no prob bob.
also, i did a paper on life after death in which I compiled a list of all the notable names I could find from the last 200 years who have taught the toll houses. I chose to go with modern Saints and elders because another student in the same class was doing a paper exclusively on the toll houses so he dealt with them more indepth, and because these Saints and elders have the benefit of 1800 years of Tradition to look back on and see what the Church has been teaching. We could argue all day long about whether or not St. Basil and St. John and St. Ephraim, etc taught the toll houses, but then we could just look and see what the modern Saints have to say about it. Here is the list:
• St. Seraphim of Sarov: “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.”
• St. Theophan the Recluse: “No matter how absurd the idea of the toll-houses may seem to our ‘wise men,’ they will not escape passing through them.”
• St. Ignatius Brianchaninov: “The teaching of the toll-houses is the teaching of the Church.”
• St. Macarius of Moscow (1879-1882): After quoting numerous examples of Church Fathers who taught the toll-houses he says, “Such an uninterrupted, constant, and universal usage in the Church of the teaching of the toll-houses, especially among the teachers of the 4th century, indisputably testifies that it was handed down to them from the teachers of the preceding centuries and is founded on apostolic tradition.”
• St. Barsanuphius of Optina: “Pray to the Mother of God. She will intercede for you in this life, and, after death, she will help you pass through the tollhouses and reach the heavenly Kingdom.”
• St. John of Kronstadt: He teaches the toll-houses according to Elder Ephraim’s Counsels From the Holy Mountain, p. 436.
• St. Nikolai Veilmirović: “O, let no one speak of the happiness of tomorrow's day. Behold, yet this night your soul may depart your body and tomorrow you will find yourself surrounded by black demons in the tollhouses!”
• St. John Maximovitch: On the third after death the soul “passes through legions of evil spirits which obstruct its path and accuse it of various sins, to which they themselves had tempted it. According to various revelations there are twenty such obstacles, the so-called "toll-houses," at each of which one or another form of sin is tested.”
• St. Justin Popović: Volume 3 of his Dogmatics of the Orthodox Church (1980) contains the toll-house teaching.
• Elder Michal of Valaam: “I knew that [the tailor] expected a gift; for a gift he would do anything and he would both know how to do it and do it. But I also know that for even the smallest participation in this type of work – that is, bribe and gratuity – I would have to answer for sin when I go through the toll houses; and so I left him with nothing. One must have caution so as not to give others an example and participate in sins.”
• Archbishop Theophan of Poltava (ROCOR): A young man who had reposed appeared to the Archbishop and asked him to pray for him to pass safely through the toll-houses, which he did. The man appeared again later to thank the Archbishop and to ask him to offer prayers of thanksgiving.
• Elder Cleopa of Sihastria: “If you confess thoroughly before your death, your soul is saved. As the soul passes through the tollhouses, any sins that were absolved by the priest on earth have been erased from the record by the Holy Spirit.”
• Elder Porphyrios: “I didn’t want to think about hell and about tollgates. I didn’t remember my sins, although I had many. I set them aside. I remembered only the love of God and was glad.”
• Elder Paisios: “When a soul is prepared and ascends to Heaven, the toll booths can't bother it. However, if it is not prepared, it is tortured by the toll booths. Sometimes God allows the toll houses to be seen for the soul of a person who needs it, at the hour in which it is in agony, to help us who are still alive, that we might struggle to pay our debts here. Do you remember the event with Theodora? God's compassion, in other words, allowed some things to be seen, to help others to repent.”
• Fr. Seraphim Rose: "For some sixteen centuries the Fathers of the Church have spoken of the toll-houses as a part of the Orthodox ascetic teaching, the final and decisive stage of the "unseen warfare" which each Christian wages upon earth. For the same period of time numerous Lives of Saints and other Orthodox texts have described the actual experiences of Orthodox Christians, both Saints and sinners, who have encountered these toll-houses after death (and sometimes before). It is obvious to all but the youngest children that the name of "toll-house" is not to be taken literally; it is a metaphor which the Eastern Fathers have thought appropriate for describing the reality which the soul encounters after death. It is also obvious to all that some of the elements in the descriptions of these toll-houses are metaphorical or figurative. The accounts themselves, however, are neither "allegories" nor "fables," but straightforward accounts of personal experiences in the most adequate language at the disposal of the teller."
• Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica: “In this world it is possible for a person to expend great effort and labor for the good of his fellow men, yet for his soul to remain soiled without sin. A person can pass through most of the toll-houses, yet to be pushed into the abyss as he reaches the toll-house of mercy, for in spite of all his efforts he failed to notice that his heart was firmly bound to the power of hades … Such a person is under the rule of the spirits of wickedness, according to the level of his unmercifulness. Even during his earthly life he is in their power. When his soul departs his body, such a person will be in their power.”
• Hieromartyr Daniel Sysoev: “When a person dies he is met by angels. The angels of God help a person while demons attack him and intimidate him … The demons detain those at the toll houses who are attached to the earth, those who think too much about the earthly.”
• Fr. Michael Pomazansky: “Based on these indications of Sacred Scripture, from antiquity the Holy Fathers of the Church have depicted the path of the soul after its separation from the body as a path through such spiritual expanses, where the dark powers seek to devour those who are weak spiritually … The path of the soul after its departure from the body is customarily called the “toll houses.”
• Archbishop Nathanael of Vienna and Austria (ROCOR): He conveys the traditional teaching that Christ received the soul of the Theotokos because she prayed to be spared the vision of the toll-house demons.
• Bishop Alexander (Mileant) of Buenos Aires (ROCOR): “These wandering spirits of the heavens upon seeing a soul led by an angel approach it from all sides reproaching it for sins committed throughout its life. Being extremely insolent, they attempt to frighten the soul, bring it to despair and thus take hold of it. During this trial the Guardian Angel bolsters the soul and defends it.”
• Archimandrite Panteleimon (Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville): “When the Christian soul, led by the holy angels, begins its ascent to heaven, then the spirits of darkness remind it of all its sins which have not been made up for by penance.”
• Constantine Cavarnos: He teaches that the calling to account of the toll-houses is a test of the imperfect soul by demons who reproach it with its many sins. The toll-houses are taught in his The Future Life According to the Orthodox Church, pp. 23-30.
• Met. Hierotheos Vlachos: “According to the teaching of the Fathers of the Church, the soul … senses the presence of the demons who are called customs demons, and is possessed with fear because of having to pass through customs … The holy Fathers teach all these things not from their imagination, but from enlightening experiences. Sometimes other holy men have revealed these things to them, and at other times they themselves, illumined by God, have had such frightening experiences.”
• Met. Kallistos Ware: “It is the normal teaching in the Orthodox Church that, during the period immediately following death, the soul, accompanied by the guardian angel, passes through a series of twenty-two telonia, celestial toll or custom houses … This teaching about the toll houses has early origins; while not a dogma of the Church, it is far more than mere legend or pious opinion.”
• Elder Ephraim of Philotheou and Arizona: “Keep this struggle constantly in mind; think and note that we also have to pass the aerial toll-houses which impede souls from ascending as they present the deeds of our life in order to obstruct our souls’ ascent and drag them down into Hades.”
• Archimandrite Zacharias Zachariou: Rdr. Andreas Moran relates: “when my late wife died, Archimandrite Zacharias said, 'her soul went straight up - no hindrance'. Being blessed with much grace, this must mean either that she did not endure passage through the toll houses or that the demons had nothing in her.”
• Archimandrite Vasilios Bakogiannis: “the toll-houses are for those who leave this world in a lukewarm, torpid mortal state. They are for those whose flight from this world takes place in the winter of passions or on a Sabbath (Matthew 24, 20) (i.e. without having cultivated the virtues).”
• Fr. Thomas Hopko: “So, my opinion is that the teaching is that, when a person dies, a huge battle, it's the last battle, in a sense, to see whether that person really does believe in God, and accepts the grace of God and the forgiveness of God, or whether they cling to their demons, cling to their sins and passions … it's a very old teaching; you find the teaching about toll houses is in practically every Church Father: you find it in Saint John Chrysostom, you find it in John of the Ladder; the first development of it was in Saint Cyril of Alexandria.
• Nikolaos P. Vassiliadis: at death “the soul undergoes a detailed and thorough examination by the demons since an invisible but relentless warfare is waged between the good and the evil angels for the soul’s possession.”
• Vassily Boshchanovskiy: “The universal faith of the Church in the reality of the personal judgment after death finds its illustrative depiction in the Church Patristic teaching about the toll houses beyond the grave.”
• Fr. Artemy Vladimirov: He relates how happening upon the Tale of St. Theodora led him to offer his first confession and a dramatic conversion to faith in Christ at the age of 18.
• Fr. Maximos of Simonopetra (formerly Nicholas Constas): “The tradition of the tollgates was firmly established throughout the east long before the end of late antiquity.”
• Vladimir Moss: “The doctrine of the toll-houses, of the particular judgement [sic] of souls after death, is indeed a fearful doctrine. But it is a true and salutary and Orthodox one. Let us therefore gather this saving fear into our souls, in accordance with the word: “Remember thine end, and thou shalt never sin” (Sirach 7.36).
• Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna: “A number of poor scholars and pseudo-scholars alike have, over the past several decades, made a case against the Orthodox Church's teaching on life after death, and especially the "toll house" image used by some Fathers and in many of our worship services. Misrepresenting the Fathers, ignoring liturgical and theological evidence, and overstating their case, some of these critics have made of various theologoumena, unfortunately, matters of intense debate. Likewise misusing philosophy, misrepresenting the Patristic use of classical philosophical ideas and images, and attributing, with a naiveté that would embarrass a first-year philosophy student in the most mediocre of schools, they pontificate about neo-Gnosticism and neo-Platonic influences on Orthodox thinking, artlessly using the very arguments against the teachings to which they object that the most polemical Westerners have used against the Eastern Fathers.”
references can be found here: hhttp://oldbelieving.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/from-repose-to-resurrection-the-intermediate-state-of-souls/
