The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus About Life After Death

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos

We regard Christ's parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus as the most suitable aid for guiding the reader into the subject "life after death". Therefore in what follows we shall analyse this parable in the simplest possible way.

We could make use of many patristic texts that interpret the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus, but we shall not do so, because, as we have said, the aim of all that follows is to introduce the reader to the teaching of the Church on life after death.

What Elder Ambrose Lazaris Taught About Judgment Day

Elder Ambrose Lazaris used to say about the end of the world that it will last as long as the Six Psalms of Matins lasts, a few minutes.

At the time when we will be judged, in heaven the Angels will chant the Six Psalms [that is why we do not sit during the reading of the Six Psalms].

All people living at that time will experience death instantly and immediately after will be resurrected.

We will all be with our bodies in an intangible way, in another form, as the Evangelist Mark says, we will not take up space, but one will see and recognize the other and all will be at the age of thirty three years old.

God Is Fire (A Homily of St. John Maximovitch)

By St. John Maximovitch

"God is a consuming fire" (Heb. 12:29). When an object touches fire, it changes: it either burns out or hardens.

So a person, touching God, either perishes or is saved.

Fire is always fire! But from touching it, both ashes and steel are obtained, depending on what it touches.

A Message to the Faithful from the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece: "The Gifts of the Holy Spirit and False Prophets"

June 14, 2022

To the fullness of the Church of Greece that bear Christ's name,

Topic: "The Gifts of the Holy Spirit and False Prophets"

Beloved children of the Lord,

One week after the feast of Pentecost, during which the Church of Christ was revealed to the world, we honor the offspring of this "new creation" of Grace, that is, the Church, who are all the Saints of God, people who are truly Spirit-bearers.

Epiphanios of Salamis and the Doctrine of the Bodily Resurrection

 

In his polemic with pagans and heretics (especially with Origen), Epiphanios reveals the Church teaching about bodily resurrection: “Our holy Mother Church believes, as she herself truly preached and truly prescribed, that we shall all die and be resurrected with this very body and with this very soul (σὺν σώματι τούτῳ, σὺν ψυχῇ ταύτῃ), with all our members, so that each one may receive according to what he has done" (Ancor. 119.11).

Against the pagans, Epiphanios proves the possibility of resurrection with examples from nature: day follows night, awakening follows sleep; seeds planted into the ground, as if dead, germinate and are reborn into a new plant, etc. (Ancor. 833-5). Pagan writers also knew and cited stories about the resurrection of people or their return from the underworld - for example, Alcestis, Pelops, Amphiaraus, Glaucus, Castor, etc. (Ibid. 85.2-4).