Ordeals

The most famous story about posthumous ordeals is The Life of St. Basil the New , a vision of St. Gregory, a student of St. Basil the New , about the ordeals of St. Theodora (the nurse Patrician Constantine, who was in the service of Vasily the New). This composition was known in Russia from the 11th-12th centuries and had a huge impact on Old Russian literature , fine art and folklore .

Disputes about the authenticity of life

Some authors, in particular deacon Andrei Kuraev , believe that this story is very doubtful in its origin and content and has a number of dogmatic errors: “The Ordeals of Blessed Theodora, which are part of The Life of Vasily the New, is a text of dubious origin and content. Dogmatically, he is unfaithful because he leaves no room for God's Judgment. The Savior said that “the Father handed down the whole judgment to the Son,” but in this book demons rule the whole judgment. Christ can only hand the medals to the winners. Just as the head of the sports federation presents medals to the winners of the championship, he himself may have been a fan of another team, but forced to do so according to the protocol. ” ^[1] .

Metropolitan Filaret (Drozdov) also warned that “Visions that have their own truth are not always convenient for turning into general dogmas. You conjecture about the ordeals, and then give an account of the posthumous states from St. Macarius, who does not say a word about ordeals. This will give rise to difficult questions ” ^[2] .

Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy P. S. Kazansky , at the end of the 19th century, being a censor, wrote: “More often, stories full of the strangest miracles are published, in a word, spiritual novels about ordeals, the lives of Andrei Yurodivy, John of Novgorod, etc. All these works seem mostly illiterate. How many books had to be corrected or stopped, aimed at spreading superstitious concepts among the people ” ^[2] .

On the other hand, Bishop Tikhon (Shevkunov) gave a detailed answer to the article by Deacon A. Kuraev, justifying the orthodoxy of the ordeal ^[3] . Describes the ordeal in detail in his lecture Prot. Oleg Stenyaev ^[4] .

According to Theophan the Recluse : “No matter how wild it seems to clever people, the thought of ordeals, but they cannot be avoided” ^[5] .

The attitude of the Orthodox Church to the stories of ordeals is cautious. “How to relate to such stories? Rev. Macarius of Egypt (IV c.), Asking God about what ordeals were, he heard from an angel: "Take earthly things here as the weakest image of heaven." Those. the images contained in the stories of ordeals must be understood in a spiritual and moral sense. Ultimately, the idea of ​​legends about ordeals is that the soul is given help in the matter of moral self-testing and self-awareness through the spiritual forces that God allows to act as instruments of His justice ” ^[6] .

1. Ordeal of idleness

^{Reckless conversations, baseless songs, laughter, laughter}

2. The Ordeal of Lies

^{The insincere confession of sins, the vain invocation of the name of God}

3. The ordeal of condemnation and slander

^{Sinners guilty of condemnation are tortured as Christ's opponents, anticipating His right to judge others. Declaiming neighbors, mocking their flaws and sins}

4. The Ordeal of Gluttony

^{Lust, satiety, feasting and walking, drunkenness, violation of fasts}

5. The Ordeal of Laziness

^{Parasites, workers who took wages and did not work. Neglecting church services on Sundays and holidays, missing Matins and Liturgies, not caring about the work of saving the souls of the penitent}

6. The ordeal of theft

7. The ordeal of love of money and avarice

^{Greed for money and excessive frugality, dislike for spending, for spending money}

8. Ordeal of extortion (unrighteous acquisitions)

^{Usury, bribery}

9. The Ordeal of Unrighteousness

^{Unrighteous judges, out of self-interest, acquit the guilty and condemn the innocent; people who do not give mercenaries a fixed fee}

10. The Ordeal of Envy

11. The Ordeal of Pride

^{Vanity, conceit, contempt, greatness}

12. The Ordeal of Anger and Fury

13. The ordeal of malice

^{Nutrition of anger to people, revenge and retribution of evil for evil}

14. The Ordeal of the Kill

^{Not only robbery, but also every wound, stress with a heart on the head or shoulders, strangulation in the lanita, panging with anger}

15. The ordeal of sorcery, charm, invocation of demons

16. The Ordeal of Fornication

^{Prodigal dreams, thoughts, mental delight in being vicious sense of touch, passionate touch}

17. The adultery of adultery

^{Adultery, desecration of one's bed by fornication, violence}

18. The Ordeal of Sodom Sins

^{Incest, masturbation, likening to cattle, unnatural sins}

19. The ordeal of heresies

^{Unrighteous beliefs about faith, apostasy from the Orthodox confession}

20. The Ordeal of Mercy and Cruelty

^{Refusal of alms, cruelty to the needy}

The soul of a person who has sinned, but repented and confessed this sin , is not tormented by this sin during the tribulation. At ordeals, unforgiven, forgotten sins, acts, of the sinfulness of which a person did not know, are indicted for the soul.

Go through the ordeal of bl. Theodore helped St. Basil the New , who gave the Angels a bag of gold coins - the treasures of their prayers to God - for redemption from demons, since bl. Theodora served the reverend in his old age.

After going through all ordeals, on the third day, when the soul was separated from the body, the soul of blessed Theodora appeared and bowed before the throne of God of impregnable glory, surrounded by Seraphim , Cherubim and countless armies of heaven. After this bl. Theodore for 6 days was shown the paradise of the holy apostles , prophets , martyrs and saints . Then, on the 9th day after death, the soul was brought again to worship God. After that, for thirty-one days the soul was led through hell , where she was shown the terrible torment of sinners. On the fortieth day, the Angels held a bl. Theodore to the monastery of St. Basil in Paradise , where she, like anyone who has gone through tribulations and a private trial , should be before the Day of the Last Judgment , which will be at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ .

Paisiy Svyatorets describes what is happening to a person at the ordeal:

“Angels define the children of God, take them with love, and without fear lead them through the ordeals of the air, and lead them to a dearly loving Father, God.”

- Elder Paisius Svyatorets. The words. Volume V. Passion and Virtue ^[7]

In one of his letters, he clarifies that the criterion by which the angels recognize the "children of God" and without delay carry through the ordeal is love and humility ^[8] .

Ephraim of Philotheus affirms that the virtue of obedience matters when going through tribulations:

The good novice by express gets to the Throne of God. He does not stop even in tribulations. They far recede from his path, because they have nothing to cling to in him ^[9] .

On the other hand, Seraphim Rose , considering the ordeals real (not allegories), indicates that some elements from their descriptions are metaphorical:

“This is a metaphor that the Eastern Fathers found appropriate to describe the reality that the soul encounters after death . It is also obvious to everyone that some elements in the descriptions of these ordeals are metaphorical or figurative. But these stories themselves are not allegories and not fables, but truthful stories about personal experience, set forth in the language most convenient for the narrator ” ^[10] .

The doctrine of ordeals is part of the ascetic doctrine and speaks of the final and decisive stage of the “ invisible abuse ” that the Christian leads on the earth, when demons, who have tempted him all his life, at the end of it launch their last attack, but have power only over those who life has not worked enough in invisible warfare.

As Professor Osipov explains:

“ Passions are exposed in the tribulation. By death, when the flesh is cast off, the action of passions is revealed in all strength. <...> A man who did not struggle with passion during his life, surrendered to it, in the face of the loving God and all the good that is conjugated with God, falls because he cannot refuse passion. <...> as the Holy Fathers say, the ancestor is united with the ancestral, demons present each sin. The human soul is united with the corresponding spirit, that is, the passion that dominates in it. "

- Answers to questions. Ordeals ^[11]

Mentions and Tales of Ordeals Meet

• in church services ,
• in the ascetic creations of the Holy Fathers and
• in the lives of the saints .

The doctrine of the posthumous ordeals of the soul is contained in the works of church writers of the 4th - 5th centuries - John Chrysostom , Ephraim the Syrian , Macarius the Great , Cyril of Alexandria , etc.

In the Russian church , Nestor the Chronicler was one of the first to mention the ordeal in the Life of Theodosius of the Caves , written before 1093: “ May you receive your angels through the penetration of the darkness of the world ” ^[12] .

Ivan the Terrible mentions the ordeal in the canon ^[13] , examined in detail and defended the doctrine of the ordeal Ignatius (Bryanchaninov) , Theophan the Recluse , Metropolitan Makarii of Moscow , John of Kronstadt , John of Shanghai and San Francisco , Michael Pomazansky and many other teachers and theologians. The greatest emphasis was placed on him in the Serbian Church , where it occupies an honorable place in the third volume of "Dogmatic Theology" by Justin Popovich .

Ignatius Brianchaninov cites the words of one of the ancient Egyptian fathers, who teaches that it is necessary “to pray God that He would give the soul harmlessly go through the ordeals of air and survive from air demons” ^[14] .

The ordeal, as a well-known reality, was taught by the Elder Joseph Hesychast, Archimandrite Ephraim of Philotheus and other monks and novices of his monastery ^[9] .

According to the story of hieromonk Roman Kropotov, a film about ordeals was created, based on real events ^[15] .

• Purgatory
• Sins in Christianity

• "Theodora's walk through the ordeals" // Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) RAS)
• “What is the ordeal?” // lecture by prof. the theology of A. I. Osipov from the book “Posthumous Existence of the Soul”
• Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) . The Lenten Ordeals / Orthodoxy.ru, the online journal of the Sretensky Monastery , 03/25/2009.
• Stefanov, P., archim. Ordeals of the soul after death in Bulgarian folklore and culture. - The world of Orthodoxy. Vol. 5. Volgograd, 2004, 318–334
• ΠΕΡΙ ΕΞOΔΟΥ ΨΥΧΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΤΩΝ ΕΝΑΕΡΙΩΝ ΤΕΛΩΝΙΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΠΕΡΙ ΤΗΣ ΦΟΒΕΡΑΣ ΗΜΕΡΑΣ ΤΗΣ ΚΡΙΣΕΩΣ
• The Life of the Monk Father of Our Basil the New
• Vasily Novy // Orthodox Encyclopedia . - M .: Church Scientific Center "Orthodox Encyclopedia" , 2004. - T. VII. - S. 210-212. - 752 s. - 39,000 copies. - ISBN 5-89572-010-2 .
• Life of Vasily the New. Constantinople, the second half of the X century. History of writing.
• The ordeals of Theodora (video), June 10, 2019

1. St. John of Damascus , “ The Word About the Dead in the Faith ”
2. " Ordeals of Blessed Theodora ." Kiev-Pechersk Lavra , 2003.
3. Hieromonk Seraphim Rose , "Life After Death"