THE ORTHODOX FAITH 389
conceive their state in another way. Their opinion seems to be that all the dead sleep and wait passively in a middle state till the day of judgement. Then the good will go to heaven and the wicked to hell. This applies to the Saints too. And they deny our doctrine of Purgatory, and are indignant at our indulgences as well as at our belief that Saints enjoy a complete reward before the last day.[1] In this case, too, there is practically no difference between the official teaching of the two Churches. The Orthodox believe that "by no means all who die in sin are cast into hell" and that "we must offer prayers and the holy Sacrifice and generous alms for the dead."[2] The sleep in which the dead wait until the last day is already a foretaste of their future fate. If they do not admit a special place, Purgatory, they speak of a part of hell in which sinners who will be saved eventually wait, or of a prison, and they distinguish between those who die in grave sins and who are lost for ever and those who die in sin and yet will be saved after being cleansed.[3] The point to which they most strongly object is the fire of Purgatory. At the Council of Florence, Bessarion argued against fire, and the Greeks were then assured that the Roman Church has never committed herself to belief in this fire. That is still true. All a Catholic is bound to believe about Purgatory is contained in the definition of Trent: "There is a Purgatory and souls there detained are helped by the prayers of the faithful and especially by the acceptable Sacrifice of the Altar."[4] It is difficult to see how the Orthodox could deny this. As for the sleep of the just until the last day, such a belief seems inconsistent with the prayers to the Saints which form as large a part of their devotion as of ours and with the stories of miraculous apparitions of our Lady and the Saints, of which they have at least as many as we have. They are wrong in saying that we believe the Saints enjoy perfect happiness before the last day. Our theologians teach that the resurrection of the body will add
1 This is how Anthimos VII expressed his grievance against the Papic Church in his answer to Leo XIII. 2 Mogilas: Conf. Orth. i. qu. 45. 3 See the theologians quoted by Hergenröther, Photius, iii. p. 650. We have already seen what the great Greek Fathers say on this question (p. 105 seq.). 4 Sess. xxv. Denz. p. 859.
