Thousands of people experience or experience death every year, and about half of them have a story to tell. Not everyone who has had contact with death reports exactly the same type of experience. But Iris Zelman, a 36-year-old high school teacher in Flint, Michigan, had a typical brush with death.
“I was in the open heart surgery intensive care unit for a valve replacement. Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my chest. I screamed, and two nurses immediately took me back to the operating room. I felt the doctors insert wires into my chest and felt a prick in my arm. Afterwards I heard one of the doctors say: “We can’t save her.”

I saw that a white haze, like fog, enveloped my body and floated to the ceiling. At first I was fascinated by this haze, but then I realized that I was looking at my body from above, and my eyes were closed. I said to myself: “How can I be dead? After all, I continue to be conscious!” The doctors opened my chest and worked on my heart.
At the sight of the blood, I felt sick, and I turned away, looked up, and realized that I was at the entrance to something similar to a long dark tunnel. I was always afraid of the dark, but I entered the tunnel. Immediately I swam up towards a distant bright light and heard frightening, but not unpleasant sounds. I experienced an irresistible desire to merge with the light.

And then I thought about my husband, I felt sorry for him. He was always so dependent on me for everything. He won't be able to live without me. At that moment I realized that I could either continue to walk towards the light and die, or return to my body. I was surrounded by spirits, images of people whom I could not recognize... I stopped. I was absolutely depressed that for the sake of my husband I had to return, I felt that I had to - and suddenly a voice, unlike anything I had ever heard, commanding but soft, said: “You made the right choice and you will not regret it. Someday you will return." Opening my eyes, I saw doctors.”

Nothing Iris Zelman says can be verified scientifically. This is a highly individual meeting. Psychiatrist Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross of Chicago, who has observed dying patients for 20 years, believes that stories like that of Iris Zelman are not hallucinations. “Before I started working with the dying,” says Dr. Kubler-Ross, “I didn’t believe in life after death. Now I believe in her without a shadow of a doubt.”

One of the pieces of evidence that has convinced Dr. Kubler-Ross, as well as a growing number of scientists, is the existence of common features found in thousands of encounters with death described by people of completely different ages, cultures, nationalities, and religions. Some of the most common features identified by Dr. Kubler-Ross and Dr. Raymond Moody in their study of more than two hundred cases of encounters with death are:

Peace and tranquility

Many people describe unusually pleasant feelings and sensations during the initial period of these meetings. The man had no visible signs of life after a severe head injury. He subsequently said: “At the moment of injury, I felt instant pain, and then all the pain disappeared. My body seemed to be floating in a dark space.”

A woman who returned to life after a heart attack said: “I experienced absolutely wonderful sensations. I felt nothing but peace, comfort, ease - only calm; I felt that all my worries had disappeared.”

Ineffability

People who have had a close encounter with death find their experience difficult to express in words. Iris Zelman testifies: “You really have to be there to understand what it’s like.” Another woman expressed her impressions this way: “The light was so blinding that I simply cannot explain it. It is not only beyond our perception, but also beyond our vocabulary.”

Psychologist Lawrence Le Chan, who has studied the experience of “cosmic consciousness” in the psyche and mysticism, believes that ineffability stems not only from extraordinary beauty, but primarily because such an experience transcends our reality of space-time and therefore transcends the logic and language that is derived strictly from logic. Raymond Moody in “Life After Life” gives an example of a woman who “died” and was brought back to life. She said: “Now it’s simply difficult for me to talk about this experience, because all the words I know are three-dimensional. What I'm saying is, if you take geometry for example, I was always taught that there were only three dimensions, and I always accepted that explanation. But this is not true. There are more of these dimensions... Of course, our world in which we now live is three-dimensional, but the next one is without any doubt. And that’s why it’s so difficult to talk about him. I have to use three-dimensional words... I can’t give you the full picture verbally.”

Sounds

A man who was “dead” for 20 minutes during abdominal surgery describes a “painful buzzing in his ears; Afterwards, this sound seemed to hypnotize me, and I calmed down.” The woman heard “a loud ringing, like chimes.” ‘Some heard “heavenly bells”, “divine music”, “whistling sounds like wind”, “the rhythm of ocean waves”. Perhaps everyone who has come face to face with death has heard some repeating sounds.

No one can be absolutely sure of the meaning of these sounds, but it is ironic or coincidental, as one wishes to regard it, that similar sounds are mentioned in the ancient Tibetan “Book of the Dead”, created around 800 AD. In short, the book describes in detail the stages of dying. According to the text, at some point after the soul has left the body, a person may hear disturbing, frightening sounds or pleasant ones that lull and calm him. Scientists were amazed at the coincidence of the predictions of the Tibetan book about the experience of dying with the experiences of Americans living in the 20th century and unaware of the existence of this book, reflected in the stories.

Perfume

Eduard Megeheim, a 56-year-old professor who “died” on the operating table during an operation for a cancerous tumor, claims that he saw his late mother. “Mother talked to me. She said that this time I should return. I understand it sounds crazy, but her voice was so real that I still hear it to this day.” Peter Tompkins, a student who “died” twice, first in a car accident and then during chest surgery, met deceased relatives on both of his trips “outside.”

Seeing spirits is not a typical phenomenon, but it does occur during encounters with death. Dr. Karlis Oziz, director of the American Society for Psychical Research in New York City, noted the high frequency of this phenomenon in the dying people he studied in the USA and India. Oziz attributes these phenomena to “leading away” images - deceased relatives or friends, who, according to the dying person, should guide him out of this world. Reverend Billy Graham calls them angels.

Many skeptics argue that these images are nothing more than fragments of the imagination of the dying person, who conjured them up to make the transition from life to death easier. In Freudian terms, they can be called “wish fulfilled” images. But Dr. Oziz expressed strong disagreement: “If the images of “taking away” were only “wishes fulfilled,” we would encounter them more often in patients who expect to die, and less often in those who hope to recover. But in reality there is no such ratio.”

Light

Described as “radiant,” “sparkling,” “dazzling,” but never offensive to the eye, light is one of the most common elements of encounters with death and is directly associated with religious symbolism. According to the research of Raymond Moody, “despite various manifestations uncharacteristic of light, none of those I interviewed doubted that it was a being, a being of pure light.” Many describe light as a being with a certain personality. “The heat of love for the dying that emanates from this creature is absolutely impossible to describe in words,” says Moody. The dying person feels how the light surrounds him, absorbs him, makes him a part of himself.”

For singer Carol Burlidge, who was “dying” during her second birth, the light had a voice: “Suddenly it spoke to me. He said that I should come back, that I had a new child who needed me. I didn’t want to go back, but the light really insisted.” She said that the voice was neither male nor female, vague; Iris Zelman and many others agree with her. “From that time on,” says Carol, “I always remember the words of Jesus: “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12).

Dr. Pascal Kaplan, dean of the School of General Studies at John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, California, and a specialist in Eastern religions, noted that the light that the dying talk about is also mentioned in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. “It plays a major role in all Eastern religions,” says Dr. Kaplan. “Light is seen as wisdom or enlightenment and as such is the main goal of mysticism.”

Dark void or tunnel

This appears to serve as a transition from one level of reality to another. Many claim that they instinctively felt that they had to go through the darkness before they reached the light, which in all cases was at the distant end of the tunnel. “This emptiness is not scary,” reports Iris Zelman, “it is just a black space, and I found it inviting, almost cleansing.” Another woman defines the tunnel as an acoustic chamber, where every spoken word echoes in her head. In any case, the passage through darkness represents, at least symbolically, rebirth.

Out of Body Experience (OBE)

Almost without exception, everyone who reports encounters with death of any kind has experienced a feeling of liberation from their physical body. They had the ability to travel to virtually any point in space, near or far, and to travel long distances with the speed of lightning, simply by thinking of a place where they would like to visit. Many researchers believe that OBE, which can be achieved through simple relaxation techniques, is a mini-death, or a rehearsal for the final step. There is direct evidence that suggests that people who have had OBE can get rid of the fear of death, and the process of their dying is easier and more joyful.

Sense of responsibility

Many say that they “turned back” because they considered their work on earth unfinished. Duty forced them to choose to return. Singer Peggy Lee performed at a supper club in New York City in 1961 and fell into oblivion backstage. She was sent to the hospital with pneumonia and pleurisy. Peggy's heart stopped, and for about 30 seconds. she was in a state of clinical death. Peggy's OBT was very pleasant, but she was very worried about the thought of returning. “Pain is a small price to pay for living for the people you love,” she said later. “I couldn’t bear the sadness and longing of being separated from my daughter.” Martha Egan felt responsibility towards her mother, Iris Zelman towards her husband. We will see that it is the sense of responsibility that more often manifests itself during contacts with the deceased or dying - or encounters of the fourth kind with death.

The arrival of clinical death is sudden. It can be caused by a heart attack or severe shock to the nervous system or brain, or the consequences of an accident. Whatever the cause, the result is a sudden transition from life to death. Collecting and analyzing reports from people who have experienced clinical death means, in a way, looking into death from the back door - messages arrive only after a step has been taken from the threshold, after returning. But what do people experience before ordinary, gradually approaching death, when they appear at its front door? If the sounds and images of death are genuine, universal phenomena, they will remain the same no matter how they came to die.

Doctors Karlis Oziz and Erlendur Haraldsson examine this question in a published study - the result of 4 years of observation of 50,000 terminally ill patients in the United States and India. Both psychologists wanted to know exactly what the patient saw and heard in the last minutes before death. In most cases, they believed, it had to be a subjective experience, an encounter with death. However, with the help of hundreds of doctors and nurses who worked directly with dying patients and were present at the moment of their death, Oziz and Haraldsson came to astonishing conclusions.

We know that dying is preceded by suffering. Cancer metastasizes throughout the body in a short time and in its final stages brings agony and pain that cannot always be alleviated even with the help of drugs. Severe heart attacks are accompanied by sharp pain in the chest, radiating to the arms. Those who die as a result of accidents suffer from broken bones, concussions, and burns. But Dr. Oziz and Dr. Haraldsson discovered that just before death, suffering gives way to peace. According to Dr. Oziz, “harmony and silence seem to emanate from the patient.” A 10-year-old boy suffering from cancer suddenly sat up in bed, opened his eyes wide and smiled for the first time in several months and exclaimed with his last breath: “How wonderful, mom!” And fell on the pillow dead.

The nature of reports about the moments preceding death is quite varied. A nurse in a large hospital in New Delhi reports the following: “A woman of about forty, suffering from cancer and for the last few days depressed and lethargic, although always conscious, suddenly began to look happy. The joyful expression did not leave her face until her death, which occurred 5 minutes later.”

Often the patient does not utter a word, but his or her facial expression resembles descriptions of ecstasy in religious literature. Unexplained physical changes can also occur, as has happened, for example, in the United States. The nurse reports this incident:
“A woman of about 70, suffering from pneumonia, was half disabled and eked out a miserable, painful existence. Her face became so calm, as if she had seen something beautiful. It lit up with a smile that cannot be described in words. The features of her old face became almost beautiful. The skin became soft and transparent - almost snow-white, completely unlike the yellowish skin of people close to death.”

The nurse who was monitoring the patient felt that the woman had seen something that “changed her whole being.” Peace did not leave her until her death, which came an hour later. How can you explain that the skin of an old woman suddenly became glowing and youthful? A healer who worked with terminally ill patients testifies that she repeatedly saw an aura around the patient’s body shortly before death. “The light emanates from the skin and hair, as if it were an infusion of pure energy from some external source,” she said. Laboratory evidence clearly shows that the light phenomenon is also associated with voluntarily evoked OBEs. Researchers believe that the energy contained in the astral body is emitted light energy; a similar statement was made by mystics and mediums centuries ago.
Sometimes the changes that occur to the patient not only take away the suffering of the patients, but also affect the environment. A hospital representative talks about a 59-year-old woman who suffered from pneumonia and heart failure:

“Her face was beautiful; her attitude changed radically. It was more than a change of mood... It was like there was something outside of us, something supernatural... Something that made us think: she sees something inaccessible to our eyes.”
What kind of wonderful visions pass before the dying? How can pain that has lasted for months or years go away? Dr. Oziz believes that the mind is “liberated,” its connection to the body weakened, when a person is close to death. prepares to separate from the physical, and as death approaches, the physical body and its tribulations become less and less significant.

Below is a typical case where pain and suffering disappear. The doctor who told it was the director of a city hospital in India.
“A 70-year-old patient suffered from cancer in an advanced form. He experienced severe pain, which gave him no respite and caused insomnia. Somehow, after he managed to sleep a little, he woke up with a smile, it seemed that all bodily suffering and torment had suddenly left him, and he was independent, calm and peaceful. For the past six hours, the patient had been given only small doses of phenobarbital, a relatively weak painkiller. He said goodbye to everyone, individually, which he had never done before, and told us that he was going to die. He was fully conscious for about 10 minutes, then fell into an unconscious state and died peacefully a few minutes later.”

According to traditional religious beliefs, the soul leaves the body at the time of death. Mediums say that the soul and the astral body are one and the same. According to Dr. Oziz, there is no doubt that whatever leaves the body, it can do so very gradually. “While still functioning normally,” says Dr. Oziz, “the dying person’s consciousness, or soul, can gradually be released from the diseased body. If so, we can expect that awareness of bodily sensations will gradually weaken.”

Many patients talk before death, and many of them claim that they fleetingly saw long-dead people, landscapes of unearthly beauty, this is very similar to the stories of people who survived clinical death. One American study showed that more than two-thirds of dying people saw images of people who “called”, “beckoned” them, and sometimes “ordered” the patient to come to them. One doctor said that a 70-year-old woman, suffering from intestinal cancer, suddenly sat up in bed and, turning to her deceased husband, said: “Guy, I’m coming,” smiled peacefully and died.

Could these voices, images, lights be nothing more than hallucinations caused by illness, drugs or brain disorders? It is known that high fever, drugs, urine poisoning and brain dysfunction can give rise to very convincing hallucinations. The researchers found that the patients who reported the most logically and in the most detail were those who were the healthiest up until the time of death. “The dementia hypothesis cannot explain the vision,” Dr. Oziz concluded. “They are like emerging images associated with life after death.”

Here is what a hospital doctor says about one of the women who was dying: “She said that she saw my grandfather next to me, and told me to go home immediately. I got home at half past four and was told that he died at four. No one expected him to die so unexpectedly. This patient actually met my grandfather.”

Changes that occur shortly before death often puzzle doctors. It turns out that even patients with severe brain and emotional problems become surprisingly bright and intelligent before death. Dr. Kubler-Ross observed this in a number of her patients - chronic schizophrenics. This is consistent with the statement that around the moment of death the astral body (consciousness or soul) gradually separates from the physical body. This can be confirmed by the case that the doctor talked about: a 22-year-old young man, blind from birth, suddenly regained his sight just before his death, looked around the room, smiling, clearly seeing doctors, nurses and, for the first time in his life, members of his family.

It cannot be a mere coincidence that both patients who have experienced clinical death and those in the hospital and slowly dying testify, inhabited by the spirits of the dead, of a country full of silence and peace, which makes a person have a burning desire to be there. So the experience of dying, no matter how death comes, is basically the same and seems to make sense only if we accept that something in the human body experiences death...

Death carries with it an imprint of mystery, horror and mysticism. And some have disgust. Indeed, what happens to a person after death, and in particular to his body, is an unpleasant sight. It is difficult for a person to come to terms with the fact that he himself, as well as his loved ones, will sooner or later cease to exist forever. And all that will remain of them is a decomposing body.

Life after death

Fortunately, all world religions claim that death is not the end, but only the beginning. And the testimonies of people who have experienced a terminal state make one believe in the fact of the existence of an afterlife. Each religion has its own explanation of what happens to a person after leaving. But all religious teachings are one in one thing: the soul is immortal.

The inevitability, unpredictability, and sometimes insignificance of the causes of death brought the concept of physical death beyond the boundaries of human perception. Some religions presented sudden death as punishment for sins. Others are like a divine gift, after which a person would have an eternal and happy life without suffering.

All major world religions have their own explanation for where the soul goes after death. Most teachings speak of the existence of an immaterial soul. After the death of the body, depending on the teaching, reincarnation, eternal life or the achievement of nirvana awaits her.

Physical cessation of life

Death is the final stop of all physiological and biological processes of the body. The most common causes of death are:

The cessation of the body’s vital functions is divided into three main stages:

What happens to the soul

What happens to his soul after the death of a person can be suggested by those people who were brought back to life during a terminal state. Everyone who has experienced such an experience claims to have seen their body and everything that happened to it from the outside. They continued to feel, see and hear. Some even tried to contact their family or doctors, but were horrified to realize that no one was listening to them.

As a result, the soul was fully aware of what had happened. After that, she began to be pulled upward. Angels appeared to some of the dead, to others - beloved deceased relatives. In such company the soul rose to the light. Sometimes a spirit would go through a dark tunnel and emerge into the light all alone.

Many people who experienced similar experiences claimed that they felt very good, were not afraid, and did not want to return. Some were asked by an invisible voice if they wanted to return. Others were literally forcibly sent back, saying that the time had not yet come.

All those who returned talk about that they had no fear. In the first minutes, they simply did not understand what was happening. But then they became completely indifferent to earthly life and calmed down. Some people said that they continued to feel intense love for loved ones. However, even this feeling could not weaken the desire to go towards the light, from which warmth, kindness, compassion and love emanated.

Unfortunately, no one can tell in detail what happens next. There are no living eyewitnesses. All further journey of the soul occurs only under the condition of complete physical death of the body. And those who returned to this world did not stay in the afterlife long enough to find out what would happen next.

What world religions say

The main world religions answer in the affirmative about whether there is life after death. For them, death is just the death of the human body, but not the personality itself, which continues its further existence in the form of a spirit.

Different religious teachings their versions of where the soul goes after it leaves the earth:

The teachings of the philosopher Plato

The great ancient Greek philosopher Plato also thought a lot about the fate of the soul. He believed that the immortal spirit comes into the human body from the sacred higher world. And birth on earth is sleep and oblivion. Immortal Essence, enclosed in the body, forgets the truth, as it passes from deep, higher knowledge to the lower, and death is an awakening.

Plato argued that when separated from the body, the soul is able to reason more clearly. Her vision, hearing, and senses become sharper. A judge appears in front of the deceased, who shows him all the cases during his lifetime - both good and bad.

And Plato also warned that an accurate description of all the details of the other world is only a probability. Even a person who has experienced clinical death is unable to reliably describe everything that he managed to see. People are too limited by their physical experience. Our souls are unable to clearly see reality as long as they are connected to the physical senses.

But human language is incapable of formulating and correctly describing true realities. There are no words that could qualitatively and reliably designate otherworldly reality.

Understanding death in Christianity

In Christianity, it is believed that for 40 days after death, the soul remains where the person lived. This is why relatives may feel that someone invisible is present at home. It is very important, as far as possible, to pull yourself together, not to cry and not to grieve for the deceased. Say goodbye with humility. The spirit hears and feels everything, and such behavior of loved ones will cause him even more pain.

The best thing relatives can do is pray. And also read the Holy Scriptures, helping to understand what the soul should do next. It is important to remember that until the ninth day all mirrors in the house must be closed. Otherwise, the ghost will experience pain and shock when looking in the mirror and not seeing itself.

The soul must prepare for God's judgment within 40 days. Therefore, in Christianity the most important days after the death of a person are considered to be the third, ninth and fortieth day. These days, loved ones must do everything possible to help the soul prepare for a meeting with God.

Third day after leaving

The priests say that it is impossible to bury the deceased before the third day. The soul at this time still remains attached to the body and is located next to the coffin. At this time, you cannot break the connection between the spirit and its dead body. This process established by God is necessary for the soul to finally understand and accept its physical death.

On the third day the soul sees God for the first time. She ascends to his throne along with her guardian angel, after which she goes to see Paradise. But this is not forever. Then you have to see Hell. The trial will take place only on the 40th day. It is believed that any soul can be prayed for, which means that at this time loving relatives should pray intensely for the deceased.

What does the ninth day mean?

On the ninth day the soul again appears before the Lord. At this time, relatives can help the deceased with humble prayers. You only need to remember his good deeds.

After a second visit to the Almighty, the angels take the spirit of the deceased to hell. There he will have the opportunity to observe the torment of unrepentant sinners. It is believed that in special cases, if the deceased led a righteous life and did many good deeds, his fate can be decided on the ninth day. Such a soul becomes a happy inhabitant of Paradise before the 40th day.

The decisive fortieth day

The fortieth day is a very important date. At this time, the future fate of the deceased is decided. His soul comes to bow to the Creator for the third time, where the judgment takes place, and now the final decision will follow as to where the spirit will be destined - to Heaven or Hell.

On day 40, the soul descends to earth for the last time. She can go around all the places that are most dear to her. Many people who have lost loved ones see the dead in their dreams. But it is after 40 days that they stop physically feeling their presence nearby.

There are people who are interested in what happens in cases where an unbaptized person dies. There is no funeral service. Such a person is outside the jurisdiction of the church. His future fate is only in the hands of God. Therefore, on the anniversary of the death of an unbaptized relative, loved ones should pray for him as sincerely as possible and with the hope that this will ease his fate at trial.

Facts about the existence of the afterlife

Scientists were able to prove the existence of the soul. To do this, doctors weighed terminally ill people at the moment of death and immediately after it. It turned out that all the deceased at the time of death lost the same weight - 21 grams.

Opponents of this scientific theory of the existence of the soul tried to explain the change in the weight of the deceased by certain oxidative processes. But modern research has proven with a 100% guarantee that chemistry has nothing to do with it. And the weight loss of all the deceased is strikingly the same. Only 21 grams.

Evidence of the materiality of the spirit

Many scientists are looking for an answer to the question of whether there is life after death. Testimonies of people who experienced clinical death claim that there is. But pundits are not accustomed to taking their word for it. They need material evidence.

One of the first to try to photograph the human soul was the French doctor Hippolyte Baraduc. He photographed patients at the moment of death. In most photographs, a small translucent cloud was clearly visible above the bodies.

Russian doctors used infrared vision devices for similar purposes. They recorded something that looked like a foggy object that gradually dissolved into thin air.

Professor Pavel Guskov from Barnaul proved that each person’s soul is individual, like fingerprints. For this he used ordinary water. Clean water, purified from any impurities, was placed next to the person for 10 minutes. After this, its structure was carefully studied. The water changed significantly and was different in all cases. If the experiment was repeated with the same person, the structure of the water remained the same.

There is life after death or not, but from all the assurances, descriptions and discoveries one thing follows: no matter what is there, beyond, there is no need to be afraid of it.

What happens after death

Humanity has been trying to unravel the mystery of death for many millennia. But no one was able to fully understand the essence of this process and where our soul goes after death. Throughout life, we set goals and dreams for ourselves, and try to get the maximum of positive emotions and happiness from them. But the hour will come, and we will have to leave this world, plunge into the unknown abyss of another existence.

People have been interested in what the soul does after death since ancient times. Many who have experienced clinical death say that they fell into a tunnel known to many and saw a bright light. What happens to a person and his soul after death? Can he observe living people? These and many questions cannot but worry us. The most interesting thing is that there are many different theories about what happens to a person after death. Let's try to understand them and answer the questions that concern many people.

The human soul continues to live after death. She is the spiritual beginning of man. A mention of this can be found in Genesis (chapter 2), and it sounds approximately as follows: “God created man from the dust of the earth and blew the breath of life into his face. Now man has become a living soul.” Holy Scripture “tells” us that man is two-part. If the body can die, then the soul lives forever. She is a living entity, endowed with the ability to think, remember, feel. In other words, a person’s soul continues to live after death. She understands everything, feels and - most importantly - remembers.

In order to make sure that the soul is really capable of feeling and understanding, you only need to remember cases when a person’s body died for some time, and the soul saw and understood everything. Similar stories can be read in a variety of sources, for example, K. Ikskul in his book “Incredible for many, but a true incident” describes what happens after death to a person and his soul. Everything that is written in the book is the personal experience of the author, who fell ill with a serious illness and experienced clinical death. Almost everything that can be read on this topic in various sources is very similar to each other.

People who have experienced clinical death describe it as a white, enveloping fog. Below you can see the body of the man himself, next to him are his relatives and doctors. It is interesting that the soul, separated from the body, can move in space and understands everything. Some say that after the body ceases to show any signs of life, the soul passes through a long tunnel, at the end of which there is a bright white light. Then, usually over a period of time, the soul returns to the body and the heart begins to beat. What if a person dies? What then happens to him? What does the human soul do after death?

The first few days after death

It is interesting what happens after death to a person’s soul in the first few days, because this period is for it a time of freedom and enjoyment. It is in the first three days that the soul can move freely on earth. As a rule, she is near her relatives at this time. She even tries to talk to them, but it is difficult, because a person is not able to see and hear spirits. In rare cases, when the connection between people and the dead is very strong, they feel the presence of a soul mate nearby, but cannot explain it. For this reason, the burial of a Christian takes place exactly 3 days after death. In addition, it is this period that the soul needs in order to realize where it is now. It’s not easy for her, she may not have had time to say goodbye to anyone or say anything to anyone. Most often, a person is not ready for death, and he needs these three days to understand the essence of what is happening and say goodbye.

However, there are exceptions to every rule. For example, K. Ikskul began his journey to another world on the first day, because the Lord told him so. Most of the saints and martyrs were ready for death, and in order to move to another world, it took them only a few hours, because this was their main goal. Each case is completely different, and information comes only from those people who have experienced the “post-mortem experience” themselves. If we are not talking about clinical death, then everything can be completely different. Proof that in the first three days a person’s soul is on earth is also the fact that it is during this period of time that relatives and friends of the deceased feel their presence nearby.

What happens 9, 40 days and six months after death

In the first days after death, a person’s spirit is in the place where he lived. According to church canons, the soul after death prepares for God’s judgment for 40 days.

The first three days she travels to the places of her earthly life, and from the third to the ninth she heads to the gates of Paradise, where she discovers the special atmosphere and happy existence of this place.
From the ninth to the fortieth days, the soul visits the terrible dwelling of Darkness, where it will see the torment of sinners.
After 40 days, she must obey the decision of the Almighty about her further fate. The soul is not given the power to influence the course of events, but the prayers of close relatives can improve its lot.

Relatives should try not to make loud sobs or hysterics and take everything for granted. The soul hears everything, and such a reaction can cause it severe torment. Relatives need to say sacred prayers to calm her down and show her the right path.

Six months and a year after death, the spirit of the deceased comes to his relatives for the last time to say goodbye.

Soul of a suicide after death

It is believed that a person does not have the right to take his own life, since it was given to him by the Almighty, and only he can take it. In moments of terrible despair, pain, suffering, a person decides to end his life not on his own - Satan assists him in this.

After death, the spirit of the suicidal person rushes to the Gates of Heaven, but entry there is closed to him. When he returns to earth, he begins a long and painful search for his body, but also cannot find it. The terrible ordeals of the soul last for a very long time, until the time of natural death comes. Only then does the Lord decide where the tormented soul of the suicide will go.

In ancient times, people who committed suicide were prohibited from being buried in a cemetery. Their graves were located on the edges of roads, in dense forests or swampy areas. All objects with which a person committed suicide were carefully destroyed, and the tree where the hanging took place was cut down and burned.

Transmigration of souls after death

Proponents of the theory of transmigration of souls confidently claim that the soul after death acquires a new shell, another body. Eastern practitioners assure that transformation can occur up to 50 times. A person learns about facts from his past life only in a state of deep trance or when he is diagnosed with certain diseases of the nervous system.

The most famous person in the study of reincarnation is the US psychiatrist Ian Stevenson. According to his theory, irrefutable evidence of the transmigration of the soul is:

Unique ability to speak strange languages.
The presence of scars or birthmarks in identical places in a living and deceased person.
Accurate historical narratives.
Almost all people who have experienced reincarnation have some kind of birth defect. For example, a person who has an incomprehensible growth on the back of his head, during a trance, remembered that in a past life he was hacked to death. Stevenson began an investigation and found a family where the death of one of its members had occurred in this manner. The shape of the deceased's wound, like a mirror image, was an exact copy of this growth.

Hypnosis will help you remember details about facts from your past life. Scientists conducting research in this area interviewed several hundred people in a state of deep hypnosis. Almost 35% of them talked about events that had never happened to them in real life. Some people began to speak in unknown languages, with a pronounced accent, or in an ancient dialect.

However, not all studies are scientifically proven and cause a lot of thought and controversy. Some skeptics believe that a person during hypnosis can simply fantasize or follow the hypnotist's lead. It is also known that incredible moments from the past can be voiced by people after clinical death or by patients with severe mental illness.

What does the soul look like after a person's death?

What appearance does the human soul have after death? Here, in earthly life, we see ourselves in a certain form and we may like it or not. What is our appearance in the Subtle World after death?

When the soul leaves the body, its appearance does not remain constant, but changes. And these changes depend on the level of development of the soul. Immediately after death, the soul retains the human form in which it was in the physical world. For some time, usually up to a year, she retains the same external appearance.

If the soul has a low level of development, but sufficient to continue its development, then after a year of being in another world it begins to change externally.

A low soul is incapable of comprehending the Subtle World and working in it and therefore falls asleep. Similarly, for example, in our world a bear falls asleep for the winter and is not capable of actively expressing itself in forest conditions in winter. And other animals can survive well in the cold season.

That is, the activity of the soul on the Subtle Plane depends on the degree of its development and the ability to actively participate in its life. Such a soul can clear space of unnecessary elements and perform some primitive work. Therefore, low souls with regard to their appearance can be divided into two types.

The soul that falls asleep, as a rule, loses its human appearance quite quickly, because it is not yet adapted to anything, much less capable of maintaining its appearance in the desired form.

The same low soul, which has already had several incarnations and acquired the rudiments of primary human qualities, is capable of maintaining its form in the form of a human body for up to six months or a year, and then, forgetting about its previous appearance, begins to adapt to anything.

Low souls do not yet possess any stable qualities or knowledge, therefore their idea of ​​themselves and the world around them can often change. Since souls have developed imitation, at first they will mold themselves according to what they see nearby, or what is preserved in their memory from past lives.

A young soul does not have a permanent concept, therefore its form can take on a variety of external signs: after several years of being on the Subtle Plane, the soul can resemble an octopus, cuttlefish, oval, ball, any figure, etc. It is able to adapt to what sees. So the appearance of young souls who have not entered hibernation can change constantly throughout their stay on the Subtle Plane.

All low souls are isolated from the middle and high ones. All of them are located in certain artificial worlds at their Levels. And souls of the same Level cannot mix into lower or higher planes, or rather, it will not work out for them purely according to physical laws. Because each soul can only be located in its corresponding layer of energy potential.

A soul of average development is already capable of maintaining the general shape of the human body throughout its entire stay in the Subtle World. But outwardly she is quickly changing and does not resemble the person whose physical body she left behind. Their appearance also constantly undergoes changes, just like the human body during earthly life.

The high soul similarly retains the external features of the human body, but changes in features and details, just as any person in the physical world changes. Appearance is influenced by the energies that the soul matrix accumulates. The higher its energy, the more harmonious and beautiful the soul becomes in its external form.

There are various worldview theories. Atheists believe that a person does not have any “ethereal” soul, and therefore nothing goes anywhere.

However, this simplistic view does not satisfy most people. Human life seems to be such a rare and complex phenomenon, an actual miracle, that the complete cessation of human consciousness after death seems illogical even from the point of view of reason.

Scientists say that “nothing appears from anywhere and nothing disappears from anywhere.” In modern physics, any substance must necessarily appear somewhere else if it disappeared in one.

If you analyze the structure of the Universe, you can observe an extremely careful, prudent attitude towards resources. The smallest crumbs of matter, energy, information are such important, expensive substances that it is impossible to imagine that human consciousness, as the highest stage of the development of matter (even in the worldview of materialists and atheists) could simply cease to exist after the creation and development of this consciousness invested such colossal forces and enormous time.

Thus, from the point of view of modern science, it would be an unjustified waste to simply allow a person’s consciousness to disappear after death. Especially in our era of the information revolution, when information is valued almost higher than the physical life of people.

It is logical to assume that after the cessation of physical life, consciousness in the form of some kind of information conglomerate changes its location. In other words, it goes into another dimension of the Universe. And now the existence of these other dimensions has been confirmed by scientists.

It turns out that the ideas and ideas of believers and mystics about where does the soul go after death, at the level of theoretical concepts do not differ from the latest scientific theories.

Where is the soul after a person dies?

If at the level of basic concepts all concepts are about where does the soul go after death In general, they agree, but at the level of specifics, many disagreements and discrepancies arise.

• Scientists and mystics talk about certain parallel dimensions or worlds where the souls of the dead live.
• Shamans talk about the mysterious “world of ancestors” full of powerful forces.
• Different religions offer their own concepts. Christianity and Islam point to Heaven and Hell as the posthumous habitats of human souls. Buddhist monks talk about reincarnation, the endless migration of souls.

Quite close to modern scientific ideas is the concept that where does the soul go after death, outlined in his treatises by Carlos Castaneda. Having been a “shaman’s student” for many years, the scientist was initiated into the ancient Toltec ideas about other worlds that existed parallel to ours.

The Toltec universe is under the rule of the “Eagle” - an incomprehensible omnipotent being who rules the entire world and creates all living things.

• Living beings at birth receive life as a “gift from the Eagle”, as if renting consciousness for development and improvement throughout life.
• After death, every creature is obliged to return life force and consciousness to where it came from - the almighty Eagle.

The actual process of returning human souls to the Eagle looks in the descriptions of shamans as if a huge black bird was tearing the consciousness of the dead into pieces and absorbing it.

However, it should be understood that this is just a visualization in a language understandable to people of some incomprehensible phenomena. The fact is that people perceive the world 99% in a visual format.

By the way, in the terminology of the shamans of ancient Mexico this is called “predator perception,” aimed at identifying prey and danger. But the approach to reality from the point of view of a predator has precisely provided humanity with the best conditions for survival and efficiency in the struggle for existence. This fact is difficult to deny.

Of course, the idea of ​​being torn to shreds and brought down by some mystical Eagle looks rather unpleasant and even terrifying.

The concept of o, professed by Buddhists, looks much more peaceful.

• After death, a person’s soul is re-inhabited in some other, newly born living creature.
• Depending on the degree of spiritual development and “purity,” the soul of the deceased can move into a more or less developed living being.
• For example, a person who has led an obscene lifestyle and has degraded spiritually may well return to the world of the living in the body of a toad or other nasty reptile.

Thus, it represents a path of long-term progressive spiritual development, and upon reaching a certain level of spiritual purity and perfection, the process of changing bodies stops and a person reaches Nirvana - the world of eternal bliss.

Buddhists claim that people, under certain conditions, are quite capable of remembering literally all of their rebirths. With the exception of Nirvana, no one can tell what exactly happens in the Buddhist paradise, since returns to the world of the living no longer occur.

In religions based on morality and philanthropy, ideas about where does the soul go after death, usually represent the dualistic concept of Heaven and Hell.

• People who during their lifetime observed religious rituals and led a righteous life go to Heaven, to Paradise, where eternal happiness and bliss await them, as if in gratitude for the trials they experienced and righteousness on earth.
• Villains and criminals, people who deny God and do not have religious traditions, end up in a place where there is “eternal crying, suffering and gnashing of teeth.”

Religious beliefs say that before getting to Heaven or Hell, the soul of the deceased goes through a number of mandatory stages.

• The first days immediately after dying, the soul is located where the living person lived. There is a kind of farewell to loved ones and the place where your whole life has been spent.
• The second stage involves certain tests, during which higher powers determine whether the soul deserves heavenly bliss or hellish torment.
• At the third stage, the soul completely leaves the world of the living.

Some people, due to violent death, suicide, or some “not fully resolved matters on earth,” are “stuck” for a long time in an intermediate state. Such souls become restless and often appear before the living in the form of ghosts and apparitions.

According to religious traditions, in order to free a lost soul from the ordeal “between heaven and earth,” one should observe the appropriate rituals of funeral service and remembrance, and ask the higher powers for mercy for the lost soul. However, first of all, liberation requires sincere repentance of the dying person for his sins.

In the first nine chapters of this book we have attempted to set out some of the basic aspects of the Orthodox Christian view of life after death, contrasting them with the widely held modern view, as well as with views emerging in the West which in some respects departed from ancient Christian teaching. In the West, the true Christian teaching about Angels, the airy kingdom of fallen spirits, about the nature of communication between people and spirits, about heaven and hell has been lost or distorted, as a result of which the “posthumous” experiences that are taking place today are completely misinterpreted. The only satisfactory answer to this false interpretation is Orthodox Christian teaching.

This book is too limited in scope to present fully the Orthodox teaching on the other world and the afterlife; our task was much more narrow - to present this teaching to the extent that would be sufficient to answer the questions raised by modern “posthumous” experiences, and to point the reader to those Orthodox texts where this teaching is contained. In conclusion, we here specifically give a brief summary of the Orthodox teaching about the fate of the soul after death. This presentation consists of an article written by one of the last outstanding theologians of our time, Archbishop John (Maximovich) a year before his death. His words are printed in a narrower column, and explanations of his text, comments and comparisons are printed as usual.

Archbishop John (Maksimovich)

"Life after death"

I hope for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the next century.

(Nicene Creed)

Our grief for our dying loved ones would have been boundless and unsuccessful if the Lord had not given us eternal life. Our life would be pointless if it ended in death. What benefit would then be from virtue and good deeds? Then those who say: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die” would be right. But man was created for immortality, and Christ, by His resurrection, opened the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven, eternal bliss for those who believed in Him and lived righteously. Our earthly life is a preparation for the future life, and this preparation ends with death. It is appointed for men to die once, and after this the judgment (Heb. ix. 27). Then a person leaves all his earthly cares; his body disintegrates to rise again at the General Resurrection.

But his soul continues to live, without ceasing its existence for a single moment. Through many manifestations of the dead we have been given partial knowledge of what happens to the soul when it leaves the body. When vision with the physical eyes ceases, spiritual vision begins.

Addressing his dying sister in a letter, Bishop Theophan the Recluse writes: “After all, you will not die. Your body will die, and you will move to another world, alive, remembering yourself and recognizing the whole world around you” (“Soulful Reading,” August 1894).

After death, the soul is alive, and its feelings are heightened, not weakened. St. Ambrose of Milan teaches: “Since the soul continues to live after death, good remains, which is not lost with death, but increases. The soul is not held back by any obstacles posed by death, but is more active because it acts in its own sphere without any connection with a body that is rather a burden to her than a benefit” (St. Ambrose “Death as a Good”).

Rev. Abba Dorotheos summarizes the teaching of the early fathers on this issue: “For souls remember everything that was here, as the fathers say, words, deeds, and thoughts, and they cannot forget any of this then. And it is said in the psalm: On that day all his thoughts will perish (Ps. 145:4); this is said about the thoughts of this age, that is, about the structure, property, parents, children, and all this about how the soul leaves the body perishes. .. And what she did regarding virtue or passion, she remembers everything and none of it perishes for her... And, as I said, the soul does not forget anything that it did in this world, but remembers everything after leaving body, and, moreover, better and clearer, as if freed from this earthly body" (Abba Dorotheos. Teaching 12).

The great ascetic of the 5th century, Ven. John Cassian clearly formulates the active state of the soul after death in response to heretics who believed that the soul after death is unconscious: “Souls after separation from the body are not idle, they do not remain without any feeling; this is proven by the Gospel parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke. XVI, 19-31)... The souls of the dead not only do not lose their feelings, but do not lose their dispositions, that is, hope and fear, joy and sorrow, and something of what they expect for themselves at the universal judgment, they they are already beginning to anticipate... they become even more alive and zealously cleave to the glorification of God. And indeed, if, having considered the evidence of the Holy Scriptures about the nature of the soul itself, according to our understanding, we think a little, then wouldn’t it be, I don’t say, extreme stupidity, but. madness - to even slightly suspect that the most precious part of man (i.e., the soul), in which, according to the blessed Apostle, lies the image of God and the likeness (1 Cor. XI, 7; Col. III, 10), after the deposition of this bodily fatness , in which she is in real life, as if she becomes insensible - she who contains in herself all the power of reason, with her communion makes even the dumb and insensible substance of the flesh sensitive? It follows from this, and the property of the mind itself, requires that the spirit, after the addition of this carnal plumpness, which is now weakening, brings its rational powers to a better state, restores them purer and more subtle, and does not lose them.”

Modern "post-mortem" experiences have made people incredibly aware of the consciousness of the soul after death, of the greater sharpness and speed of its mental abilities. But this awareness in itself is not enough to protect someone in such a state from manifestations of the out-of-body sphere; one must be familiar with ALL Christian teaching on this subject.

The Beginning of Spiritual Vision

Often this spiritual vision begins in dying people even before death, and while still seeing others and even talking with them, they see what others do not see.

This experience of dying people has been observed for centuries, and today such cases of dying people are not new. However, what was said above should be repeated here - in Chap. 1, part 2: only in the grace-filled visits of the righteous, when saints and angels appear, can we be sure that these are truly beings from another world. In ordinary cases, when a dying person begins to see deceased friends and relatives, this can only be a natural acquaintance with the invisible world into which he must enter; the true nature of the images of the deceased appearing at this moment is known, perhaps, only to God - and we do not need to delve into this.

It is clear that God gives this experience as the most obvious way to communicate to the dying person that the other world is not a completely unfamiliar place, that life there is also characterized by the love that a person has for his loved ones. His Grace Theophan touchingly expresses this thought in words addressed to his dying sister: “There your father and mother, brothers and sisters will meet you. Bow to them and convey our greetings - and ask them to take care of us. Your children surround you with their joyful greetings. There You'll be better off than here."

Meeting with the Spirits

But upon leaving the body, the soul finds itself among other spirits, good and evil. Usually she is drawn to those who are closer to her in spirit, and if, while in the body, she was influenced by some of them, then she will remain dependent on them after leaving the body, no matter how disgusting they turned out to be upon meeting.

Here we are again seriously reminded that the other world, although it will not be completely alien to us, will not turn out to be just a pleasant meeting with loved ones “at the resort” of happiness, but will be a spiritual encounter that tests the disposition of our soul during life - whether it was inclined more to the Angels and saints through a virtuous life and obedience to the commandments of God, or, through negligence and unbelief, she made herself more suitable for the society of fallen spirits. The Most Reverend Theophan the Recluse said well (see the end of Chapter VI above) that even a test in aerial ordeals can turn out to be more of a test of temptations than an accusation.

Although the very fact of judgment in the afterlife is beyond any doubt - both the Private Judgment immediately after death and the Last Judgment at the end of the world - the external judgment of God will only be a response to the internal disposition that the soul has created in itself in relation to God and spiritual beings .

The first two days after death

During the first two days the soul enjoys relative freedom and can visit those places on earth that are dear to it, but on the third day it moves to other spheres.

Here Archbishop John is simply repeating the teaching known to the Church since the 4th century. Tradition says that the Angel who accompanied St. Macarius of Alexandria, said, explaining the church commemoration of the dead on the third day after death: “When on the third day there is an offering in the church, the soul of the deceased receives from the Angel guarding it relief in the grief that it feels from separation from the body, it receives because the doxology and the offering in the church of God was made for her, which is why good hope is born in her. For for two days the soul, together with the Angels who are with it, is allowed to walk on the earth where it wants. Therefore, the soul, loving the body, sometimes wanders near the house, in. in which she was separated from the body, sometimes near the coffin in which the body was placed; and thus spends two days, like a bird, looking for a nest for itself. rose from the dead, commands, in imitation of His resurrection, to ascend to heaven for every Christian soul to worship the God of all" ("Words of St. Macarius of Alexandria on the exodus of the souls of the righteous and sinners", "Christ. reading", August 1831).

In the Orthodox rite of burial of the departed, St. John of Damascus vividly describes the state of the soul, parted from the body, but still on earth, powerless to communicate with loved ones whom it can see: “Alas for me, such a feat has a soul separated from the body! Alas, then there is a lot of tears, and there is no mercy yu! lifting up his eyes to the Angels, he prays idlely: stretching out his hands to men, there is no one who can help. In the same way, my beloved brethren, having considered our short life, we ask for the repose of Christ for the departed, and great mercy for our souls" (Sequence of the burial of worldly people, stichera). self-according, voice 2).

In a letter to the husband of her dying sister mentioned above, St. Feofan writes: “After all, the sister herself will not die; the body dies, but the face of the dying person remains. It only passes into other orders of life. She is not in the body that lies under the saints and is then taken out, and they do not hide her in the grave. She is in another in the same place as she is now. In the first hours and days she will be near you. But she won’t speak, but you can’t see her, otherwise... Keep this in mind. We who remain are crying for those who have departed. and it is immediately easier for them: that state is gratifying. Those who died and were then brought into the body found it a very uncomfortable place to live. She will feel the same there, but we are killed, as if something bad had happened to her. and, truly, marvels at this (“Soulful Reading,” August 1894).

It should be borne in mind that this description of the first two days after death provides a general rule that by no means covers all situations. Indeed, most of the passages from Orthodox literature quoted in this book do not fit this rule - and for a very obvious reason: the saints who were not at all attached to worldly things, lived in constant anticipation of the transition to another world, are not even attracted to places where they did good deeds, but immediately begin their ascent to heaven. Others, like K. Iskul, begin their ascent earlier than two days by the special permission of God's Providence. On the other hand, all modern “posthumous” experiences, no matter how fragmentary they are, do not fit this rule: the out-of-body state is only the beginning of the first period of the disembodied journey of the soul to the places of its earthly attachments, but none of these people spent time in a state of death long enough to even meet the two Angels who were to accompany them.

Some critics of Orthodox teaching about the afterlife find that such deviations from the general rule of “posthumous” experience are evidence of contradictions in Orthodox teaching, but such critics take everything too literally. The description of the first two days (and also the subsequent ones) is by no means some kind of dogma; it is simply a model that only formulates the most general order of the “posthumous” experience of the soul. Many cases, both in Orthodox literature and in accounts of modern experiences, where the dead instantly appeared alive on the first day or two after death (sometimes in a dream), serve as examples of the truth that the soul does remain near the earth for some short time. (Genuine apparitions of the dead after this brief period of freedom of the soul are much more rare and always happen by God's Will for some special purpose, and not by someone's own will. But by the third day, and often earlier, this period comes to an end .)

ordeals

At this time (on the third day) the soul passes through legions of evil spirits who block its path and accuse it of various sins into which they themselves have drawn it. According to various revelations, there are twenty such obstacles, the so-called “ordeals,” at each of which one or another sin is tortured; Having gone through one ordeal, the soul comes to the next. And only after successfully passing through all of them can the soul continue its journey without being immediately thrown into Gehenna. How terrible these demons and ordeals are can be seen from the fact that the Mother of God Herself, when Archangel Gabriel informed Her of the approach of death, prayed to His Son to deliver Her soul from these demons, and in response to Her prayers the Lord Jesus Christ Himself appeared from Heaven accept the soul of His Most Pure Mother and take Her to Heaven. (This is visibly depicted on the traditional Orthodox icon of the Assumption.) The third day is truly terrible for the soul of the deceased, and for this reason it especially needs prayers.

The sixth chapter contains a number of patristic and hagiographical texts about ordeals, and there is no need to add anything else here. However, here too we can note that the descriptions of the ordeals correspond to the model of torture to which the soul is subjected after death, and individual experience may differ significantly. Minor details such as the number of ordeals are, of course, secondary in comparison with the main fact that soon after death the soul is indeed subjected to judgment (Private Court), where the result of the “invisible war” that it waged (or did not wage) on earth against fallen spirits is summed up .

Continuing the letter to the husband of his dying sister, Bishop Theophan the Recluse writes: “Those who have departed soon begin the feat of going through the ordeal. She needs help there! – Stand then in this thought, and you will hear her cry to you: “Help!” – That’s what you need you should direct all your attention and all your love to her. I think the most truly evidence of love will be if, from the moment of the soul’s departure, you, leaving the worries about the body to others, step away yourself and, secluded where possible, immerse yourself in prayer for her in her new life. condition, about her unexpected needs. Having started this way, be in a constant cry to God for help, for six weeks - and beyond. In Theodora's story - the bag from which the Angels took to get rid of the tax collectors - these were prayers. her elder. Your prayers will be the same... Don’t forget to do this... Behold love!"

Critics of Orthodox teaching often misunderstand the “bag of gold” from which at the ordeals the Angels “paid for the debts” of Blessed Theodora; it is sometimes mistakenly compared to the Latin concept of the "extraordinary merit" of saints. Here too, such critics read Orthodox texts too literally. What is meant here is nothing more than the prayers for the departed of the Church, in particular, the prayers of the holy and spiritual father. The form in which this is described - there is hardly even a need to talk about it - is metaphorical.

The Orthodox Church considers the doctrine of ordeals so important that it mentions them in many services (see some quotes in the chapter on ordeals). In particular, the Church especially expounds this teaching to all its dying children. In the “Canon for the Exodus of the Soul,” read by a priest at the bedside of a dying member of the Church, there are the following troparia:

“The aerial prince of the rapist, the tormentor, the upholder of terrible paths and the vain tester of these words, grant me permission to pass without restraint, leaving the earth” (canto 4).

“Holy Angels commend me to sacred and honorable hands, O Lady, for having covered myself with those wings, I do not see the dishonorable and stinking and gloomy image of demons” (canto 6).

“Having given birth to the Lord Almighty, cast away the bitter ordeals of the ruler of the world far from me, I want to die forever, but I glorify You forever, Holy Mother of God” (canto 8).

Thus, a dying Orthodox Christian is prepared by the words of the Church for the upcoming trials.

Forty days

Then, having successfully gone through the ordeal and worshiped God, the soul visits the heavenly abodes and hellish abysses for another 37 days, not yet knowing where it will remain, and only on the fortieth day is it assigned a place until the resurrection of the dead.

Of course, there is nothing strange in the fact that, having gone through the ordeal and done away with earthly things forever, the soul must become acquainted with the real other world, in one part of which it will dwell forever. According to the revelation of the Angel, St. Macarius of Alexandria, the special church commemoration of the departed on the ninth day after death (in addition to the general symbolism of the nine ranks of angels) is due to the fact that until now the soul was shown the beauties of paradise and only after that, during the rest of the forty-day period, it is shown the torment and horrors of hell, before on the fortieth day she is assigned a place where she will await the resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgment. And here, too, these numbers give a general rule or model of post-mortem reality and, undoubtedly, not all the dead complete their journey in accordance with this rule. We know that Theodora actually completed her visit to hell precisely on the fortieth day - by earthly time standards.

State of mind before the Last Judgment

Some souls, after forty days, find themselves in a state of anticipation of eternal joy and bliss, while others are in fear of eternal torment, which will fully begin after the Last Judgment. Before this, changes in the state of souls are still possible, especially thanks to the offering of the Bloodless Sacrifice for them (commemoration at the Liturgy) and other prayers.

The teaching of the Church about the state of souls in Heaven and hell before the Last Judgment is set out in more detail in the words of St. Mark of Ephesus.

The benefits of prayer, both public and private, for souls in hell are described in the lives of holy ascetics and in the patristic writings.

In the life of the martyr Perpetua (3rd century), for example, the fate of her brother was revealed to her in the image of a reservoir filled with water, which was located so high that she could not reach it from the dirty, unbearably hot place where he was imprisoned. Thanks to her fervent prayer throughout the whole day and night, he was able to reach the reservoir, and she saw him in a bright place. From this she understood that he was freed from punishment ("Lives of the Saints", February 1).

There are many similar cases in the lives of Orthodox saints and ascetics. If one is prone to excessive literalism regarding these visions, then one should probably say that, of course, the forms that these visions take (usually in a dream) are not necessarily “photographs” of the position in which the soul is in another world, but rather images that convey the spiritual truth about the improvement of the state of the soul through the prayers of those remaining on earth.

Prayer for the departed

How important commemoration is at the Liturgy can be seen from the following cases. Even before the glorification of Saint Theodosius of Chernigov (1896), the hieromonk (the famous elder Alexy from the Goloseevsky monastery of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, who died in 1916), who was dressing the relics, got tired, sitting at the relics, dozed off and saw the Saint in front of him, who said to him: “Thank you for your work for me. I also ask you, when you serve the Liturgy, to mention my parents”; and he gave their names (priest Nikita and Maria). Before the vision, these names were unknown. A few years after canonization in the monastery where St. Theodosius was abbot; his own memorial was found, which confirmed these names and confirmed the truth of the vision. “How can you, saint, ask for my prayers, when you yourself stand before the Heavenly Throne and give people God’s grace?” – asked the hieromonk. “Yes, that’s true,” answered St. Theodosius, “but the offering at the Liturgy is stronger than my prayers.”

Therefore, memorial services and home prayer for the deceased are useful, as are good deeds done in their memory, alms or donations to the Church. But commemoration at the Divine Liturgy is especially useful for them. There were many apparitions of the dead and other events confirming how useful commemoration of the dead is. Many who died in repentance, but were unable to demonstrate it during their lifetime, were freed from torment and received peace. In the Church, prayers are constantly offered for the repose of the departed, and in the kneeling prayer at Vespers on the day of the Descent of the Holy Spirit there is a special petition “for those held in hell.”

St. Gregory the Great, answering the question in his Discourses, “Is there anything that could be useful to souls after death,” teaches: “The holy sacrifice of Christ, our saving Sacrifice, brings great benefit to souls even after death, provided , that their sins can be forgiven in a future life. Therefore, the souls of the deceased sometimes ask that the Liturgy be served for them... Naturally, it is safer to do for ourselves during our lifetime what we hope others will do for us after death. to make an exodus free, than to seek freedom in chains. Therefore, we must despise this world with all our hearts, as if its glory had already passed, and daily offer to God the sacrifice of our tears, when we sacrifice His sacred Flesh and Blood alone. this sacrifice has the power to save the soul from eternal death, for it mysteriously represents to us the death of the Only Begotten Son" (IV; 57, 60).

St. Gregory gives several examples of the appearance of the dead alive with a request to serve the Liturgy for their repose or giving thanks for this; once also, a prisoner, whom his wife considered dead and for whom she ordered the Liturgy on certain days, returned from captivity and told her how on some days he was freed from chains - precisely on those days when the Liturgy was performed for him (IV; 57, 59).

Protestants usually believe that church prayers for the dead are incompatible with the need to find salvation first in this life: “If you can be saved by the Church after death, then why bother struggling or seeking faith in this life? Let us eat, drink and be merry.” ... Of course, no one who holds such views has ever achieved salvation through church prayers, and it is obvious that such an argument is very superficial and even hypocritical. The prayer of the Church cannot save someone who does not want to be saved or who has never made any effort for this during his lifetime. In a certain sense, we can say that the prayer of the Church or individual Christians for the deceased is another result of the life of this person: they would not have prayed for him if he had not done anything during his life that could inspire such prayer after his death.

St. Mark of Ephesus also discusses the issue of church prayer for the dead and the relief it provides them, citing as an example the prayer of St. Gregory Dvoeslov about the Roman Emperor Trajan - a prayer inspired by the good deed of this pagan emperor.

What can we do for the dead?

Anyone who wants to show their love for the dead and give them real help can best do this by praying for them and especially by commemorating them at the Liturgy, when the particles taken for the living and the dead are immersed in the Blood of the Lord with the words: “Wash away, Lord, sins.” those who were remembered here by Your honest Blood, by the prayers of Your saints."

We cannot do anything better or more for the departed than to pray for them, remembering them at the Liturgy. They always need this, especially in those forty days when the soul of the deceased follows the path to eternal settlements. The body then feels nothing: it does not see the gathered loved ones, does not smell the smell of flowers, does not hear funeral speeches. But the soul feels the prayers offered for it, is grateful to those who offer them, and is spiritually close to them.

Oh, relatives and friends of the deceased! Do for them what is necessary and what is in your power, use your money not for external decoration of the coffin and grave, but to help those in need, in memory of your deceased loved ones, at the Church where prayers are offered for them. Be merciful to the deceased, take care of their souls. The same path lies before you, and how we will then want to be remembered in prayer! Let us ourselves be merciful to the departed.

As soon as someone has died, immediately call a priest or inform him so that he can read the “Prayers for the Exodus of the Soul,” which are supposed to be read over all Orthodox Christians after their death. Try, as far as possible, to have the funeral service in church and to have the Psalter read over the deceased before the funeral service. The funeral service should not be elaborately arranged, but it is absolutely necessary that it be complete, without shortening; then think not about your convenience, but about the deceased, with whom you are parting forever. If there are several dead people in the church at the same time, do not refuse if they offer you the funeral service to be common to everyone. It is better for the funeral service to be served simultaneously for two or more deceased, when the prayer of the gathered loved ones will be more fervent, than for several funeral services to be served sequentially and the services, due to lack of time and energy, be shortened, because every word of the prayer for the deceased is similar a drop of water for the thirsty. Immediately take care of the sorokoust, that is, daily commemoration at the Liturgy for forty days. Usually in churches where services are performed daily, the deceased who were buried in this way are remembered for forty days or more. But if the funeral service was in a church where there are no daily services, the relatives themselves should take care and order the magpie where there is a daily service. It is also good to send a donation in memory of the deceased to monasteries, as well as to Jerusalem, where unceasing prayer is offered in holy places. But the forty-day commemoration should begin immediately after death, when the soul especially needs prayer help, and therefore the commemoration should begin in the nearest place where there is a daily service.

Let us take care of those who have gone to another world before us, so as to do for them everything we can, remembering that the blessings of mercy are such that there will be mercy (Matthew V, 7).

Resurrection of the body

One day this entire corruptible world will come to an end and the eternal Kingdom of Heaven will come, where the souls of the redeemed, reunited with their resurrected bodies, immortal and incorruptible, will abide forever with Christ. Then the partial joy and glory which even souls in Heaven now know will be succeeded by the fullness of the joy of the new creation for which man was created; but those who did not accept the salvation brought to earth by Christ will suffer forever - along with their resurrected bodies - in hell. In the final chapter of “An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith,” Rev. John of Damascus describes this final state of the soul after death well:

“We also believe in the resurrection of the dead. For it will truly be, there will be a resurrection of the dead. But, speaking of the resurrection, we imagine the resurrection of bodies. For the resurrection is the secondary raising of the fallen; souls, being immortal, how will they be resurrected? For if death defined as the separation of the soul from the body, then resurrection is, of course, a secondary union of soul and body, and a secondary exaltation of a resolved and dead living being. So, the body itself, decaying and resolving, will itself rise incorruptible, for He who in the beginning produced it. from the dust of the earth, can resurrect it again, after it has again, according to the saying of the Creator, been resolved and returned back to the earth from which it was taken...

Of course, if only one soul has practiced deeds of virtue, then it alone will be crowned. And if she alone was constantly in pleasure, then in fairness she alone would be punished. But since the soul did not strive for either virtue or vice separately from the body, then in fairness both will receive reward together...

So, we will be resurrected, since the souls will again be united with bodies that become immortal and strip away corruption, and we will appear at the terrible judgment seat of Christ; and the devil, and his demons, and his man, that is, the Antichrist, and wicked people and sinners will be consigned to eternal fire, not material, like the fire that is with us, but such as God can know about. And having done good, like the sun, they will shine together with the Angels in eternal life, together with our Lord Jesus Christ, always looking at Him and being visible by Him, and enjoying the continuous joy flowing from Him, glorifying Him with the Father and the Holy Spirit to the endless ages of ages. . Amen" (pp. 267-272).