Chapter 6: The Aerial Toll-Houses

[尼古拉前执事]

Chapter 6: The Aerial Toll-Houses

[Reader Benjamin]

This is the only chapter that I am aware of that some curse as being so heretical.

Well I have read some of these Saints lives and do not see the problem. Yes the demons, when they find a part of themselves in a soul, have great joy in draging the soul to eternal torment. But that does not lessen the torment that they will endure for all eterrnaty. And as I see it all of our sins that we have repented from is wiped out. The only sins that we retane are those we do not repent of.

This makes it very clear that at all times we should be ready to stand in judgment, so that there is not even one unrepentant sin in us. I also see that what is described is not necisaraly the "exact" way that it will happen but a type or like of what will happen. The results are the same, but the "exactly" how may be different. I refer to the differences of visions of souls going to heaven, warfare or orderly toll-houses.

[romiosini]

I see nothing heretical here, but simply proofs of holy Fathers and the Saints. I don't understand where some sick fanatics alleged "zealots" would go attacking personally the poor Hieromonk and Servant of the LORD Father Seraphim of preaching heresy, when clearly it is not. But since it is not Dogma, we are not suppose to believe in the Toll-Houses. It is like an open choice in Orthodox. Or you can say, an extra desert to salvation. But, what I know and understood, Toll-Houses is an ascetic teaching and must be taught to Monastics, since Monastic Fathers and Saints are the ones that taught this teaching. I can't stand those "zealots" that would say that Saints Ignatius Brianchaninov and Theophan the Recluse aren't Church Fathers. I read this from a anti-Toll-House book of a certain Hierarch who was known for changing his jurisdictions from time to time. Toll-House were found to be Theologoumenon, and it remains as it is. Fanatics should leave Father Seraphim Rose, Saints Theophan the Recluse, Ignatius Brianchianinov, John Maximovitch and many defenders of this teaching alone!

[spyridon]

Readers,

We notice that on one or two of the "Old Calendarist" websites, the question of the "Toll-House" debate has been reopened from a quite one-sided point of view. Ordinarily, we do not respond to material that comes from "Old Calendarists," who spend much of their energy attacking each other and creating ever new schisms and ever more jurisdictions with a constant "defrocking" and excommunicating of each other. However, we are going to respond to this one.

For the first time, we learned of a curious and, to say the least, uncanonical action taken, it seems by a Synod. It is peculiar in many ways, and we are going to ask some reputable theologians to respond to it. We learned, from these "Old Calendarist" websites that a secret, clandestine "court" of some sort was held in the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad which appears to have enumerated some perceived (by them) heresies in my book, The Soul, The Body and Death. The three most peculiar aspects of this clandestine court are: (1) the accused was not a member of that jurisdiction at the time; (2) the accused was not informed that the hearing was to take place and not invited to be present to make a defence (quite uncanonical) and, (3) Bishop Gregory Grabbe had informed me somewhat earlier that he found nothing wrong with my book. In fact, it had been on sale in the Synod Bookstore, and Metropolitan Philaret of blessed memory had informed me, in the presence of Archpriest Konstantine Fedoroff, that the second edition of my book had been approved by the Russian Synod. Therefore, the action cited on the "Old Calendarist" website could only have been a vengeful and malicious action taken because I had withdrawn from the Russian Church Abroad because of some very, very serious matters relating to their mission in Juneau, Alaska and other equally serious matters. The action was, it seems, as malicious as it was anti-canonical.

I mentioned that we will present refutations of the charges made by this kangaroo court, provided by reputable theologians. In the meanwhile, we are offering to any of interested readers a free copy of The Soul, The Body and Death so that they can examine the subjects mentioned and determine if, indeed the charges have any even vague merit. I will also invite those interested to return to the website regularly to read the refutations that will appear. We will begin with the preface comments of Rev. Dr. George Papademetriou, professor of theology at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Seminary.

Moreover, since the letter on this subject, by Fr Michael Pomazansky to me, is mentioned on the "Old Calendarist" website, we are scanning that letter into this website, in its original. I want to ask you to read it carefully. Notice that in the discussion about the "Toll-House" question, Fr Michael Pomazansky clearly identifies it as an allegory, and not at all as a doctrine of faith. Note that Fr Michael says that the "toll houses" would be understood as an allegory for our own conscience, while the demons of the toll houses would be an allegory for our own evil deeds. My question in response was: if these things are allegories for something we so clearly understand, then why confuse the faithful with an allegory borrowed from Gnostic sects when we can just give them the clear, direct understanding and information. Actually, I do not see what the "Old Calendarist" sect is trying to get at mentioning this letter on their website, because it is clear that Fr Michael, in this letter, agrees precisely with what I said in my book: that the judgment takes place in our own consciences and that only our unrepented sins accuse us within our own conscience. Actually, there is more to it that this, because our salvation does not consist only in a kind of moral fascism, rather our salvation depends also upon the acquisition by us of selfless love, something which Rev Dr John Romanides speaks much about. Thus, our lack of selfless love also accuses us in our own consciences when we depart this life. This is, in fact, exactly what the "partial judgment" consists in. The judgment is called "partial" because only a part of us is present, that is, only the soul, and not the whole person. Surely not even the "Old Calendarist" sect would wish to refute so many great Holy Fathers who tell us that the soul alone is not the person, but only a part of the person. If they do, then they fall under the same condemnation that the Manicheans did, being refuted by those same Holy Fathers.

If you are interested in making an objective comparison and examination for yourself of the book The Soul, the Body and Death, please E-Mail us and we will send you a free copy. Meanwhile, let us begin the refutation of the kangaroo charges against the book with this preface of Rev. Dr. George Papademetriou, an assessment by Rev Dr S. Harakas, then Dean of Holy Cross, and assessments by Dr Alexandre Kalomiros and Fr Panagiotis Karras, and we will add considerably more later!

[spyridon]

A note from Archbishop Lazar:

The heresy at the root of the tollhouse myth is Platonism. The Platonistic view that the human soul is the "person" of man is also shared by most Gnostic sects and has been refuted by the great Fathers of the Church. While I clearly demonstrated this fact in my book The Soul, the Body and Death, it is clear that this heresy is very widespread in the Orthodox Church, and that it is not only the official doctrine of the ROCOR, as witnessed in their official "protocol," but it is also endorsed by Archbishop Chrysostom of Etna. It is astonishing that a man who believes himself to be the only truly "scholarly" thinker in the Orthodox Church does not know that this teaching is a heresy condemned by a host of holy fathers. In response to every writing which disagrees with him Archbishop Chrysostom of Etna rages, "unscholarly! unscholarly!" as if he was the only writer in the Orthodox world who is "scholarly." For him, Fr John Romanides is "unscholarly," Fr Michael Azkoul is "unscholarly," indeed, anyone who disagrees with his pontifications is "unscholarly" [sic]. In his own words, he "Chrysostomises" those who disagree with him, by which he means to justify his Billingsgate style polemic.

That the tollhouse doctrine depends on a clearly heretical doctrine of the nature of man and the relationship between the soul and the body is unquestionable. The fact that the tollhouse heresy also teaches a doctrine of supererogatory merits and contradicts the teachings of fathers such as St Antony the Great, who says:

We ought not to fear the demons or even Satan himself, for he is a liar and speaks not a word of truth...and with him are placed the demons his fellows, like serpents and scorpions to be trodden underfoot by us Christians.

And again:

But if the demons had power not even against the swine, much less have they any over men formed in the image of God. So then we ought t fear God only, and despise the demons, and be in no fear of them.1

Despite the words of St Antony, both the ROCOR and the Archbishop of Etna teach us that we should be in terror of demons. It is well known to me from discussions with the late Bishop Gregory Grabbe that he did not actually believe in the aerial tollhouses, but that he considered fear to be absolutely necessary for salvation and considered the tollhouse tale useful in generating fear. Unfortunately, he accepted the principle of fear of demons rather than the fear of God, because in all our discussions about the subject, he mentioned only the fear of demons and did not mention the fear of God once. I am sure he believed in the fear of God, but it was never clear to me why he believed that the fear of demons was somehow salutory when St Antony the Great says just the opposite. He never did answer me when I posed that question. Nevertheless, in three long conversations with Bishop Gregory about the matter, he never voiced a serious question about the contents of my book, but only said that I should reword some passages since the could lead to a misunderstanding, whereas there was actually nothing wrong with what I was saying.

How widespread the heresy about the nature of man is was brought home to me a few years ago when I was visiting a hierarch in Serbia whom I have known for many years. In the course of a conversation, he remarked that they had translated Dr Alexandre Kalomiros' outstanding work The River of Fire into Serbian. "It is an excellent writing, but we had to omit one thing in the translation. Kalomiros has a strange teaching about the relationship of the soul and body. Where did such an excellent theologian get his heresy about the soul?" I replied, "Perhaps Kalomiros has not read Plato's Phaedros." The reference was lost on the hierarch. He did not understand that I was telling him that Kalomiros was completely correct and Orthodox in his statement, while my Serbian friend was pitting Plato against the Holy Fathers without even realizing it. If the hierarch had read St Gregory Palamas, he might have wondered, "St Gregory is such a good theologian; where then did he get his heresy about the relationship of the soul and the body."

One must accord such errors to the condition of the seminaries in the Orthodox world during the last two or three centuries. I am aware that St Justin Popovic mentions the tollhouses in his work and I am also aware that St Innocent of Alaska accepted, believed and taught the merit doctrine of redemption in his Indication of the Way into the Heavenly Kingdom.2

While presenting direct refutations of the tollhouse doctrine, we must also address the root cause of the heresy, the heretical understanding of the nature of man - a heresy which, according to Bishop Gregory's report, is officially espoused by the ROCOR, and which is evidently among the heresies espoused by the Archbishop of Etna. Incidentally, we cannot help but notice that those who espouse the heretical, Gnostic "tollhouse" doctrine also teach the mentioned heresy against the nature of man and advocate a Gnostic doctrine about marriage and marital relations. It will be noted, as Fr John Romanides points out, that advocates of such Gnostic heresies are almost inevitably fanatical advocates of Augustine of Hippo. We will begin that task here with a superb article by Rev Dr George Papademetriou on Orthodox anthropology.

Incidentally, we are aware that the reference to demons as publicans (toll-collectors) occurs in patristic writings with reference to our struggle with them in this life. Fr Michael Azkoul has discussed this in a rebuttal that occurs earlier on our Website and in a preceding article in the forthcoming book A Continuing Question: the Tollhouse Debate, which contains all this material.

+Archbishop Lazar

[romiosini]

Actually, the Toll House Ascetic Teaching does not teach to fear the demons, but to fear death in general, so we can be humbled and not be victims of the Devil when we ascend to the Throne of God. Hence, Father Seraphim doesn't recite anything wrong. It is sad to know, because Archbishop Lazar openly claims that Saints Theophan the Recluse and Ignatius Brianchaninov aren't Church Fathers according to him. Archbishop Lazar even claims that Saint Basil the New (March 26) writings are lies and his experience was an hallucination. (delusion) Now I didn't know we had deluded Saints in our Synaxarion, but one thing is for sure, the New and the Old Testaments describes the astral Plane, the Air that reaches the Throne of the Most-High. And also, Saint Anthony quotes again, that we should stand strong in Faith that at the end of our lives we may be able to withstand the attacks and assaults of the Demons. So it's quite clear that the Saint meant the toll houses.