, depending on the specific situation, appear either as particles or as waves). Modern science offers many such paradoxes. How are they useful to us? By the fact that they show that if the possibilities of a person in cognition and expression in the "human language" of the realities of this world are so limited, then, obviously, they are even more limited in understanding the world of that world. This is the main thing that needs to be borne in mind when trying to comprehend the same ordeals and, in general, the posthumous existence of the soul. The realities there are completely different, everything is not the same as here.

Posthumous examination for good

According to church teaching, after a three-day stay at the tomb, the soul of the deceased from the 3rd to the 9th day contemplates the heavenly abodes, and from the 9th to the 40th day, hellish torments are shown to her. How can these earthly images, "earthly things" be understood?

The soul, being by nature an inhabitant of that world, frees itself from a stout body, becomes capable of seeing that world in a completely different, characteristic way, in contrast to the body. Everything opens to the soul there. And if, as the Apostle Paul writes, in earthly conditions we see “as if through a dim glass, fortune-telling”, then there “face to face” (1 Cor. 13; 12), that is, as it is in reality. This vision or cognition, in contrast to the earthly cognition, which is mainly external and often purely rational, after the death of the body acquires a different character - participation in the cognized. Participation in this case means the unity of the knower with the knowable. So the soul enters there into union with the world of spirits, for it is itself spiritual in this sense. But with what spirits does the soul unite? It can be assumed that each virtue has its own spirit, its own angel - just as each passion has its own spirit, its own demon. But more on that later.

For some reason, it is usually believed that the soul is tested only when it comes to its passions, that is, from the 9th to the 40th day. However, there is no doubt that the soul is tested for everything: for good and for evil.

So after three days, a kind of personality test begins. First, in the face of good. The soul goes through all the virtues (according to the Apostle, these are “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, goodness, mercy, meekness, abstinence”, etc. - Gal. 5; 22). For example, the soul is faced with meekness. Will she perceive it as that precious quality that she was striving for and which she was looking for in her earthly life, although she could not acquire it in those conditions, or, on the contrary, will she push off from meekness as from something alien and unacceptable? Will she connect with the spirit of meekness or not? So, during six earthly days, a special test of the soul will take place in the face of all virtues.

At the same time, I would like to note that every virtue is beautiful, for God Himself is Inexpressible Beauty, and the soul with all its fullness sees the beauty of these properties of God there. And on this, if you like, "test for goodness" the soul is tested: has it acquired, in the conditions of earthly freedom, at least some striving for this eternal Beauty?

And an exam for evil

A similar test, the same test of the soul, takes place further, from the 9th to the 40th day. The stage begins, which is usually called ordeals... There are twenty of them, and much more is said about them than about contemplating the beauty of virtues. The reason for this, apparently, is that the overwhelming majority of people are immeasurably more enslaved by passions than partakers of virtues. Therefore, this exam takes more time. Here the soul reveals all the power of each of its passions - hatred, envy, pride, deceit, fornication, gluttony ...

We all know what the fire of passion means - in spite of reason, in spite of the desire for good, in spite of even his own well-being, a person suddenly obeys, for example, insane anger, greed, lust, and so on! Submits to "favorite" passion or passions. This very thing begins there, but already in the face of not just conscience, not just convictions - but in front of that Shrine itself, in the face of that Beauty that has just opened to the soul in all its fullness. It is here that the power of passion that a person acquired during his earthly life is exposed in all its fullness. Therefore, the one who did not struggle with passion, but, moreover, served it, for whom it became the meaning of his life, even in the face of God's Love itself, will not be able to renounce it. So there is a breakdown in the ordeal and the descent of the soul into the bosom of a senseless and unsatisfactory fire burning with passion. For in earthly conditions, sometimes passion could get food for itself for a while. The torments of Tantalus really open up there.

By the way, begin ordeals from the very seemingly innocent sin. With idle talk. From what we usually do not attach any importance to. The Apostle James says exactly the opposite: “... the tongue ... is an irrepressible evil; he is full of deadly poison "(James 3; 8). And the Holy Fathers and even the pagan sages call idleness and its natural and usual manifestation - idle talk - the mother of all vices. Rev. John Karpafsky, for example, wrote: "Nothing usually upsets good mood like laughter, jokes and idle talk."

Twenty ordeals cover, I would say, twenty categories of passions, not specific sins, but passions, each of which includes many varieties of sins. That is, each ordeal covers a whole nest of related sins. Let's say stealing. It has many types: direct, when a person got into his pocket, and accounting entries, and inappropriate, in his own interests, the use of budget funds, and bribes for the purpose of profit, etc. etc. The same is true for all other ordeals. So - twenty passions, twenty exams for sins.

In very vivid, earthly concepts and expressions, it is written about the ordeals in the life of the Monk Basil the New, where Blessed Theodora tells about what happened to her beyond the bounds of earthly life. And reading her story, one involuntarily recalls the wonderful words of the angel: "Take earthly things here for the weakest image of heavenly things." Blessed Theodora saw there monsters, lakes of fire, and terrible faces, heard terrible cries, watched the torment that sinful souls are subjected to. All these are “earthly things”. In reality, as the angel warned us, this is only a "faint image", a faint resemblance of those completely spiritual (and in this sense "heavenly") events that occur with a soul that is unable to reject passions. It's not like that!

But why, then, is it shown so? The reason is that there are no other means to warn a living person about the suffering that awaits everyone who tramples on conscience and truth. For example, how to explain the effect of radiation to a person who has no idea about it and does not understand its destructive effect on the body? Apparently, I will have to say that terrible invisible rays emanate from this place, a pagan will sooner understand if you warn him that evil spirits live here, or, on the contrary, this place is sacred and you cannot approach it ...

- Got it, man?

- Got it.

What did he understand? Not what radiation is, not how it works, but most importantly: there is a serious danger here, you need to be extremely careful. So it is with the pictures of ordeals. Yes, there is suffering, and it is due to an unrighteous lifestyle.

But Blessed Theodora also speaks of demons who torment the soul for sins.

We connect with the Spirit of God or with demons-tormentors

Entire iconographic cycles were created on the basis of the life of the Monk Theodora. Perhaps many have seen booklets with pictures depicting various tortures during ordeals. The artists' fantasy is very strong, vivid, and therefore these pictures are impressive. When you look - what is happening there: what torment, torture! And there really is torment there, but they are of a completely different nature. This is important to know, since it is of great importance for understanding the afterlife fate of all people, including non-Christians.

So, we come to the question of the effect of demons on the soul in the afterlife. A very interesting thought on this issue was expressed by St. Theophan the Recluse (Govorov) in his interpretation of the 80th verse of the 118th Psalm ("Be my heart blameless in your justifications, for I will not be ashamed"). Here's how he explains the last words: “The second moment of non-shame is the time of death and the passage of ordeals. No matter how wild the thought of ordeals seems to clever people, they cannot be avoided. What are these mytniks looking for in those passing by? Check if they have their own goods. What is their product? Passion. Therefore, whoever has a pure heart and is alien to passions, they cannot find anything to which they could become attached; on the contrary, the opposite quality factor will strike them like arrows of lightning. To this one of the few scientists expressed the following thought: the ordeals seem to be something terrible; and it is very possible that the demons, instead of the terrible, represent something lovely. Seductively charming, for all kinds of passions, they present to the passing soul one after another. When passions are driven out of the heart, in the course of earthly life, and the virtues opposite to them are implanted, then whatever you imagine charming, the soul, which has no sympathy for that, will pass that, turning away from it with disgust. And when the heart is not purified, then to which passion it most sympathizes, the soul rushes there. Demons take her like friends, and then they already know what to do with her. Hence, it is very doubtful that the soul, while it still retains sympathy for the objects of any passions, should not be ashamed of the ordeals. The shame here is that the soul itself throws itself into hell. "

The thought of St. Theophanes follows the instructions of the Monk Anthony the Great. I will also quote his wonderful words: “God is good and impassive and unchanging. If someone, recognizing blessed and true that God does not change, is perplexed, however, how He (being such) rejoices about the good, turns away from the evil, is angry with sinners, and when they repent, is merciful to them; to this it must be said that God is not happy and is not angry: for joy and anger are passions. It is absurd to think that the Divine is good or bad because of human affairs. God is good and only does good, but harming no one, being always the same; and when we are good, we enter into communion with God, according to our resemblance to Him, and when we become evil, we are separated from God, according to our dissimilarity to Him. Living virtuously, we are God's, and when we become evil, we become rejected from him; and this does not mean that He has anger on us, but that our sins do not allow God to shine in us, they unite with the demons as tormentors. If then, through prayers with good deeds, we obtain permission in sins, this does not mean that we have blessed God and changed Him, but that through such actions and our turning to God, having healed the evil in us, we again become able to taste God's goodness; so to say: God turns away from the wicked is the same as to say: the sun hides from those deprived of sight. "

In short - when we lead a correct life (that is, righteous), live according to the commandments and repent of their violation, then our spirit is united with the Spirit of God, and good happens to us. When we act against our conscience, we break the commandments, then our spirit becomes one with the tormenting demons, and thus we fall into their power. And according to the degree of our voluntary consent to sin, voluntary submission to their authority - they torment us. And if there is still repentance on earth, then it is too late there. But it turns out that it is not God who punishes us for our sins, but we ourselves, with our passions, surrender ourselves into the hands of the tormentors. And their "work" begins - they are a kind of predators or sewers, cleaning the environment of sewage. This is what happens to the soul after death in ordeals.

Ordeals, therefore, are essentially nothing more than a kind of test of a person for passion. Here a person shows himself - who he is, what he aspired to, what he wanted. But not only a test - they are also a guarantee of a possible cleansing of the soul through the prayers of the Church.

"Passions are a thousand times stronger than on earth ..."

But, apparently, it is necessary to say once again what is passion... We know about sin: for example, a person deceived, stumbled, this happens to everyone. Passion is something else - something that already attracts to itself, and sometimes so irresistibly that a person cannot cope with himself. Although he perfectly understands that it is bad, that it is bad, that it is harmful not only for the soul (although he most often forgets about the soul), but also for the body, he cannot cope with himself. In the face of conscience, in the face of, if you will, his own good - he cannot cope! They say about such a state - passion.

Passion is a really terrible thing. Look what people do in the madness of passion, in the bondage of passion. They kill, maim, betray each other.

The Slavic word "passion" means first of all suffering, as well as a strong desire for something forbidden, sinful - that is, ultimately also suffering. Passion is suffering. Christianity also warns that all passions, being sinful, bring suffering to a person, and only suffering. Passion is deception, it is a drug, it is delight! After death, the real action of the passions, their real cruelty, is revealed.

All our sins are committed when the soul is united with the body. A soul without a body can neither do good nor sin. The Fathers definitely say that the seat of the passions is the soul, not the body. The roots of passions are not in the body, but in the soul. Even the grossest bodily passions are rooted in the soul. Therefore, they do not go out, do not disappear with the death of the body. With them, a person leaves this world.

How do these passions manifest themselves in that world? I will cite the thought of Abbot Nikon (Vorobyov): "Passions a thousand times stronger than on earth will burn you like fire without any opportunity to quench them"... This is extremely serious.

It is easier with our passions here on earth. Now, I fell asleep - and all my passions fell asleep. For example, I am so angry with someone that I am ready to tear him to pieces. But time passed - and the passion gradually subsided. And soon they became friends. Here you can fight against vices. In addition, passions are covered by our corporeality and therefore do not act in full force - or rather rarely and, as a rule, do not act like that for very long. But there a person, freed from corporeality, finds himself in the face of their full action. Complete! Nothing interferes with their manifestation, the body does not close them, no sleep distracts, no fatigue extinguishes! In a word - continuous suffering, since the person himself does not have "any opportunity to satisfy them"! Plus, demons seduce us and then kindle and multiply the action of our passions.

I was told how during the Second World War, after the lifting of the Leningrad blockade, a woman ran up to a huge queue for bread in the rear and screamed hysterically: "I am from Leningrad." Everyone immediately parted when they saw her crazy eyes, her terrible condition. This is what passion alone is. Passion is a serious illness that takes a lot of work and time to heal. That is why it is so dangerous not to struggle with sin - often repeated, it turns into passion, and then real trouble comes not only in this life, but, which is a thousand times worse, in that one. And when is there a whole bunch of passions in a person? What will happen to him in Eternity ?! If only this thought were deeply rooted in us, we, no doubt, would already have a completely different attitude to our life.

That is why Christianity as a religion of love reminds: remember, man, you are not a mortal, but an immortal being and therefore prepare for immortality. And it is a great happiness for Christians that they know about this and can prepare. On the contrary, what horror the unbeliever and the ignorant face after death!

Twenty ordeals reveal the state of a person's soul, after all, they are nothing more than twenty kind of litmus papers, twenty, if you will, exams, in which all its spiritual content is revealed and its fate is determined. True, it is not yet final. There will be more prayers of the Church, there will be the Last Judgment.

Like connects with like. The power of repentance

Each stage of the ordeal is a test of the strength of the rootedness of a certain passion in a person, when its full strength is revealed. The one who did not fight with passion, who obeyed it, who lived by this passion, cultivated it, devoted all the strength of his soul to its cultivation, falls, breaks down on this ordeal. And this - either the fall or the passage of the ordeal - is no longer determined by the effort of the will of a person, but by the action of the spiritual state prevailing in him. Abbess Arsenia, one of the remarkable ascetics at the turn of the 20th century (1905), wrote: “When a person lives an earthly life, he cannot know how much his spirit is enslaved, depending on another spirit, he cannot fully cognize this because he has a will, with which he acts as he wants. But when the will is taken away with death, then the soul will see whose power it is enslaved. The Spirit of God brings the righteous into the eternal abodes, enlightening them, illuminating them, and worshiping them. Those souls who had fellowship with the devil will be possessed by him. "

In other words, if we on earth do not fight small temptations, do not resist their pressure, then we weaken our will, gradually destroy it. And there, in the face of a 1000-fold greater power of passion, our will will be taken away altogether, and the soul will be in the power of the demon tormentor. This is the latter and I want to say it again.

If we turn to the description of the ordeals, then everywhere we find the spirits of evil present there - in different images. Blessed Theodora even describes the appearance of some of them, although it is clear that these are only faint likenesses of their true being. The most serious thing - we have already emphasized this - is that, as Anthony the Great writes, the soul, submitted to passion, unites there with the tormenting demons. And this happens, so to speak, naturally, for like is always combined with like. In the conditions of earthly life, we also unite with people of the same spirit. Sometimes they are surprised - how did these people come together? Then, upon closer acquaintance, it turns out: yes, they have the same spirit! They are unanimous. One spirit united them.

When the soul goes through ordeals, it is tested by the passion of each ordeal, by its spirits, tormenting demons, and, according to its state, either is rejected from them, or unites with them, falling into the most severe suffering.

There is another side to this suffering. That world is a world of true light in which all our sins will be revealed to everyone; in the face of all friends, acquaintances, relatives, everything cunning, base, shameless will suddenly appear. Just imagine such a picture! That is why the Church calls everyone to the earliest repentance. Repentance in Greek is metanoia, that is, a change in the mind, a way of thinking, a change in the goals of one's life, aspirations. Repentance is also a hatred for sin, aversion to it.

This is how wonderful St. Isaac the Sirin: “Because God knew by His merciful knowledge that if absolute righteousness were required of people, then only one in ten thousand would be found who<мог бы> enter the Kingdom of Heaven, He gave them a medicine suitable for everyone,<а именно> repentance, so that every day and for every moment there is an accessible means of correction for them through the power of this medicine and so that through contrition they wash themselves at all times from any defilement that may happen, and are renewed every day through repentance. "

What does true repentance do? Take Raskolnikov from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Look: he was ready to go to hard labor, even to go with joy, just to atone for his evil, to restore his former state of mind. This is what repentance is: it really is a soul change, its salvation.

And even a small striving for good and repentance for evil can become that drop that will tip the scales towards God. This droplet, or, as Barsanuphius the Great said, this "copper ball", seemingly insignificant, becomes a guarantee that the Lord unites with such a soul and overcomes the evil that is present in it.

This is the great importance of sincere repentance and sincere struggle in this life of ours. They become the key to the saving passage of ordeals.

We, Christians, should be infinitely grateful to God for the fact that He has revealed to us in advance the posthumous secret of ordeals, so that we here fight against our bad inclinations, fight and repent. For if, I repeat, a person has at least a small sprout of such a struggle, if there is at least some compulsion to live according to the Gospel, then the Lord Himself will fill up what is missing and free us from the hands of destroyer demons. The word of Christ is truly true: “in little you have been faithful, I will put you over much; enter into the joy of your Lord ”(Matthew 25; 23).

Christianity provides the greatest means of human salvation - repentance. The Lord wants us here, and even more so after death, not to suffer. Therefore, the Church calls: man, before it's too late, accept yourself ...

We are free to do good and evil

Why, speaking about the posthumous path of a person, we constantly emphasize that he is a test of the soul - first for good, and then for evil? Why a test?

Because God in the very creation of man gave him His image, which presupposes such freedom that God Himself cannot touch. For He needs free individuals, not slaves. Salvation is His free choice for the love of truth, holiness and beauty, and not for the sake of “spiritual” pleasures or the threat of punishment.

Why did God humble himself to the cross, and did not appear to the world as an all-powerful, wisest, invincible king? Why did He come to people not as a patriarch, not a bishop, not a theologian, not a philosopher, not a Pharisee, but a beggar, homeless, from an earthly point of view, the last person who has not a single external advantage over any person? The reason for this is obvious: power, might, outward splendor, glory would certainly captivate the whole world, everyone would slavishly worship Him and “accept” His teaching in order to receive as much as possible ... bread and circuses. Christ wanted nothing but the truth to attract a person to Him, nothing external to replace it, not to stand in the way of its acceptance. It is not by chance that the Lord uttered such significant words: “For this I was born and for this I came into the world to bear witness to the truth; everyone who is of the truth hears My voice ”(John 18; 37). Externalities are idols that throughout the history of mankind have been trying to replace God with themselves.

Unfortunately, in many respects, church life has followed the path of external, so-called "church" splendor, or rather, purely secular splendor. This is how I recall the words of one Protestant American who, not only without hesitation, but, on the contrary, proudly shared: "Everything in our church should be entertaining in order to attract the people." And the spiritual law is known: the more outside, the less inside. As early as the beginning of the 16th century, the Monk Nil Sorsk tried to defend non-covetousness in monasticism, opposed all luxury, wealth and estates in the Church as humiliating and unnatural, but his voice was not accepted, or rather, was rejected - the process of secularization of the Christian consciousness was already irreversible. And it is quite obvious that it led to the split of the 17th century, Peter I, the October Revolution, and at the end of the 20th century - to the so-called "perestroika". And it will lead to worse. For the Church is the “leaven” of society, and her spiritual condition determines the internal and external well-being of the people.

Saint Philaret of Moscow said with bitterness in the 19th century: “How boring to see that the monasteries all want pilgrims, that is, they themselves seek entertainment and temptations. True, they sometimes lack ways, but more lack of possessiveness, simplicity, hope in the Gods, a taste for silence. " And he: “If it were necessary to declare war on what clothes, then, in my opinion, not the hats of the priestly wives, but the magnificent robes of bishops and priests. At least this is the first thing, but this is what was forgotten. "Thy priests, O Lord, be clothed with righteousness" (righteousness). " Perhaps even now there will be a saint who will say the same about modern church life.

So the Lord by his coming showed that he is not only the greatest Love; but also the greatest Humility, and He cannot exert any, even the slightest, pressure on human freedom, therefore salvation is possible for everyone who freely accepts God, will respond to Love with love. Hence it becomes clear why earthly conditions of life are so important. Only being in the body can a person be fully human and can do good or evil, sin, break the commandments, or repent and lead a righteous life. Our freedom, our choice is realized on earth. After death there is no longer a choice, but the realization of the choice made on earth takes place, the fruits of earthly life are revealed. The soul simply finds itself in the face of the result of all earthly human activities. Therefore, there, in another world, a person is already powerless to change himself - he can only be helped. But more on that later.

On this day, one might say, the initial outcome of life. 40th dayif you like, this is the first gathering of the fruits of man's earthly life. The Church teaches that the soul appears to the throne of God, before which God's determination about man takes place. But it would be just as correct to say: self-determination of a person takes place in the face of God. After all, God does not commit any violence against any person. God is the greatest, ultimate Love and Humility. Therefore, when on the 40th day the soul is in some special way before God, then, apparently, here its spiritual state is revealed in its entirety and its natural union occurs either with the Spirit of God, or with the spirits of tormenting passions. This is what the Church calls private court, private identification.

Only this judgment is unusual - it is not God who judges and condemns a person, but a person, finding himself in the face of the Divine shrine, either ascends to Him, or, on the contrary, falls into the abyss. And all this no longer depends on his will, but on the spiritual state that was the result of his entire earthly life.

Almost every religious movement offers its own version of existence after the end of the earthly journey. It is worth saying that many religions agree on various details. In the Orthodox tradition, the ordeal of the soul after death is considered, that is, some tests that each person has to go through in the other world.

In fact, talking about some other world is rather strange, since an Orthodox person, and indeed any believer, does not seem to exist after the end of bodily existence as something else.

These worlds are in fact inseparable, and in Orthodoxy the earthly path is generally perceived simply as a preparation for further eternal existence.

It is this preparation that the believer is engaged in throughout his life, depending on the literacy of this preparation, this or that ordeal will or will not affect his fate.

For a Christian, the choice of this future fate is quite understandable and obvious. The main goal is to avoid hell, that is, mental suffering for a huge amount of time before the end of time.

Existence in hell is much more difficult than just some kind of bodily suffering, it is precisely the suffering of an incorporeal shell and therefore acts on the very essence, is capable of ruining a person in the true sense of the word.

The topic under consideration is incredibly difficult, no one filmed a video in another world, did not bring instructions or descriptions that would be clear to everyone.

In modern times, people have access to a wide variety of teachings and descriptions of the experience of the soul freed from the body.

But one should not be scattered to study each concept, it is better to concentrate on one thing, in particular on the Orthodox view.

This option is more expedient, since deep understanding reveals the facets hidden from a superficial glance.

It is not for nothing that believers are so concerned about avoiding sins, and some sins are called mortal, because they bring death not at all for the body, but for the soul and doom to a hellish existence.

So, the goal for the Orthodox is a heavenly existence. That is why one should behave piously, being in the body, and also know how the soul goes through the ordeals, in order to additionally provide oneself with the guarantee of ascension to Heaven.

To some extent, this knowledge can even be called practical, something like an instruction that must be followed in order to ensure the desired result.

Is it possible to avoid ordeals?

If we turn to the canonical New Testament literature, then there is no such advice for the deceased and various descriptions of posthumous experience. With a high probability, this fact is explained by the concentration on the basic and the most essential.

Probably, Christ could expound these teachings in detail, tell people about the nature of the soul and give similar lessons, but he considered it most necessary to talk about the moral aspect, and the direct relationship of man with the Lord.

As confirmed in practice, it is the version of pure and sincere faith that is the most effective and universal. A person who follows the New Testament, in fact, does not particularly need to take care of something else, study the list of ordeals and prepare for this additionally.

Only faith is enough, and a person living according to the teachings of Christ has a kind of guarantee. This guarantee of Salvation was left by Christ himself, proposing the most universal and effective method.

The teaching about the ordeal of the soul after death is later. This fact is not a reason to reject it. Various revelations received by the saints are much more likely to be reliable than, on the contrary, they kind of complement the general teaching given by Christ.

Note!The original meaning of the word Satan is characteristic, from which Satan also comes - an obstacle, an obstacle.
The devil, who has lost even hope for the Kingdom of Heaven, now builds various barriers for people to paradise, and constantly prevents believers from reaching Heaven.
Likewise, other fallen angels (demons) who serve him, arrange such "customs posts" in order to hinder and interfere with the Orthodox soul again and again.

The meaning of the ordeal

In translation, the word means "customs post", and in many respects such a translation reflects the essence of this phenomenon. Here only the meaning of "test" should be added for better understanding.

As you know, the devil and his servants want to gain power over people, and for this they use various temptations and vices.

This intention always remains, for this they act in the world, and also arrange so that the Orthodox soul needs to go through a series of tests in the process of ascension to paradise.

The main goal of the devil and demons always remains the attraction of the largest number of people to hell.

In fact, all these tests, as well as the certain power of the devil in the world, are arranged by the permission of the Lord. Only in this way is it possible to truly separate the truly believers from the hypocrites and those who do not really strive for paradise. When it was said about the Kingdom of God, which is taken by force, it was precisely about the efforts that the believer makes continuously.

Let's consider the situation schematically, for a deeper understanding:

• Satan is given a definite power over the world, he tempts people in all sorts of ways;
• the souls of non-Christians immediately after leaving the body, are caught by demons and go to hell;
• the soul of the Orthodox is caught by two angels and is led to paradise, but on the way it goes through 20 ordeals of the soul after death (more on each one below), where demons act as a kind of judges, who during their lifetime were engaged in temptations in different areas.

This option assumes that such a structure of the universe admits to paradise only the purest Orthodox souls.

Only a person who is always devoted to the Lord can attain Heaven.

Of course, for the Orthodox, in the end, there is no particular difficulty in this, because the earthly path of the Orthodox is devoted to an active struggle against his own dreams and vices, that is, in fact, against demonic temptations.

Accordingly, further, when each “specialized” demon begins to “judge”, the Orthodox can easily give an answer about how he resisted him, did not succumb to temptations. Thus, souls become ascended, which have a kind of "immunity" from demons and simply by their very nature cannot succumb to sins, passions and vices.

Note!The image of life preparation for ordeals and further opposition to demons is used in many books created by holy Orthodox ascetics.
The most famous "instruction" on how to help yourself in such a matter is the Ladder of John.

There are other so-called ladders, which were compiled by other ascetics and described the process of the gradual ascent of the soul. Such “work” done in the course of the earthly journey allows the soul of the Orthodox after death not to experience significant difficulties with demons striving to drag them to hell.

List of ordeals

The fact that all Orthodox authors agree is unambiguous - the soul goes through various ordeals after death, but opinions about the number of such can differ slightly.

Although this, too, should not dwell in particulars, it is better to strive for an understanding of the essence.

The situation here is a bit like the concept of deadly sins, which some authors have 7, others - 8.

The names may differ slightly, but the essence is the same for all, just concepts that are identical in meaning are called different words. Also in this topic, you need to look for the meaning, clothed in words.

So, most often we are talking about the following "customs posts":

If we rely on the revelations that were given by the angel Macarius of Alexandria, then it is precisely 40 days after it leaves the body that the Orthodox soul is determined with its further existence.

The short diagram is as follows:

• until the third day she dwells where she used to, under the supervision of an angel, then ascends to the Lord;
• goes to the Kingdom of Heaven, which considers until the ninth day;
• goes to hell before the fortieth day.

Such a distribution by day allows the soul to see different worlds and to repent or rejoice at its earthly path.

After that, the judgment is performed, which is the ordeal, that is, if the soul longs to be in paradise, then it is responsible for various points of earthly sins. In the absence of those, it goes through all the stages and ends up in paradise.

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Let's sum up

Services in Orthodox churches are created every day in order to strengthen the soul in this judgment and help overcome trials. They are also a kind of intercession of those living for the deceased.

When loved ones gather at the commemoration, they pray for the deceased person and, as it were, testify of his righteousness and deserved position in paradise.

In contact with

There is life after death. And there are thousands of evidences of this. Until now, basic science has brushed aside such stories. However, as Natalya Bekhtereva, a famous scientist who has studied the activity of the brain all her life, said, our consciousness is such matter that it seems that the keys to the secret door have already been found. But behind it there are ten more ... What is still behind the door of life?

"She sees right through ..."

Galina Lagoda was returning with her husband in a Zhiguli from a country trip. Trying to disperse on a narrow highway with an oncoming truck, my husband steered sharply to the right ... The car crumpled against a tree standing by the road.

Intravision

Galina was taken to the Kaliningrad regional hospital with severe brain injuries, ruptured kidneys, lungs, spleen and liver, and multiple fractures. The heart stopped, the pressure was at zero. “Having flown through the black space, I found myself in a shining space flooded with light,” Galina Semyonovna tells me twenty years later. “Before me stood a huge man in dazzling white clothes. I could not see his face because of the light flux directed at me. "Why did you come here?" he asked sternly. "I am very tired, let me rest a little." - "Rest and come back - you still have a lot to do." Having regained consciousness after two weeks, during which she was balancing between life and death, the patient told the head of the intensive care department Yevgeny Zatovka how the operations were carried out, which of the doctors stood where and what they did, what equipment was brought in, from which cabinets what was taken out. After another operation on a shattered arm, Galina asked an orthopedic surgeon during the morning round of the doctor: "How is your stomach?" From amazement, he did not know what to answer - indeed, the doctor was tormented by pains in the stomach. Now Galina Semyonovna lives in harmony with herself, believes in God and is not at all afraid of death.

"I flew like a cloud"

Yuri Burkov, a major in reserve, does not like to remember the past. His story was told by his wife Lyudmila: - Yura fell from a great height, broke his spine and received a head injury, lost consciousness. After cardiac arrest, he lay in a coma for a long time. I was under terrible stress. She lost her keys during one of her visits to the hospital. And the husband, having finally regained consciousness, first of all asked: "Did you find the keys?" I shook my head in dismay. “They’re under the stairs,” he said. Only many years later, he confessed to me: while he was in a coma, he saw my every step and heard every word - and no matter how far from him I was. He flew in the form of a cloud, including to where his dead parents and brother live. The mother tried to persuade her son to return, and the brother explained that they were all alive, only they no longer had bodies. Years later, sitting by the bedside of his seriously ill son, he reassured his spouse: “Lyudochka, don't cry, I know for sure that he will not leave now. She will be with us for another year ”. A year later, at the commemoration of his deceased son, he admonished his wife: “He did not die, but only before you and I moved to another world. Trust me, I was there. "

Savely KASHNITSKY, Kaliningrad - Moscow.

Childbirth under the ceiling

“While the doctors were trying to pump me out, I observed an interesting thing: a bright white light (there is no such thing on Earth!) And a long corridor. And now I seem to be waiting to enter this corridor. But then the doctors resuscitated me. During this time I felt that THERE is very cool. I didn't even want to leave! " These are the memories of 19-year-old Anna R., who survived clinical death. Such stories can be found in abundance on Internet forums where the topic of "life after death" is discussed.

Light in the tunnel

The light at the end of the tunnel, pictures of life sweeping before our eyes, a feeling of love and peace, meetings with deceased relatives and a certain luminous creature - patients who returned from the other world tell about this. True, not all, but only 10-15% of them. The rest did not see or remember anything at all. The dying brain does not have enough oxygen, so it is "buggy" - say skeptics. Disagreements among scientists have reached the point that a new experiment was recently announced. Over the course of three years, American and British doctors will study the testimony of patients who have had heart failure or brain shutdown. Among other things, the researchers are going to put various pictures on the shelves in the intensive care units. You can see them only by soaring to the very ceiling. If patients who have experienced clinical death retell their content, it means that consciousness is really capable of leaving the body. One of the first who tried to explain the phenomenon of near-death experience was Academician Vladimir Negovsky. He founded the world's first Institute of General Reanimatology. Negovsky believed (and since then the scientific view has not changed) that "the light at the end of the tunnel" is due to the so-called tubular vision. The cortex of the occipital lobes of the brain dies off gradually, the field of view narrows to a narrow strip, giving the impression of a tunnel. In a similar way, doctors explain the vision of pictures of a past life, sweeping before the gaze of a dying person. Brain structures fade away and then recover unevenly. Therefore, a person manages to remember the most vivid events that have been deposited in his memory. And the illusion of leaving the body, according to doctors, is the result of a failure of nerve signals. However, skeptics get stumped when it comes to answering trickier questions. Why do people who are blind from birth at the time of clinical death see and then describe in detail what is happening in the operating room around them? And there is such evidence.

Leaving the body - a defensive reaction

It is curious, but many scientists do not see anything mystical that consciousness can leave the body. The only question is what conclusion to draw from this. Dmitry Spivak, a leading researcher at the Institute of the Human Brain of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who is a member of the International Association for the Study of Near-Death Experiences, assures that clinical death is just one of the variants of an altered state of consciousness. “There are a lot of them: these are dreams, drug experiences, stressful situations, and a consequence of illness,” he says. “According to statistics, up to 30% of people at least once in their life felt out of their bodies and observed themselves from the side.” Dmitry Spivak himself researched the mental state of women in labor and found out that about 9% of women during childbirth experience "out of the body"! Here is the testimony of 33-year-old S.: “During childbirth, I had a lot of blood loss. Suddenly I began to see myself from under the ceiling. Pain sensations disappeared. And about a minute later, she also unexpectedly returned to her place in the ward and again began to experience severe pain. It turns out that "leaving the body" is a normal phenomenon during childbirth. Some kind of mechanism inherent in the psyche, a program that works in extreme situations. Undoubtedly, childbirth is an extreme situation. But what could be more extreme than death itself ?! It is not excluded that "flying in a tunnel" is also a protective program that turns on at a moment that is fatal for a person. But what will happen to his consciousness (soul) next? “I asked one dying woman: if there really is something there, try to give me a sign,” recalls Andrei Gnezdilov, MD, who works at the St. Petersburg hospice. - And on the 40th day after death, I saw her in a dream. The woman said, "This is not death." Long years of work in the hospice convinced me and my colleagues: death is not the end, not the destruction of everything. The soul continues to live. " Dmitry PISARENKO

Polka dot cup and dress

This story was told by Andrey Gnezdilov, MD: “During the operation, the patient's heart stopped. The doctors were able to get it on, and when the woman was transferred to the intensive care unit, I visited her. She complained that she was operated on by the wrong surgeon who promised. But she could not see the doctor, being unconscious all the time. The patient said that during the operation, some force pushed her out of the body. She calmly looked at the doctors, but then horror seized her: what if I die before I can say goodbye to my mother and daughter? And her consciousness instantly moved home. She saw that her mother was sitting, knitting, and her daughter was playing with a doll. A neighbor came in and brought a polka-dot dress for her daughter. The girl rushed to her, but touched the cup - it fell and broke. The neighbor said, “Well, that's good. Apparently, Yulia will soon be discharged. " And then the patient again appeared at the operating table and heard: "Everything is in order, she is saved." Consciousness returned to the body. I went to visit the relatives of this woman. And it turned out that during the operation ... a neighbor dropped in with a polka-dot dress for a girl and a cup was broken ”. This is not the only mysterious case in the practice of Gnezdilov and other employees of the St. Petersburg hospice. They are not surprised when the doctor dreams of his patient and thanks him for the care, for the touching attitude. And in the morning, having arrived at work, the doctor learns: the patient died at night ...

Church opinion

Priest Vladimir Vigilyansky, head of the press service of the Moscow Patriarchate: - Orthodox people believe in the afterlife and immortality. In the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, there are many confirmations and testimonies of this. We consider the very concept of death only in connection with the coming resurrection, and this mystery ceases to be such if we live with Christ and for Christ's sake. “Everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die,” says the Lord (John 11:26). According to legend, the soul of the deceased in the first days walks to those places in which it worked the truth, and on the third day it ascends to heaven to the throne of God, where until the ninth day it is shown the abodes of the saints and the beauty of paradise. On the ninth day, the soul again comes to God, and it is sent to hell, where the wicked sinners stay and where the soul goes through thirty days of ordeals (trials). On the fortieth day, the soul again comes to the Throne of God, where it appears naked before the judgment of its own conscience: has it passed these tests or not? And even in the case when some trials convict the soul of its sins, we hope for the mercy of God, in whom all the deeds of sacrificial love and compassion will not remain in vain.