The strange, sad case of the defrocked deacon, Lev Puhalo

Evfimy · Post by **Evfimy** » Sat 9 February 2008 3:09 pm

I agree with Archbishop Lazar's teachings against the toll houses. Father Seraphim was wrong (yes even saintly people can be wrong). No single one person in Orthodoxy is infallible. We have no room for papism here.

Helen · Post by **Helen** » Sun 10 February 2008 12:24 am

I'm still looking for the Church of the Saints I read so much about when I became Orthodox. Where is it?

It might be in your head. Reality and our ideals are not always in sync.

Evfimy · Post by **Evfimy** » Sun 10 February 2008 1:20 am

Helen wrote:
I'm still looking for the Church of the Saints I read so much about when I became Orthodox. Where is it?

It might be in your head. Reality and our ideals are not always in sync.

Surely you don't believe that. Of course the Church still exists.

Helen · Post by **Helen** » Sun 10 February 2008 8:09 am

Of course the Church exists - only perhaps our ideas of the Church might not be consistent with what it actually is - is my point .

jckstraw72 · Post by **jckstraw72** » Mon 11 February 2008 1:34 am

I agree with Archbishop Lazar's teachings against the toll houses. Father Seraphim was wrong (yes even saintly people can be wrong). No single one person in Orthodoxy is infallible. We have no room for papism here.

so innumerable Saints and Church services are just wrong? how have they gotten so off track then?

joasia · Post by **joasia** » Mon 11 February 2008 11:20 pm

Fr. Seraphim did not follow false conceptions. He relied on the writings of the holy fathers. Below are a few examples of the understanding that there is a judgement at many stages; even the Theotokos' soul was taken by Christ, in order to show that she could not be touched by the attacks of the demons where they wait for the souls to pass.

"O Virgin, in the hour of my death rescue me from the hand of the demons, and the judgment, and the accusation, and the frightful testing, and the bitter toll-houses and the fierce prince, and the eternal condemnation, O Mother of God." (Tone 4, Friday, 8th Canticle of the Canon at Matins.)

St. Athanasius the Great, in his famous life of St. Antony, describes the following: "At the approach of the ninth hour, after beginning to pray before eating food, Antony was suddenly seized by the Spirit and raised up by angels into the heights. The aerial demons opposed his progress: the angels disputing with them, demanded that the reason of their opposition be set forth, because Antony had no sins at all. The demons strove to set forth the sins committed by him from his very birth; but the angels closed the mouths of the slanderers, telling them that they should not count the sins from his birth which had already been blotted out by the grace of Christ; but let them present -- if they have any -- the sins he committed after he entered monasticism and dedicated himself to God. In their accusation the demons uttered many brazen lies; but since their slanders were wanting in proof, a free path opened for Antony. Immediately he came to himself and saw that he was standing in the same place where he had stood for prayer. Forgetting about food, he spent the night in prayer with tears and groanings, reflecting on the multitude of man's enemies, on the battle against such an army, on the difficultly of the path to heaven through the air, and on the words of the Apostle who said: 'Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers of the air' (Eph 6:12; Eph 2:2).

St. John Chrysostom, describing the hour of death, teaches: "Then we will need many prayers, many helpers, many good deeds, a great intercession from angels on the journey through the spaces of the air. If when traveling in a foreign land or a strange city we are in need of a guide, how much more necessary for us are guides and helpers to guide us past the invisible dignities and powers and world-rulers of this air, who are called persecutors and publicans and tax-collectors."

St. Isaiah the Recluse (6th century) teaches that Christians should "daily have death before our eyes and take care how to accomplish the departure from the body and how to pass by the powers of darkness who are to meet us in the air."

St. Hesychius, Presbyter of Jerusalem (5th century) teaches: The hour of death will find us, it will come, and it will be impossible to escape it. Oh, if only the prince of the world and the air who is then to meet us might find our iniquities as nothing and insignificant and might not be able to accuse us justly."

St. Ephraim the Syrian (4th century) thus describes the hour of death and the hour of judgment at the toll-houses: "When the fearful hour comes, when the divine takers-away command the soul to be translated from the body, when they draw us away by force and lead us away to the unavoidable judgment place -- then, seeing them, the poor man comes all into a shaking as if from an earthquake, is all in trembling. The divine takers-away, taking the soul, ascend in the air where stand the chiefs, the authorities and world-rulers of the opposing powers. These are our accusers, the fearful publicans, registrars, tax-collectors; they meet it on the way, register, examine and count all the sins and debts of this man -- the sins of youth and old age, voluntary and involuntary, committed in deed, word and thought. Great is the fear here, great the trembling of the poor soul, indescribable the want which it suffers then from the incalculable multitudes of its enemies surrounding it there in myriads, slandering it so as not to allow it to ascend to heaven, to dwell in the light of the living, to enter the land of life. But the holy angels, taking the soul, lead it away."

Probably the clearest and most comprehensive account of the toll-houses is that given by an angel of the Lord to St. Macarius of Egypt: "From the earth to heaven there is a ladder and a each rung has a cohort of demons. These are called toll-houses and the evil spirits meet the soul and bring its handwritten accounts and show these to the angels, saying: on this day and such and such of the month this soul did that: either it stole or fornicated or committed adultery or engaged in sodomy or lied or encouraged someone to an evil deed. And everything else evil which it has done, they show to the angels. Then angels then show whatever good the soul has done, charity or prayer or liturgies or fasting or anything else. And the angels and the demons reckon up, and if they find the good greater than the evil, the angels seize the soul and take it up the next rung, while the demons gnash their teeth like wild dogs and make haste the snatch that pitiable soul from the hands of the Angels. The soul, meanwhile, cowers and terror encompasses it, and it makes as if to hide in the bosom of the Angels and there is a great discussion and must turmoil until that soul is delivered from the hands of the demons. And they come again to another rung and there find another toll-house, fiercer and more horrible. And in this too, there is much uproar and great and indescribable turbulence as to who shall take that wretched soul. And shouting out aloud, the demons examine the soul, causing terror and saying: 'Where are you going? Aren't you the one who fornicated and thoroughly polluted Holy Baptism? Aren't you the one who polluted the angelic habit? Get back. Get down. Get yourself to dark Hell. Get yourself to the outer fire. Get going to that worm that never sleeps.' Then if it be that that soul is condemned, the demons bear it off to below the earth, to a dark and distressing spot. And woe to that soul in which that person was born. And who shall tell, holy Father, the straits in which the condemned souls will find themselves in that place! But if the soul is found clean and sinless, it goes up the Heaven with such joy."

Descriptions of the aerial toll-houses may also be found in the following Saints' lives: St. Eustratius the Great Martyr (4th century), St. Niphon of Constantia in Cyprus (4th century), St. Symeon the Fool for Christ (6th century), St. John the Merciful (7th century), St Symeon of the Wondrous Mountain (7th century), St. Macarius the Great (4th century), St. Columba (6th century), St. Adamnan (8th century), St. Boniface (8th century), St. Basil the New (10th century), the Soldier Taxiotes, St. John of the Ladder (6th century), etc.

This very ancient teaching of the early Church Fathers and ascetic Saints is confirmed by the experience and teaching of saints more modern. St. Seraphim of Sarov relates: "Two nuns passed on. Both had been abbesses. The Lord revealed to me that their souls were having difficulty getting through the aerial toll-houses. Three days and nights, I, a lowly sinner, prayed and begged the Mother of God for their salvation. The goodness of the Lord, through the prayers of the Most Holy Mother of God, finally had mercy upon them. They passed the aerial toll-houses and received forgiveness of sins."