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_pq0200700105000arc_pht-resize-700xMy attention was piqued by the attribution of the word ‘Purgatory’ to an Alexandrian of the fourth century. The word itself is of Latin derivation, and I can find no genuine case of it being used before the fifth century. It is clearly an attempt to apply the concept to whatever word Cyril used, but it cannot have meant for him what it meant to a Latin Rite Catholic writing in 1936.  I am still unable to source the quotation, but I am able to say what Cyril thought happened after death. He thought that when we died some went to heaven and some to hell, so when he refers to whatever word a much later author translated as ‘Purgatory’ he is referring to the fires of hell. There was, and remains, no concept of ‘purgatory’ as it exist in the Western Church in the churches of the East. As Pope Innocent IV (1243-54) acknowledged:

Since the Greeks say that their Doctors have not given them a definite and proper name for the place of such purification, We, following the tradition and authority of the holy Fathers, call that place purgatory; and it is our will that the Greeks use that name in the future.

When the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Kiev came into communion with Rome in 1595 it was agreed:

5.—We shall not debate about purgatory, but we entrust ourselves to the teaching of the Holy Church.

The Church, as opposed to individuals within it, has been very cautious in what it says about Purgatory, and much of what Geoffrey and others think is doctrine, is actually a matter of opinion: the Church has never defined Purgatory as an actual place; neither has it stated that it is a place of torment. So what is it? It is a process of purification for those whose souls as still stained with sin. What, Geoffrey will ask, is the Blood of the Lamb not enough? Of course it is, that is why these souls are not already in Hell.

The notion of our sins being burnt away is, if one accepts Catholic teaching, in Scripture, although as Geoffrey shows, one can choose to read them in anohter fashion. But the testimony of the Fathers (including St Cyril) that one’s sins needed burning away (which is where the idea of fire came from) is so unanimous that one has to ask why the Reformers of the sixteenth century thought they knew better?

The Eastern Orthodox, whilst hotly denying they believe in Purgatory do believe in an intermediate state known as ‘Hades’ in which, after the particular judgement which occurs after death, the blessed souls bound for Heaven will be purified before the General Judgement on the Last day. This, they say, is not Purgatory. Well, they can call it what they will, it is in no way incompatible with what the Catholic Church teaches.

Now, it may be correct, as Geoffrey and other Protestants say, that the teaching of the whole of the ancient Church (those who called the intermediate state purgatory and those who do not) is wrong, and they alone are right. But the Catholics and the Orthodox do not say we are not saved by the Blood of the Lamb – for assuredly we are. What they do say is that Holy Scripture and experience give us cause to believe that when we die, not all those wom we might think are bound for hell, are actually going there. That seems to me a line quite compatible with the God of mercy in whom we all believe.