![]() The main thrust of the book is to convey the message that the doctrine of the “toll-houses” is indeed the undisputable Teaching of the Orthodox Church. The book has been meticulously prepared and lavishly published and includes 216 pages of colour illustrations. Anthony’s Greek Orthodox Monastery in Arizona, is a massive tome of some 1,111 pages. ![]() The Departure of the Soul (TDS), published by St. This is the general context in which the book The Departure of the Soul according to the Teaching of the Orthodox Church should be considered. The Orthodox ascetic tradition also retains the practice of memento mori, the memory of death, the recollection that this life comes to an end, as an aide in the spiritual life. The tradition of the Orthodox Church, like that of the Catholic Church, consistently affirms the desirability and indeed the efficacy of practices such as the commemoration of the deceased and prayers and other pious acts for the repose of their soul, without any certainty concerning the mechanism by which such pious practices operate, but in the full conviction and faith in divine goodness that these practices are beneficial for the deceased. But the only church dogmas on the afterlife which have received the formal approval of the Church-in-Council or an ecumenical council, are those in the Nicene Creed: that Christ “will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead” and “I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” Teachings on the afterlife beyond the Creed are those of their authors, however prestigious they may be, which have not been the subject of conciliar discernment or pronouncements of the Orthodox Church. The Orthodox tradition contains several strands of thinking on the afterlife, based primarily on indications in Scripture, especially Jesus’ teachings in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles, and also on writings Fathers and other saints of the Church over the centuries. ![]() Paul Ladouceur originally as four separate posts, but we have combined them here into one, since they are closely related and also since our readers are not unaccustomed to longer pieces here. Anthony’s Greek Orthodox Monastery, Florence, Arizona. ![]() Editor’s Note: The following is a review of The Departure of the Soul According to the Teaching of the Orthodox Church, published April 2017 by St. ![]()
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