Yes, the verses that there shall be no more tears, and the lion shall lie down with the lamb. Also, the resurrection or restoration of irrational beasts, which is the Patristic term used for animals, is nowhere denied. The specific view that everything shall be restored is Apokatasis, and it is most closely associated with Origen, St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Isaac the Syrian, and as a concept is related to, but distinct from, Universalism, but the view all cats shall be saved is more widely held in Orthodoxy by a number of famous monks who have no association with anything remotely resembling universalism.
For example, the great 19th century Russian monk, bishop, writer and abbot, St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, whose book The Arena is considered one of the best works of instruction for Orthodox monastics, and of interest to laity wanting to learn more about Hesychasm, unseen (spiritual) warfare, continual prayer without ceasing, prelest (spiritual delusion), eschatology, hamartiology, mystical theology, and related topics, and conversely, whose book On The Prayer of Jesus is a simple, easy to follow guide on the use and spiritual benefits of the Jesus Prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have Mercy on Me, a Sinner”), which is an easy prayer to learn to say continually, was known for saying that all cats are saved.
Another leader in the Hesychast tradition, the Greek Orthodox monk St. Paisios, once reflected “My mind tells me that even the animals are better than me; so, I humble myself and obey them. Very early this morning, being tired from praying all night and exhausted because of my illness, I lay down to rest. After a while, I heard a kitten meowing outside my cell as if she needed something. I really wanted to rest, but I humbled myself and went against my own will. I obeyed the kitten and replied to her calling. I went to open the door. It had started to rain and I let her in so she wouldn’t get wet. What do you think then? Should I obey the animals or not? My thoughts tell me I should.”
More recently, another great Russian Orthodox monastic writer, Fr. Seraphim Rose, who wrote a brilliant book criticizing Nihilist philosophy and showing how it underpins materialism, secularism, communism, fascism and Nazism, and another, Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, published in the mid 1970s, in which he extrapolated based on the present trends of that era the dangers of corrupt Hindu gurus, yogis, UFO cults, and charismatic cults, anticipating the scandals associated with the Bhagwan Rajneesh in the 1980s, and Bikram Yoga more recently, both the subject of excellent Netflix documentaries, and the Heaven’s Gate UFO suicide cult, which was headline news in 1997, and which HBO recently did a good documentary on, as well as the notorious weight loss cult “The Way Down” whose leader died when her business jet crashed in early 2021, but not before she started a cult that entailed the physical abuse of children among other horrors under the guise of a Christian weight loss regimen, promoted, like most cults, on Oprah. He also wrote a book, The Soul After Death, which goes into detail on one of the two prevailing theories among Eastern Orthodox theologians about soteriology and eschatology, but which is very Orthodox specific. He once had this conversation with his monk:
‘Fr Herman recalls a quiet moment when he was with Fr Seraphim [Rose] and their animals came up to them: Svir [the monastery dog] looking up devotedly and wagging his tail, and a lovely, white-pawed cat named Kisa standing quietly by.
“From your point of view,” Fr Herman asked in a reflective mood, “what are animals all about?”
Fr Seraphim replied: “They have something to do with Paradise.”’
Here are some more quotes from Orthodox fathers about animals and plant life (notice the very early dating on some of them), including the famous pet bear of St. Seraphim of Sarov, not to be confused with Fr Seraphim Rose.
St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, St. Paisios and Fr. Seraphim Rose all regarded universalism as a heresy, and did not, as far as I am aware, entertain or hope for apokatastasis, whereas in contrast Metropolitan Kallistos Ware has said and written that one might hope that all may be saved, provided one does not say all must be saved, because the one thing God cannot do is force us to love him. This stands in marked contrast to the Reformed theology I used to embrace, but I think it is correct, because God is love, and there is an ontological difference between voluntary love and love imposed by divine decree; with humans, one could ask if such love was even love - of course, God, being omnipotent, could prevent us from asking the question, but if that kind of intervention in our actions were occurring, we would arguably not be able to discuss this issue (of course, to the extent God does intervene in human affairs, his interventions are perfect, beneficent and generally transparent, except to those who may have prayed for it or be in a position to spiritually discern the miraculous; I have also, in moving from a Reformed to a Patristic-Wesleyan theology (where the otherwise polar opposites of Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism find themselves in agreement) come to believe these interventions do not violate free will, or, more specifically, they do not force us to love or to hate God, or to accept Him or reject Him; this decision, as to whether to be a Christian or a misotheist or atheist, I feel is voluntary. Or as CS Lewis put it, “the gates of Hell are locked on the inside.”
Of course, I could be wrong, but I do think Wesley, and before him, Arminius, and before them, all of the Greek, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Georgian and Ethiopian Church Fathers, and most of the Latin ones, unequivocally supported free will, with only St. Augustine equivocating on the matter, but I think Augustinian theology tends to be flawed wherever he sought to take on the heretic Pelagius. Pelagius taught that we can of our own accord live sinlessly and be saved, without the assistance of divine grace or the Holy Spirit, which is total heresy contrary to virtually the entire Bible. Original sin is an obvious scriptural truth, but some aspects of the Augustinian model do not work as well as alternatives put forward by another Latin father, St. John Cassian, whose approach is followed in the Eastern churches.
That said, I do venerate St. Augustine, I just think the specific model he used for original sin, that it is transmitted through sexual intercourse, like what we now call an STD, is carnal and creates more problems than it solves; St. John Cassian instead taught that original sin was hereditary. Both Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, while recognizing that St. Mary needed Christ as her savior, believe she was herself not guilty of sin, but since Roman Catholicism uses the Augustinian model of original sin, this required the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. I came to understand that in Reformed theology, someone, I used to think John Calvin, but my friend
@hedrick has been changing my opinions on Calvin, may have taken the Augustinian model too far, to the extent that some Reformed theologians accuse Methodists, Roman Catholics, or even Lutherans of being Pelagian or Semi-Pelagianism, and Eastern Orthodoxy is thought of as being fully Pelagian by a subset of these theologians, which is of course untrue.
By the way, Roman Catholic saints have some lovely things to say on animals as well (notice that some of the quotes in this article overlap the Orthodox article; the Catholic and Orthodox churches were formally united until the late eleventh century, when Rome excommunicated the Eastern bishops for refusing to acknowledge Papal supremacy; in the past century, ecumenical relations between the two have greatly improved, to the point where some dare to hope of reunion).
There are also countless Protestants who believe in the salvation of animals, I myself being one of them, but alas I lack the time to find good listings on a denominational level, also, in the US, many Anglican/Episcopalian churches do a Blessing of Animals on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, blurring the lines between Protestantism and Catholicism.
In Russia, they even participate in a daily procession of the Cross.
Also, here is a photo of a monk with some of the thousands and thousands of cats on Mount Athos:
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