What awaits a person after death? #

From time immemorial, this question has deeply troubled humanity—a question about which A. S. Pushkin poetically remarked: “And the grave’s fateful secrets…”

“Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” These words of God, spoken to Adam after his fall into sin, determined the mortality of all “born of Adam.” Bodily death is a temporal boundary, a threshold we must approach prepared to transition into eternal life, lest we be deprived of it. The death we observe in this earthly world serves as a warning, a reminder of our responsibility for all we do, say, and think that is evil, and of the need to purify our souls from all defilement, for nothing impure can enter the Heavenly Kingdom.

For us, bound to earthly bodies, it is difficult to imagine another world—a spiritual world—because there is nothing in our earthly experience that corresponds to what lies “beyond.” We can only vaguely perceive, “as through a glass, darkly” (St. Paul the Apostle), glimpses of the spiritual world through the writings of the ancient saints to whom these mysteries were partially revealed.

Let us try, in brief words, to convey what has been made known to us through the saints. Bodily death is the separation of the soul from the body. The body decays in this material world, but the soul remains indestructible in the spiritual world. If a person lived outside the Church of Christ—either never baptized or baptized but living carelessly, without repentance, without the sacraments of the Church, and in unrepented mortal sins—then after death, demons seize the soul and carry it into the abyss of hell, where it languishes alongside other similar souls, anticipating eternal torment.

At this stage, they do not yet experience physical suffering, being separated from their bodies. However, after the resurrection of the dead and the reunion of souls with their bodies, unrepentant sinners will be cast into the “lake of fire” (Revelation) or “hellfire” (the Gospels), where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48).

If, however, a person was baptized and lived a Christian life—confessing their sins and partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ—then after death, two Angels of God, sent by Him, come to take the soul: the Guardian Angel and another Angel who accompanies the souls of the departed (sometimes referred to as the Dread Angel). They lift the soul to Heaven, passing through the earthly atmosphere. Demons also appear, attempting to accuse the soul of various sins in the hope that the Angels will surrender it into their hands. The holy fathers were revealed that along the soul’s journey to Heaven, there are about twenty “aerial tollhouses”—spiritual barriers where demons present the sins they have recorded, accusing the soul and claiming it belongs to their dominion and must descend into hell.

It is important to note here that every Christian, after baptism, is followed by an unseen demon who incites them to sin through mental suggestions and records every sin they commit. However, if a person confesses their sins in the sacrament of Repentance before a priest and fulfills their penance (a spiritual correction), these confessed sins are erased by the power of God and cannot be brought up at the tollhouses.

In opposition to the demons’ accusations, the Angels present the person’s good deeds, as well as the prayers offered for the departed by those still living on earth: priests, relatives, and other Christians. It is as if on a set of spiritual scales, the sins, virtues, and prayers are weighed. If the sins outweigh, the Angels release the soul, and the demons greedily seize it, carrying it down into the abyss, while the Angels weep. If, however, the virtues and prayers outweigh, the demons are shamed into silence, and the Angels carry the soul higher, to the next tollhouse.

Each tollhouse has its own “specialization,” so to speak, meaning that it examines sins of a particular kind. In the “Instruction of St. Cyril the Philosopher on the Departure of the Soul from the Body and the Tollhouses,” we find the following list:

The first tollhouse is for slander: if we falsely accused anyone.
The second tollhouse is for calumny: if we defamed anyone, from our youth to our old age.
The third tollhouse is for envy.
The fourth tollhouse is for lying.
The fifth tollhouse is for rage and anger.
The sixth tollhouse is for pride.
The seventh tollhouse is for idle talk, obscene language, shameless words, and revelry at feasts.
The eighth tollhouse is for greed, robbery, extortion, and bribery.
The ninth tollhouse is for vanity, seeking praise, and human glory.
The tenth tollhouse is for love of gold and silver.
The eleventh tollhouse is for drunkenness and habitual drinking.
The twelfth tollhouse is for holding grudges, such as saying, ‘I will never forgive you until my dying day.’
The thirteenth tollhouse is for sorcery, witchcraft, and magic.
The fourteenth tollhouse is for gluttony, including overeating, eating too early in the morning, eating at midday, and secret eating.
The fifteenth tollhouse is for heresies and superstitions: believing in omens, sneezes, first encounters, the cries of birds, divinations, retelling or listening to [pagan] fables, and playing the gusli.
The sixteenth tollhouse is for adultery: when husbands are unfaithful to their wives or wives to their husbands.
The seventeenth tollhouse is for robbery, murder, and all violence, including pulling someone’s hair until they bleed.
The eighteenth tollhouse is for theft and all forms of stealing.
The nineteenth tollhouse is for all types of fornication: with animals, with men, with prostitutes, or through self-abuse.
The twentieth tollhouse is for mercilessness and stinginess: here demons accuse the soul if at any time we have been harsh to a brother, or a beggar, or driven someone from our home, or threatened anyone. The demons accuse and prevail against us. For even if we keep all the commandments of God, yet are merciless to the poor and cruel to our servants or maids, failing to provide them with enough food or clothing, or if we oppress them with force or afflict them with any suffering, then for all these things, the soul will be tried and tormented by the aerial demons at the gates of Heaven.

—From the book Zlatoust (Chrysostom), teaching for the 20th Sunday after Pentecost.

If the soul is virtuous and God-fearing, it passes through the tollhouses, and through the fear it experiences there, as well as through the grace of God sent on account of prayers offered for it by people on earth—especially through the bloodless sacrifices (commemorations during liturgies)—it is cleansed of its remaining minor sins. The Angels then lead the soul to the gates of the Heavenly Kingdom, where it is joyfully received by the heavenly Angels and the souls of the righteous. The soul is brought to bow before the Throne of God, and Christ mercifully meets it, commanding that it be shown the abodes prepared for the righteous, where they will dwell after the Last Judgment, and also the places of torment prepared for sinners. The soul witnesses all of this until the fortieth day after death. On the fortieth day, the soul is once again brought before the Throne of God, and Christ assigns it a resting place where it will remain until the Resurrection of the dead.

Therefore, let us strive to live according to God’s commandments, in active love for God and neighbor, in repentance, remaining close to God’s churches and the sacraments of the Church, partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, which consume our sins and impurities, so that we may stand blameless before the Throne of the Most High. Let us also pray for departed Christians, commemorating them both at home and in church during liturgies and memorial services, so that both they and we may be deemed worthy of the Heavenly Kingdom with all the saints who have pleased God since the creation of the world.

—Archpriest Vadim Korovin.