I do. The part about "everything that happens to anyone touches me also" (community....God's love binding us all back together).....and affliction maturing us......even purifying us (that's how I read "made fit for God by that affliction")....all appears to me to be describing universal reconciliation.....an eventual restoration of all.
That's what I used to think, too. That's not the sort of universal reconciliation I believe in, though. This is what I'm inclined to believe (what Gregory of Nyssa described):
>>>In the
Great Catechism, Gregory suggests that while every human will be
resurrected, salvation will only be accorded to the
baptised, although he also states that others driven by their passions can be saved after being purified by fire.
[56] While he believes that there will be no more evil in the hereafter, it is arguable that this does not preclude a belief that God might justly damn sinners for eternity.
[57] Thus,
the main difference between Gregory's conception of ἀποκατάστασις and that of Origen would be that Gregory believes that mankind will be collectively returned to sinlessness, whereas Origen believes that personal salvation will be universal.[57] This interpretation of Gregory has been criticized recently, however.
[58]Indeed, this interpretation is explicitly contradicted in the "Great Catechism" itself, for at the end of chapter XXXV Gregory declares that those who have not been purified by water through baptism will be purified by fire in the end, so that "their nature may be restored pure again to God".
[59] Furthermore, in the next chapter (ch. XXXVI), Gregory says that those who are purified from evil will be admitted into the "heavenly company".
[60]
Attempting to reconcile these disparate positions,
Eastern Orthodox theologian Dr. Mario Baghos notes that "when taken at face value the saint seems to be contradicting himself in these passages; on the one hand he asserted the salvation of all and the complete eradication of evil, and, on the other, that the fire needed to purge evil is ‘sleepless’, i.e. everlasting. The only solution to this inconsistency is to view any allusion to universal salvation in St Gregory as an expression of God’s intention for humanity, which is in fact attested to when his holy sister states that God has “one goal […] some straightway even in this life purified from evil, others
healed hereafter
through fire for the appropriate length of time.” That we can choose either to accept or ignore this purification is confirmed by the saint’s many exhortations that we freely undertake the virtuous path."
[61] Dr. Ilaria Ramelli has made the observation that for Gregory free will was compatible with universal salvation, since every person would eventually accept the good having gone through purification.
[58] Gregory of Nyssa - Wikipedia
Universal reconciliation has not been considered heretical or else many of the saints wouldn't be considered saints any longer.....would they?
As far as I know....Origen's version (with the idea of pre-existent souls) is the only form of universalism that's been deemed heretical in the Orthodox church.
