Part 5

Now the soul and the spirit are certainly a part of the man, but certainly not the man; for the whole man consists in the commingling and union of the soul receiving the spirit...and the admixture of the fleshly nature....For that flesh which has been moulded is not a perfect man in itself, but the body of a man and a part of a man. Neither is the soul itself...the man, but the soul of a man, a part of a man. (St Irenae of Lyons, Against Heresies, Bk.4, 6:1)

But though the soul be immortal [by grace], yet it [alone] is not the person. (St Titus of Bostra, Against the Manicheans, Homily 1 - PG 96:489B)

All Gnostics and Platonists taught that the soul alone constituted the person. They held that the body was either a shell, a temporary abode or even a prison of the soul. Every holy father who wrote against the Manicheans, Bogomils or other Gnostics, or against the neo-Platonists, makes a special point of refuting that heresy. According to the Protocol of ROCA published by Mr Patrick Barns (Orthodox Information Service) and publicly subscribed to by Archbishop Chrysostom of Etna (of the Kyprianite sect of Greek Old Calendarists), ROCA accepts this Gnostic/Platonist heresy and endorses it, in spite of the clear and abundant writings of the holy and God-bearing fathers to the contrary. We would suggest that our readers obtain the excellent article of Rev. Dr. John Romanides, "On the Nature and Destiny of Man According to the Divine Services," which appeared in a 1954 edition of The Greek Orthodox Theological Review. It presents the correct Orthodox Christian doctrine on this and other significant matters.

Since Mr Patrick Barnes has chosen to use his Orthodox Information Service website to endorse and advance such Gnosticism and Platonism, we would also like to suggest that one read his website with great caution and circumspection.

"..this novel teaching...should vanish as the distant ignis fatuus vanishes, leaving no perceptible trace," the "novel teaching which these brochures [Word on Death and Supplement] teach, cloaking their preaching in the cloak of Orthodoxy." (St Theophan the Recluse, in his refutation of Brianchaninov's Word on Death)

Before we enter into a more detailed discussion of the specific Gnostic/Platonist heresy of ROCA concerning the relationship between body and soul and the specific heresies of Fr Seraphim Rose advocated in his book The Soul After Death, we should look back at the one document that inspired Fr Rose most in his unfortunate book. Fr Seraphim based his own conclusions and teachings on the homily of Bishop Ignati Brianchaninov, Word On Death. In support of his conclusions, Fr Seraphim quoted or referred to a number of contemporary theosophists and New Age Gnostics. Moreover, Fr Seraphim made it seem as if the homily of Bishop Ignati had been universally accepted in its own time, and did not mention the extremely sharp condemnation of the homily by St Theophan the Recluse and others. We will present that condemnation later, but at this time, let us look at an important and quite sound critique of the homily by a Russian theologian contemporary with Bishop Ignati. The criticisms of Word on Death and of the startling liberties its author took with Scripture and the holy fathers could all be easily and honestly applied to Fr Seraphim Rose and his book The Soul After Death.

Rev Paul Matveevsky, the reviewer of bibliographic works, in an article in Strannik (1863, v.3, Nr.9, Section 3, pp.26-36) took very strong exception to four particular points in Bishop Ignati's work. These were: 1. the teaching of the corporality of the soul and of spirits; 2. the sensuality of paradise; 3. the location of hell in the interior of the earth, and; 4. the ranging of aerial tollhouses in the air. Fr Matveevsky correctly points out that Rt Rev Ignati Brianchaninov uses "exceptionally arbitrary personal interpretations of the Divine Scripture, disregards the teachings of the greatest fathers of the Church, and teaches directly counter to the decision made in the acts of the Seventh Ecumenical Council on the nature of spirits, in order to insist that his personal opinion is `the teaching of the Orthodox Church'." Unfortunately, Fr Seraphim Rose uses the same tactics in his "patristic proof texts," as did Rt Rev Ignati.

We will note that Saint Theophan the Recluse voiced his support for the following critique of Rev Matveevsky. Saint Theophan says:

"This year, there appeared in print Word on Death, a very instructive work in which there were, nevertheless, opinions expressed which are little known in the Christian world, such as for example, the opinion about a certain corporality of the nature of the soul and of angels. In Strannik, for September, 1863, brief but strong remarks were made in response to these novelties. These remarks elicited counter arguments in the form of a separate booklet under the title, Supplement to A Word on Death.

"The purpose of the Supplement was to gather more proof for all the ideas expressed in Word on Death....having entered into an argument with spiritualists, he [Bishop Ignati] spoke against Cardec, who asserted that the soul has a subtle material envelope, in favour of Pierar, who asserted that the soul is that which Cardec asserts is an envelope: the soul is an ethereal body and nothing else. In order to give more weight to his defence of Pierar, the author [Bishop Ignati] added that this opinion is decisively proved amongst us precisely in the mentioned articles. That is why I conceived a desire to examine [Bishop Ignati's work] to see if this is proved. I examined all the proofs and presentations of articles in favour of this view, to the smallest details, and nowhere did I find support for it, but on the contrary, everywhere where the articles thought to find a confirmation of their ideas, I found positions which completely contradicted it..." (Domashniaia Beseda, 1869, Pt.1, pp.5-6).

This is true not only of his teaching about the corporality of the soul, but also about his teaching regarding the "tollhouses," as we shall demonstrate later. Here is the text of Rev Paul Matveevsky's critique.

Word on Death is a theological dissertation written by the author [Bishop Ignati Brianchaninov] with the intention of offering edification. In it, one can read about the incomprehensibility of death, the fate of the body and soul after death, paradise, hades, the separating of the soul from the body, the death of the righteous and of sinners, the death of souls, eternal death, the torments of hades, "tollhouses," mortal sin, preparation for death, the remembrance of death. Regardless of the fact that this dissertation was composed on the basis of ascetic traditions, there is much in it which, from a theological point of view, can only be treated negatively.

Of the opinions which the author rushed, in vain, to elevate to a degree of positivity, we will discuss: 1). the teaching about the corporality of the soul and of spirits; 2). [his teaching] about the sensuality of paradise; 3). about the location of hades in the interior of the earth, and; 4). about the distribution of evil spirits and tollhouses in the air. Before we expound our observations on the above cited opinions [of Bishop Ignati], we cannot but point out that as yet, not a single eschatology or part of theology which has examined the latter events concerning the world and man, has entered into such a detailed resolution of these questions, as has been done by the author. Theology, as a science, has not taken upon itself the task of solving these questions in such a way as they were resolved by the author of Word on Death, because, referring such and similar questions to the realm of human curiosity, which desires to stretch even beyond the borders of human limitations, it [theology] always provided only the indisputable knowledge about the soul, paradise, hades and evil spirits, based on the Holy Scripture and in accord with the teachings of the universal Church.

1

The composer of Word on Death attempts to base his opinion about the corporality of the soul and of spirits on the words of St Makarios the Egyptian ascetic. [Bishop Ignati says]:

"God's saint teaches that angels and souls, although they are very subtle according to their nature, are in all their subtlety, nevertheless, bodies. They are thin, ethereal bodies, since, on the other hand, our earthly bodies are very material and gross. The coarse human body serves as a garment for the subtle body - the soul. Over the eyes, ears, arms, legs belonging to the soul, similar bodily members are put on" (p.11).

"The corporality of the soul [Brianchaninov asserts] is proved by the experience of a certain hermit who saw his soul coming out of the body - it had the entire appearance of a body, a full similitude with it" (p.12). The author remarks that even in our time there were two similar occurrences with people, who are not dead (p.13,fn.). "Angels are similar to the soul: they have members - heads, eyes, mouths, breasts, arms, legs, hair - a full likeness of a visible person in his body (p.13). Good angels have a meek and beautiful appearance, but evil spirits are ugly." The author considers as a good proof of the corporality of spirits the narrations about the saints who had either themselves beaten evil spirits or were beaten by them: "how could this have been carried out if the fallen angels were totally bodiless?" (p.17, fn.). Curious, too, is the philosophical consideration - completely in favour of that opinion. We will extract from it. Having mentioned that the Western scholar Allarus (who wrote the foreword to the words of St John Cassian) refutes the ideas of St John Cassian about the corporality of spirits, the author [Brianchaninov] says:

"Unfortunately, even amongst us, certain people participate in the dark and indefinite opinion of the Jesuits and of Western philosophers at the expense of the incorporeality of created spirits. The Holy Scripture and the fathers constantly call them bodiless and immaterial; but they call them that only relatively: relative to gross human bodies and to the coarse material world, and not at all relative to God - the one Spirit. God alone is fully spirit. Angels, both the holy and also the fallen, are subjected to time and space. An understanding about the subjection to space is inseparable from an understanding about the subjection to form. If one refutes the concept of the subjugation of angels to space, one must either refute their existence altogether or acknowledge them as being boundless, i.e., attribute to them God's omnipresence. Only two indefinite quantities - nothingness and the infinite - are not subjected to form; on the contrary, every definite quality, no matter how small or how large it might be, inevitably has a form, according to its own definiteness. Having agreed that angels are limited, one necessarily must accept that, in relationship to space, they have form, while in relationship to the subtlety of their nature, they have a certain degree of this subtlety, i.e., they are inevitably bodies, no matter how subtle these bodies might be. The form of a limited being is inevitably delineated, so to speak, by its very borders, extremities; thus a delineated being has its appearance. The infinite, as not having any ending in any direction, is not subjected to any form; for this reason it cannot have any appearance." (pp.16-17,fn.).

This is sufficient; the reader can draw a conclusion for himself regarding the bases of the opinion about "corporality." We, on our part, will offer against this theory the briefest observations, drawing them from the Holy Scripture, the teaching of the Church, and philosophical induction.

On the one hand, the author has already acknowledged that the Holy Scripture and the holy fathers constantly call spirits bodiless, and on the other hand, he can in no way prove that they called spirits bodiless only relatively. From the fact that Holy Scripture (we will speak of the Church fathers later) no where says that this affirmation of the bodilessness of spirits ought to be understood relatively, we must acknowledge that to insert a concept of "relativeness" into the completely clear and direct words of the Holy Scripture is arbitrary, and justified by nothing. Bringing such arbitrariness into the interpretation of the Holy Scripture, we could evade any proper proof taken from the Bible and directed against us, and affirm any kind of idea by [using] propositions [taken from] God's word, according to our own interpretation. But is this an impartial service to truth? Let us remember the examples of ancient heretics: they all strove, with the aid of an original system of interpretations, to support their errors with Holy Scripture. Nevertheless, their opinions were refuted by the Church as not being in accord with the true sense of God's word. Let us look at how the Holy Scripture speaks about the compound parts of man and about bodiless spirits. It acknowledges in man: 1) ¹ve µa = yuc ; s µa = s px = co V; the clearest places are those where ¹ve µa, in the sense of an incorporeal [bodiless] and spiritual being is distinguished from s px - of the body and, in general, of the material composition of man (Mt.26:41; Rm.8:10; Gal.5:17; 1Cor.5:3-5; 7:34; 2Cor.7:1; Jm.1:26; etc); but in others, yuc is evidently used in the sense of ¹ve µa (Mt.10:28; 16:26; 3Ki.19:4; Jb.27:8; Acts 2:27; Lk.9:56; 21:19; Rm.2:29; and certain others). That yuc is the same as ¹ve µa in the understanding of the ancient writers is evident from their attributing an independent character to it. (Ps.118; 175; Acts 2:41; 3:23). According to the concept of the ruling part in man - the soul - the Holy Scripture sometimes simply calls man ¹ve µa (with the preposition s µatoV: Ws.16:14; Lk.24:26; Acts 7:59; 1Cor.2:11), and extremely rarely by the word s µa = s px (Eph.5:28, 29). If in two places the Holy Scripture distinguishes in man ¹ve µa, yuc and s µa (1Ths.5:23), and yuc and ¹ve µa (Hb.4:12): then, since both yuc (1Ki.19:5; Lk.12:19; Acts 2:43; 15:26; Mt.2:20; 20:28; Jn.10:l5; Rm.11:3; etc) and ¹ve µa (Mt.27:50; Lk.8:55, 23, 46; etc) are used identically in the significance of a beginning which has animated the body of man, it is impossible to conceive that these cited places introduce an idea of trichotomy in the composition of man (although some did adhere to this thought).

What conclusions will we draw from this philological-exegetical consideration? That the Holy Scripture, in attributing personality, conscience, life to one part of man, and calling this part ¹ve µa, clearly gives us to understand the spirituality of this part, not in the sense of a subtle materialism, but in a direct and actual [sense]. The Lord Himself explains the word ¹ve µa in this manner at His appearance to the disciples narrated in chapter twenty-four of Luke's Gospel. Having said, "for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have" (Vs.39), He revealed that, on the one hand, His subtle body, glorified after the Resurrection, has both flesh and blood, i.e., materiality, and on the other hand, He freed the understanding of ¹ve µa from this subtle materiality. Since the word ¹ve µa is used in the New Testament about angels also (Hb.1:14; Acts 23:8), and only this word, for neither s µa nor s px are attributed to them; then it follows that they, as ¹ve µa, are not only spiritual, immaterial, personally conscious, but they also differ from man in that they are not united with the body, and from God in that they are limited in will and mind (Mt.24:36; 1Pt.1:2; Mk.13:32).

Thus, according to the mind of the Holy Scripture, 1. man is body and soul - that is, a spirit - and he is a being half corporeal and half spiritual (in the real sense of the word); 2. an angel (and also an evil spirit) is a spiritual being (in the same sense), but a limited one.

On the basis of the Holy Scripture, the majority of the holy fathers taught the complete immateriality of souls and of spirits; but while the teaching of the Church on this subject had not yet been defined exactly, certain of the ancient fathers and teachers allowed themselves to think somewhat otherwise. In pre-Christian times both philosophy and folklore sometimes conceived the soul as being material. Thus Aristotle considered it to be a phase or variety of matter, a more subtle form of it, [an idea] which inevitably followed from the empirical view of this philosopher. In the system of Homer, the soul, upon separation from the body, appears in the form of a shade, of a subtle image (eidolov), before Hermes who leads it into the subterranean [region]. Under the influence of these former concepts, or more correctly, in order to separate themselves more sharply from the heretics of their day (we have in mind Gnostics), some writers and fathers, that is, Justin, Irenae, Caesarius, entertained, although in indefinite expressions, a certain materiality of angels and the soul. The most eminent fathers and teachers of the Church, however - true pillars of the faith - Sts Ignatios the God-bearer, Athanasios the Great, Gregory the Theologian, St John Chrysostom, etc, were decisively of the understanding that angels and souls are immaterial - and this was at that very time when St Makarios flourished in the Egyptian desert, from whom the author of Word on Death quotes so much. The question remains: how could St Makarios the Great have assimilated to himself imagery and thoughts so discordant with the understandings of the greatest fathers of Christianity? He could find the concepts of the corporality of souls and spirits so widespread amongst the Skete brethren, that he himself assimilated it, and he did not see a special sin in this since the Church had not yet expressed Itself on this subject. Following him there appeared some people who adhered to the opinion of this "materiality." Finally, however, the Church, finding this opinion unfounded, pronounced at the fourth session of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, the second at Nicea, on the immateriality of angels and souls. This ecumenical decree must be acknowledged, without doubt, as completely obligatory for us.

Against the philosophical proof offered by the author in favour of his opinion about "corporality," one can present no less philosophical considerations against the opinion....

After the compiler of Word on Death had introduced [his teaching of] the materiality of the soul and spirits, it is not surprising that he proposed [a teaching of] the sensuality of paradise: for, material souls, when separated from the bodies, require for themselves a material dwelling place. Having said that in the book of Genesis, paradise is represented in the form of a most beautiful garden, the compiler remarks, "such it is in actual fact; but matter and nature are subtle, they correspond to the nature of its inhabiting spirits, and are thus inaccessible for our senses, which have become coarse and dull from the fall" (p.22, Word on Death). This surmise is supposedly justified by extracts from lives of saints (26, 24 March; 2 October, and a manuscript of [the life of] St Evfrosiniya of Suzdal). From the vision of Saint Andrew (2 October), the author concludes that "paradise is the heavenly abode nearest to the earth, or the first heaven, above which are found other heavens....in these celestial abodes, the souls of the righteous now abide, according to their merits" (p.34). Since the Church has not expressed Its mind about what paradise is and where it is located, then all such conclusions and conjectures are left up to the will of those who wish to accept them.

The location of hell is a related type question. St John Chrysostom said to his listeners, "Let us not seek where it is located, but the means of avoiding it" (Homily 31 on Romans). But the author [Bishop Ignati] seeks and finds it in the interior of the earth. "Hell is situated," he says, "in the interior of the earth" (p.36), and he justifies this by quotations from many places in both testaments - quotations which, one must affirm, are very questionable. "And so," concludes the compiler [Brianchaninov], "the teaching that hell is located inside the earth is a teaching of the Orthodox Church" (p.40). But where? In what symbolic book, in what catechism - is this teaching set forth?

The author [Brianchaninov] also represents to us the dwelling place of fallen spirits. "God's word and the spirit cooperating with the word reveal to us, by means of their chosen vessels, that the space between heaven and earth, all the azure abyss which we see, the air, the universe, serves as a dwelling place for fallen angels who have been cast down from the heaven" (p.104). "Fallen angels are scattered in crowds in all the transparent abyss we see above ourselves." (ibid). But the notion that the location of evil spirits is in aerial spaces serves the author only as a point of departure to the description of "tollhouses" (pp.110-143), on the basis of the well known tale of Theodora, found in the life of Basil the New (26 March). But our Church has not pronounced any doctrine about either these tollhouses, or about the abode of evil spirits, and therefore we do not know what to say about it. Notwithstanding, we think that in a strictly theological work it would be better to avoid such and similar questions of plain and simple curiosity, which have no moral significance and speak only to the imagination.

This is what we wish to note concerning Word on Death. We would have willingly by-passed much in it if the very peculiarity of the opinions of the author [Bishop Ignati Brianchaninov] had not imposed upon us the duty of exposing these views..."

Rev Fr Paul Matveevsky

I will add from myself that, ROCA and the Archbishop of Etna notwithstanding, I was under the same obligation regarding Fr Seraphim Rose and his book The Soul After Death, and for all the same reasons. As to the mischief that Fr Seraphim's book has caused, we have received many letters of gratitude for exposing his dark teachings and restoring hope to some who had lost hope by reading his book. Since we have presented a review of the work upon which Fr Seraphim based his own book, we will add here a book review of The Soul After Death, written for us by a Reader in ROCA, who desires to remain anonymous. It seems that members of ROCA are fearful of their hierarchs if they are caught speaking the truth when it is considered "politically incorrect."

Book Review:

THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. Rev. Seraphim Rose. St Herman of Alaska Monastery Press, Platina, California, copyright 1980.

The title of this book is direct and gives promise of offering a plain teaching: the content of the book betrays this expectation quite early, and continues to do so through much of the book, because the author bases a great deal of his ideas and conclusions on "out of body experiences" and includes a great deal of material about recent and not so recent out of body experiences, all from pagan sources. An Orthodox Christian reader could easily be puzzled as much as enlightened by the inclusion of such a great amount of these pagan materials. It is astounding that the author so easily allows himself to be persuaded by this material, and gives such credence to them while he does not bother to draw from the fathers of the Church at all in this regard. Why, indeed, would one turn to such material to corroborate what the Orthodox Christian Faith has taught us for many centuries, namely, that there is life to be experienced after this present life. Is the testimony of the Church somehow insufficient? Once the reader perceives the author's credulous reaction to these experiences from pagan and heretical sources, it is difficult to take the rest of the book seriously.

Early on, the author displays an outrageous arrogance by proclaiming this book to be the definitive statement of the truly Orthodox Christian belief about life after death. In the same breath he seeks to cut the ground from under any disagreement by saying that any other statement of belief is the product only of modernistic faithlessness. Thus anyone not completely accepting of the author's teaching is already condemned without a hearing to the ranks of the quasi-atheists.

Burdened by the author's arrogant condescension, the reader presses on. On page 74 appears this statement:

"But Christians who are inclined to sin are also unworthy of being immediately translated from earthly life to blessed eternity. Justice itself demands that these inclinations to sin, these betrayals of the Redeemer, should be weighed and evaluated."

Later on the author will claim that any connection between the teaching of this book and the Roman Catholic teaching on purgatory must be far fetched indeed. One does not, however, have to fetch so far. The statement just quoted is the exact statement upon which the Roman Catholics rest their argument for the doctrine of purgatory. And what Scripture, what consensus of teachings by the Holy Fathers supports such a statement? The author offers no support at all for this gratuitous opinion, not even supporting himself. He only pontificates in this unsubtle Scholasticism. Apparently he supposed that appending this statement to some quotations from Bishop Ignaty Brianchaninov is sufficient. It is not.

It is fitting now that we turn next to a long quotation which the author cites (on page 217) from St Mark of Ephesus, where the Saint responds at the Council of Florence to the Latin doctrine of purgatory.

"And finally you say [referring to the Latin bishops], `The above mentioned truth is evident from the Divine Justice which does not leave unpunished anything that was done amiss, and from this it necessarily follows that for those who have not undergone punishment here, and cannot pay it off either in heaven or in hell, it remains to suppose the existence of a different, third place, in which this cleansing is accomplished, thanks to which each one, becoming cleansed, is immediately led up to heavenly enjoyment.'

"To this we say the following, and pay heed how simple and at the same time how just this is: it is generally acknowledged that the remission of sins is at the same time also a deliverance from punishment; for the one who receives remission of them is at the same time delivered of punishment for them."

It is quite clear Fr Seraphim has stated a doctrine which he himself then opposes by this statement of St Mark, and this is a further indication of why it is really not possible to accept this book as a true statement of the Orthodox faith. The Soul After Death is full of such internal contradictions and, in some places, actually becomes disoriented and incoherent.

On page 76 the author refers to a startling phenomenon, that a person may be called out of this life by "mistake." He has St Gregory the Dialogist say that at times some person with the same name as another is called out of life accidentally (think about this statement for a moment), but that when this "mistake" happens the soul is sent back into the body, and the mistake then becomes a "warning." It is just not possible to continue to read this book with anything but morbid curiosity when we hear that God may make a mistake and call the wrong person. Our Great God and Saviour Who numbers the very hairs of our heads can't remember our names? Is the author saying about God that He is fumbling and confused at times and loses track of us? That is certainly what it sounds like. If this is not what the author wants to say, one must ask what it is that he does want to say.

From this point on, the author then begins to unfold his understanding of the teaching about tollhouses; how they are completely real but yet only a figure or metaphor and not according to our earthly understanding of tollhouses, though they are concrete; how the released soul is ambushed by demons as it struggles upward through the layers of the under-heaven; and how it must pay a tax or toll to the demons (virtues to cover sins or the supererogatory merits of a deceased saint). There is one account in which a soul rises toward Heaven accompanied by two angels, but when the bag of good deeds done by the man in his lifetime is empty and the tollhouses not all passed, the angels abandon this poor man to the demons, who then carry him off amidst a frenzy of howls and shrieks. This is, incidentally, an exact parallel of the Roman Catholic teaching on purgatory, and an application of the heretical doctrines on merits and created grace created by Augustine and Anselm of Canterbury.

There now remain a few further general observations which any careful reader could make. One would read this book almost in vain for any mention that God may be merciful or man-befriending. Fr Seraphim's God is a brutal dictator who sends secret agents to pry and search through every nook and cranny of a person's life in order to try to find some excuse for torturing him unmercifully for all eternity. One would almost surmise that Stalin and Beria were only theophanies of the god of the tollhouse theology. The author lays very heavy stress in the most dark and morbid fashion on the near impossibility of anyone but the most severely ascetic monastics being found worthy of entry into paradise. Of the examples used, there is not a single lay person mentioned, and even monastics seldom are admitted to the Heavenly Kingdom. The book engenders a spirit of hopelessness and despair, a mistrust of God and His promises which, if this book is correct, are dubious at best. We may be saved by fear of demons? May we not be saved by an active love of God? Not according to Fr Seraphim Rose. Judgments are made only by demons, so it appears, as there is no mention of God's intervention or any other action in the process. When the soul leaves the body, it may or may not be accompanied and supported by angels, but it will certainly encounter demons who will torment and harass the soul at each tollhouse, will howl and obstruct, and will only let the soul pass if it can produce a merit (either its own, or the extra ones of a saint) covering each bad deed in kind. The author lamely insists this is not punishment but only testing - even though if there is no merit to cover a given offence, the soul will be seized and carried off to hell. Repentance, compunction, the Mysteries of Confession (of which the prayers are a complete sham if we are to believe Fr Seraphim's doctrine) and Communion, evidently have no effect at all. Does the author believe they might have an effect? In the final analysis, Fr Seraphim renders them all utterly useless, and only earned merits (deeds, etc.) are of any avail. If one is to believe this book, then God does not forgive, He does not accept the forgiveness bestowed in Confession, "whatever you have confessed before my humble person, and whatever you have failed to confess, whether through forgetfulness or ignorance, whatever it may be, God forgive you both in this world and in the life to come, and set you uncondemned before His judgment seat" which the priest mutters in vain to an unhearing God. Regardless of efforts to talk around it, the doctrine of this book makes it clear that we have not at all received the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ "for remission of sins and life everlasting." Does the author even believe in the effectiveness of the Holy Mysteries at all? And if so, are they only effective after demons have tested and approved their effect?

The author has told us from the beginning that the tollhouse teaching is truly Orthodox, that it represents actual reality but that it is nevertheless only a figure or image, and that although it is not a doctrine of the Church, it must nonetheless to be absolutely accepted and believed. He does not share with us the confused mental legerdemain necessary to reconcile all this.

To underline the dangerous, spiritual, recklessness of this bleak and morbid book, we note that most of the people we have talked to about this book have taken all it says in a quite literal fashion, and many have been brought to despair by it. We know of examples of converts who have actually left the Orthodox Church because of it. Moreover, we note that the author bases his work heavily upon the 19th century Russian booklet, Homily on Death. The author might have done well to have read the very sharp refutation of this Homily, made by the famous bishop, St Theophan the Recluse. St Theophan, who wrote his book, Souls and Angels are Spirits, Not Bodies, in order to refute the booklet Homily on Death, says that his refutation was written to "unmask the falsity of the position contained in these brochures [i.e., Homily on Death and a supplement to it], obliterating the unpleasant impression which they produce" and "dispersing the heavy darkness which they bring about." St Theophan says further, "this novel teaching should vanish as the ignis fatuus vanishes...." (Ignis Fatuus is a phosphorescence which hovers over swamps, bogs and marshes at night, produce by rotting matter. It is clear that St Theophan carefully chose his metaphor). St Theophan further refers to the teachings in Homily on Death as "a scandal presented by the novel teaching which these brochures preach, clothing their teaching in the guise of Orthodoxy."

Here, St Theophan was speaking about the work that formed the bases of Fr Seraphim Rose's book The Soul After Death, but he could have been speaking about Fr Seraphim and his book directly. The critique would have been precisely the same, perhaps stronger, because Fr Seraphim did not balk at adding the testimony of New Age theosophists to his errors.

Fr Seraphim's work is most definitely not "patristic." The Soul After Death is not merely gross and morbid, it is heretical. It is predicated upon Latin neo-Platonism and has its roots in more ancient heresies. The concept of the nature of man presented by the author, for example, is drawn from pagan Hellenic philosophy, likely through the medium of Latin scholastic philosophy. In his attempts to express the deep mystery of the human person, the nature of man, Fr Seraphim has depended completely upon pagan ideas roundly condemned by the fathers of the Church. He gives a firm definition of the body, and a separate definition of the soul, both of which appear philosophically comprehensible. Like the pagan Greeks, Fr Seraphim conceives the soul as a wholly independent, self-existent, naturally immortal entity, which constitutes the whole "person" of man. The body is lowered to the level of an unnecessary burden which imprisons the soul and prevents it from developing freely and completely. Essentially, then, Fr Seraphim Rose has reduced the great mystery of human existence to the level of a set of philosophical posits.

As Dr Alexandre Kalomiros observes:

"Here is what St Gregory of Nyssa says about man: `For it seems to me, the make up of man is awesome and inexplicable, portraying many hidden mysteries of God in itself.'

"Orthodoxy uses the words soul, flesh, matter, spirit, without always meaning the same thing with the same words. She uses words which are taken from human vocabulary because she must express herself. But she never consents to enclosing within the narrow limitations of human concept the whole mystery which even the angels cannot grasp. Neither does she consent to the dividing of man into air-tight compartments of body and soul, or, like some modern heretics, into body, soul and spirit. Nor does she account little value to the flesh; rather she often speaks of it as the whole human nature: `And the Word was made flesh'." (Against False Union, pp.38-40)

Indeed, the fathers of the Church have made it clear that we cannot consider either body or soul to be the "person," but only the body and the soul together constitute the person (see, for example, St Photius the Great, Bibleotheke, 234; St Justin Martyr, On The Resurrection, Ch.8; St Methodius of Olympus,: On The Resurrection: Against Origen 1:5; and numerous others).

Most serious of all is Fr Seraphim Rose's lack of awareness of the Orthodox doctrine of grace. According to the Orthodox fathers, the experience of Heaven is the experience of the grace of the Holy Trinity which one receives before death, in the depths of oneself. The participation of both body and soul together in this experience is at the very root of the Orthodox rules of iconography. Fr Seraphim's complete lack of understanding of the this doctrine is evident from the whole context of his book, and is summarized in his erroneous statement, "True Christian experiences of heaven always bear one and the same stamp of other-worldly experiences. Those who have beheld heaven have not merely travelled to a different place; they have also entered into a whole different spiritual state" (p.141, The Soul After Death). Such is also the teaching of Madame H. Blavatsky. Indeed, Fr Seraphim fully accepts the Gnostic, theosophical belief - common also in the New Age Movement - that the soul is imprisoned in the body and must leave the body to "behold heaven" (see, e.g., pp.36, 123-124, 141 and 248 of The Soul After Death). He claims that the soul, which he considers to be a "disincarnate spirit" (p.106) can travel back and forth on its own - thus making the soul a "ghost," or a pagan Hellenic "shade."

The Orthodox doctrine, taught by the fathers of the Church, states emphatically that the body is not a prison of the soul. The perception of the Kingdom of Heaven takes place within the depths of the body (see. e.g., St Gregory Palamas Triads 1, 2, 1-12, Response to Barlaam, para.4; St Gregory of Sinai, "On Delusion," para. 10 of On Stillness and the Two Ways of Prayer; St Isaak the Syrian, Epistle to Symeon, as only a few of the many examples). St Gregory Palamas, in his Triads, devotes considerable time and space to refuting the belief that the body is a prison of the soul which thus cannot receive the grace of the All-Holy Trinity. According to St Gregory, to seek "experiences outside the body" is "the root and source of the very worse Hellenic errors and of all heresies, an invention of demons, and instruction engendering folly and an offspring of senselessness...." (Response to Barlaam, para.4). In the famous Hagioritic Tome, we find a very clear refutation of the teaching that the soul must (or can) leave the body in order to experience Heaven: "If the body must share with the soul the ineffable blessings of the age to come, it is certain that it must participate in them as far as possible even now...for the body itself also experiences Divine things" (P.G. 150, 1233BD).

It is evident that Fr Seraphim Rose simply does not understand, perhaps not even know, the Orthodox doctrines of Theosis and concerning the knowledge of the Kingdom of Heaven. Instead, he relies heavily upon the notoriously faulty Augustinian theology, quoting from the heretical City of God (p.36, The Soul After Death). This is why Fr Seraphim can make such as patently heretical statement as: "When separated from the body, the soul is immediately in a state more natural to it, closer to the state God intends for it" (p.124, The Soul After Death). Elsewhere, Fr Rose states: "It is also natural for the soul apart from the body to have heightened awareness of reality and to exercise what is now called extra-sensory perception (E.S.P.)" (p.125). This is most certainly not an Orthodox, or even a Christian understanding. It is pure and simple theosophy; something one would read in the text of the Rosicrucian cult.

Having adopted the Gnostic doctrine that the soul comes to the knowledge of the Kingdom of Heaven only after leaving the body, Fr Seraphim continues along the path of theosophical and occult speculation on the ascent of the soul from earth to heaven. To do this, the author accepts the Gnostic doctrine of intermediate worlds, which the theosophists call "Astral Planes," and he gives this occult doctrine what he considers to be an "Orthodox" interpretation. He labels his intermediary world, "the aerial realms," and it is in these "realms" that he has the soul travelling to reach heaven (pp. 119, 120, 122-128, The Soul After Death). With all this New Age occultism and theosophy, it is little wonder that the Order of MANS should have taken up Fr Seraphim's teachings with such vigour.

It is within this "aerial realm" that Fr Seraphim places his "allegorical-but-nevertheless-very-real" tollhouses, and the demons who strive to stop the souls in their "dangerous ascent" (a classical Gnostic doctrine). Here, he presents us with an utterly blasphemous doctrine that the demons can pull a soul away from the grace of God which it became one with while yet in the body. Here, Fr Seraphim demonstrates a complete ignorance of the Orthodox doctrine of man's participation in Divine grace and of the manner in which sin separates us from God. Man does not enter the Kingdom of Heaven as a reward for sinlessness. If this were true, not even the great saints could enter. If this were true, then only a very real purgatory would make a place for us in heaven even a vague possibility. It is not individual sins that separate us from God, rather it is the condition, the state of separation ('amartia; sin) into which the human nature has fallen which does not allow us, of our own, to become united with the All-Holy Trinity in this life. It is not virtues, merits or deeds which unite us to the Bridegroom, but the acquisition of Divine grace. This is the interpretation which our holy and God-bearing fathers have given to the Parable of the Ten Virgins. This doctrine is beautifully stated by St Symeon the New Theologian: "Blessed are they who have even now kindled the light in their hearts and have preserved it from being extinguished, for in their departure from life, they, being radiant, shall meet with the Bridegroom and shall enter with Him into the bridal-chamber bearing their lamps" (Tenth Ethical Homily, 1.805-813).

Fr Seraphim Rose casts the soul of simple Orthodox Christians into despair by asserting that demons can overpower God's grace and snatch them away even for some sin they forgot to confess or, worse still, for something they did not even realize was a sin. This makes complete mockery of the Mystery of Confession, where we hear the prayer: "...but through the divinely spoken word which came to the disciples after the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, saying, `whosesoever sins you remit, they are remitted...' we are emboldened to say, `whatsoever you have confessed before my humble person, and whatsoever you have failed to confess, whether through ignorance or forgetfulness, whatever it may be, God forgive you both in this world and in that which is to come.'"

This dogmatic prayer of the Church presents us with a doctrine of repentance and forgiveness which is radically different from Fr Seraphim's gruesome doctrine of the power of demons over Divine grace.

In attempting to prove his theories, Fr Seraphim uses the various demonic experiences of Dr Kubler-Ross (whose books are used in university courses as "examples of classic Gnosticism)," the Theosophists, Drs Moody and Monroe, and others as arguments against the Church fathers, to prove the validity of "out of body experiences" of the soul (see, e.g., p.24, The Soul After Death). The evidence which these modern Gnostics and occultist bring forth concerning the soul's leaving the body, having experiences in other worlds and then returning to the body to tell what they saw, is considered by Fr Seraphim to be "striking confirmation of the Christian teaching on the state of the soul immediately after death" (p.173, cp. pp. 99, 106, 113, 119, 160, The Soul After Death). Instead, these assertions are striking confirmation of Fr Seraphim's ignorance of the holy fathers. St John Chrysostom sternly warns us against just this very thing that Fr Seraphim is seeking to affirm. The Saint says: "Let us not, therefore, seek to hear from dead men what the Scripture teaches us much more clearly every day. For, if God knew that resurrected dead men could be of profit to the living, then He - Who brings to pass all things for our benefit - would not have neglected or let pass such gain. But besides this, if dead men were to be raised up continuously to proclaim all things that are yonder, then in time, this would also be set at nought and, moreover, the devil could introduce wicked doctrines with much ease. For he could often show forth apparitions or further, he could contrive that certain men should seem to die and then he could show them as being risen from the dead, and by means of these men he could persuade the minds of the deluded of whatsoever he wished. If indeed now, when there is no one who has risen from the dead, dreams very often appear in the likeness of the departed and have corrupted and led many astray, then if such a thing actually happened and it became established in the minds of men that many of the departed have returned again, how much more could the despicable demon weave ten thousand wiles and introduce great delusion into this life. For this very reason, God has closed the doors and has not permitted any man who has departed this life to return and express those things yonder, lest the devil, taking this opportunity, should introduce all his own doctrines....And so if this thing were to happen, he would attempt to feign the same through his own instruments, not truly raising up dead men, but by certain machinations and deceptions he could deceive the eyes of the beholders or, as I just said, he could contrive that certain should seem to die, and thus he would turn everything upside down and confuse them. But God, foreseeing all this, closed off this plot to him...and has not permitted that any man should come from thence and speak to the living about the things yonder, and thereby He teaches us to hold the Divine Scripture to be more worthy of credence than anything else" (Homily 4 on Lazarus and the Rich Man -italics for emphasis are those of this reviewer).

There is another aspect to Fr Seraphim's unfortunate book which ought to be explored, and that is the way in which it introduces a completely non-Orthodox concept of the nature of sin and repentance. Here again, Fr Seraphim is in bondage to the legalism and "sacramental determinism" of Augustinianism and Latin scholasticism. He demonstrates no real knowledge or understanding of the Orthodox doctrines of sin, its consequences and the manner in which we solve the problem of sin.

We would like to ask those who have been seduced by Fr Seraphim Rose's The Soul After Death to re-read and consider deeply the words of the holy fathers referenced above. This is a spiritually dangerous path along which Fr Seraphim is attempting to lead the faithful. The above mentioned "out of body experiences" are due to Satanic delusion, just as St John Chrysostom says they will be, and no good can come from trying to find in them some revelation concerning the "aerial realm" of the theosophists and New Age practitioners. From Father Seraphim's theories, one is left with the clear impression that there is not much difference between Orthodox Christian doctrine and the teachings of the Gnostics and New Age occultists he so credulously accepts as experts. It is a sad commentary on the state of our Russian theology that the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia were unable to recognize the errors and dangerous heresies taught in The Soul After Death.

To be as simple as a dove, if we have not first been wise as a serpent, is foolhardy. Everything we read about our Holy and most precious Orthodox Faith must be read with caution and discernment, for we are vulnerable to deception in those places where we would least expect it.

We have now addressed most of the questions raised by the ROCA Protocol published by Mr Patrick Barnes. In particular, we have been interested in the heretical understanding taught by ROCA concerning the person of man (a heresy against Orthodox Christian anthropology). In closing this fifth segment of our response, we wish to address another curious error of ROCA. In the Protocol, ROCA directly challenges the teaching of St Mark of Ephesus about hell. With their usual sly deviousness, the ROCA hierarchs wish to make it appear as if is my personal teaching and they neglect to mention that St Mark of Ephesus is the one who presents it. ROCA makes the astonishing statement that the idea that hell does not yet exist and that no one is "there" as yet makes a mockery of the teaching that John the Baptist preached in hell and that Christ descended into hell after His crucifixion. This statement is astonishing because it reveals that these poor men do not even know the difference between hell and hades, and they do not realize that no one except a contemporary Protestant Gnostic denomination teaches that Christ descended into hell. In response to this error of ROCA, we are adding here a response to a "Question to Vladika."