Nothing
is more misunderstood in the world of Orthodoxy and the faith in general than
that of the soul after death. I recently discussed why I do not fear death, and
not only do not fear it, but I embrace it. There is another topic that the world
of Orthodoxy loves to debate and discuss and that is tollhouses. To the uninitiated,
tollhouses seem almost like an Orthodox view of purgatory, or some other
holding place for the soul until it awaits final judgement at the Awesome
Judgement Seat of Christ. However, I would like to clearly state from the onset
that the Orthodox view purgatory as a heresy. It was invented by the Roman
Catholics without fully understanding the scriptures and with their own biases
mixed in, which as we have discussed before and I will always say is dangerous.
Myself coming from a Southern Baptist background before my conversion was very
distrustful of the tollhouses, and the theology behind them. Learning and
growing in the faith these past five years has given me a new look and perspective
on the tollhouses and their role in God’s redeeming of mankind. I also will not
say that I am an expert on this theology, so this is not a conclusive
definitive definition of the tollhouses. It is also not a theological treatise about
the tollhouses. This is simply and as usual a presentation of the facts as they
relate to the faith that has been preserved by God for the past two thousand
years. If you would prefer a more in depth look at the soul and soul after
death, my recommendation is as always Father Seraphim Rose who wrote “The Soul
After Death” and of course The Departure of the Soul by St. Anthony’s Monastery
in Arizona where the relics of Elder Ephraim reside.
Tollhouses. The very word starts to
confuse and discombobulate people into a panic and also into fits of madness. People
have spent years, decades even trying to grasp the nature of tollhouses. The
short answer is that the Orthodox Church teaches that upon the repose of a
person the angels, particularly your guardian angel, will come to your side to
carry you to heaven. The demons will likewise come to carry you to hell with
them. However, you will be judged in a series of “tollhouses” as the saints describe
them. It must be noted here that God is the impartial judge in all of this, and
the angels and demons merely act as a defense and prosecution. It is also a
figurative language that is used to describe this event as actual tollhouses do
not exist, it is simply a figure of speech to describe the event that the soul
must go through before entering either into eternal glory, or eternal torment. This figure of speech is laid out by
Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos when he says in one such sermon, “First. The
symbolic language of the Bible requires the necessary interpretation. Anyone
who only keeps to the images used distorts the Gospel message. For instance, we
must say that words in the Bible can be misinterpreted if we only look at their
theological meaning. The same thing is true in the case of the customs houses.
We should not be thinking only of today's customs houses, through which
everyone has to pass at the national borders. The symbolic image is intended to
present something, but it must be interpreted in an orthodox way. Second. There
are demons, which are dark angels. They are persons and therefore have freedom,
and with God's permission, but also through the wrong use of freedom by man,
they have been able to dominate him. That is to say, after the soul's departure
from the body, the demons demand to possess a soul which they have mastered
because of its unrepentance. In Christ's well-known parable about the foolish
rich man there is the sentence: "Fool! This night your soul will be
required of you; then whose will those things be which you have
provided?". According to the patristic interpretation it is the demons who
demand possession of the soul of the foolish rich man after its departure from
the body. Third. The demons have no authority over the men of God. All who are
united with God and have within their soul and heart the uncreated energy of
God are outside the control of the demons. So the deified will not go through
the so-called customs houses. Fourth. According to the teaching of the Fathers,
as we have seen before, the demons, which are real spirits, act by means of the
passions. The fact that the passions cannot be gratified after the soul's
departure from the body is a suffocation of the soul.” Such great ascetics as St. Anthony
the Great, St. Athanasius and even St. Justin Martyr describe that the demons
will come to accuse our soul of the terrible and great deeds we have done in
our life. But through repentance and confession of our sins we have nothing to
fear from these wretched creatures. The clearest
example we have of the tollhouses comes from St. Anthony the great in his
vision regarding the forgiveness of sins, it is stated in that vision the
following, “and that he was led in the air by
certain ones. Next certain bitter and terrible beings stood in the air and
wished to hinder him from passing through. But when his conductors opposed
them, they demanded whether he was not accountable to them. And when they
wished to sum up the account from his birth, Antony's conductors stopped them,
saying, 'The Lord has wiped out the sins from his birth, but
from the time he became a monk, and devoted himself to God,
it is permitted you to make a reckoning.' Then when they accused him and could
not convict him, his way was free and unhindered.”
How then can we be saved from these tollhouses and the judgement of
God? St. Justin Martyr says in his dialogue with Trypho, “And the prayer that His soul should
be saved from the sword, and lion's mouth, and hand of the dog, was a prayer that
no one should take possession of His soul: so that, when we arrive
at the end of life, we may ask the same petition from God, who is
able to turn away every shameless evil angel from
taking our souls. And that the souls survive, I have shown to you
from the fact that the soul of Samuel was called up by the witch, as Saul
demanded. And it appears also, that all the souls of similar righteous men and
prophets fell under the dominion of such powers, as is indeed to be inferred
from the very facts in the case of that witch. Hence also God by His Son
teaches us for whose sake these things seem to have been done, always to strive
earnestly, and at death to pray that our souls may not fall into the hands of
any such power.” St. Theodora on the
other hand in her description of the tollhouses to Gregory a disciple of St.
Basil the New, says in about the departure of this world, “Those who believe
in the Holy Trinity and take as frequently as possible the Holy Communion of
the Holy Mysteries of Christ our Savior’s Body and Blood—such people can rise
to heaven directly, with no hindrances, and the holy angels defend them, and
the holy saints of God pray for their salvation, since they have lived
righteously. No one, however, takes care of the wicked and depraved heretics,
who do nothing useful during their lives, and live in disbelief and heresy. The
angels can say nothing in their defense.” She also says regarding
the prayers of the church, “Having said this, he took something out that
appeared like a little bag of gold and gave it to the angels with the words:
'Here is the treasure of prayers before the Lord for this soul! If
you want to learn more about prayers for the dead, I suggest you read that blog
as well.
Furthermore, it can be said that these tollhouses are an opportunity for
Satan to collect a debt he believes is owed to him by our souls for the sins we
have committed upon earth. St. Cyril says in his commentary on Luke the
following passage, “Now all of us, without exception, upon earth are guilty
of offences: he who has a suit against us and accuses us is the wicked Satan:
for he is "the enemy and the exactor." While therefore we are in the
way: that is, ere yet we have arrived at the termination of our life here, let
us deliver ourselves from him: let us do away with the offences of which
we have been guilty: let us close his mouth: let us seize upon the grace that
is by Christ, which frees us from all debt and penalty, and delivers us from
fear and torment: lest if our impurity be not cleansed away, we be carried
before the judge, and given over to the exactors, that is, the tormentors, from
whose cruelty no man can escape: yea, rather, who will exact vengeance for
every fault, whether it be great or small.” So, it is also confirmed
that our actions in this life will determine our fate. What we do with the time
given to us is very important. Will we use it to serve Christ, or ourselves and
by extension the demons themselves? How will we react to teachings of the
church? How we will conduct ourselves knowing that the eternal tormentors and
torments of hell are awaiting us if we do not seek to repent from the sins that
we have committed. St. Cyril says that those who are searching and rooted in
the Faith are then, “Far removed from this danger are those who search for
the time of Christ's corning, and are not ignorant of His mystery, but well
know that the Word, though He be God, has shone forth upon the inhabitants of
earth in likeness as one of us, that freeing them from all blame, He may bless
with exceeding happiness those who believe in Him, and acknowledge Him as God
and the Son of God: by Whom and with Whom to God the Father be praise and
dominion, with the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever, Amen.” Very comforting words indeed for those of us who
are rooted in the faith. Protected by God from the wiles and schemes of the
demons we can then safely pass through the tollhouses as our journey to heaven ascends.
But woe to those who are living in sin and unrepentant such as heretics and
apostates, for those will be cast into hell with no recompense.
This is but the first part in this discussion of the tollhouses. I had a
thought to finish it in one blog, but realize that it is such a in depth topic
that it will require more study and more quotes from the early Christians to
understand fully. I hope that this has been as informative for you as it was
for me studying this. There is more to come on our tollhouse road.
Amen.
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