Do Orthodox Believe in Purgatory?
The short answer is no — but the fuller answer is more interesting than that.
The Orthodox Church has never defined purgatory as a dogma. It does, however, pray insistently for the departed, believes those prayers help them, and teaches that the soul's condition between death and the general resurrection is real but not final.
What Orthodoxy does not teach
Orthodoxy rejects the framework of temporal punishment satisfied through a purgatorial fire, and with it indulgences and a treasury of merit. These were among the points disputed at the Council of Florence in 1439, where the Orthodox delegates declined the Latin formulation.
What Orthodoxy does teach
- The dead are alive to God and remain members of the Church.
- The Church prays for them at every Liturgy and at memorial services.
- The particular judgement at death anticipates the general judgement at the end.
- Growth, mercy and relief for the departed are real; the mechanism is left in mystery.
The toll houses
Some Orthodox writers describe the aerial toll houses, an ascetic image of the soul's ordeal after death. This is a pious tradition found in the lives of the saints, not a defined dogma, and Orthodox teachers differ on how literally it should be read.
Frequently asked
- Do Orthodox believe in purgatory?
- No. The Orthodox Church prays for the departed and believes those prayers benefit them, but it has never dogmatically defined a purgatorial state as Roman Catholicism has.
- Why do Orthodox pray for the dead?
- Because the departed remain members of the Church. Memorial services, Saturdays of the Souls and commemoration at the Liturgy express the conviction that love and prayer reach across death.