how many levels are there in heaven?Eastern Orthodox please

The only thing close to that is that we believe that heaven is not static. By that I mean that our experience changes throughout eternity. That is not because God changes - He is completely perfect and is not subject to change - but because we are finite and are subject to change. Since God is eternal and we are not, there is no end to how much more we can come to know God, and there is no end to how much we can be conformed to His likeness.

davidthegreek said:

is there such a doctrine in the easter Orthodox church?

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"Levels of Heaven" is an ancient Hellenistic concept, which presupposes a geocentric model of the universe. It posits that the various celestial objects in the sky are somehow part of a series of concentric spheres, which rotate and thus give motion to the planets and stars. Each "level" of heaven is the space between two given spheres, or perhaps the spheres themselves.

So when St. Paul uses the expression, "caught up to the third heaven", I would assume he is speaking of the perceived height he was caught up to, rather than relaying his travels through a "spiritual realm" named the Third Heaven.

Some popular Neo-Platonic religions (evangelicals in America tend to wash them all as 'the Gnostics' due to a lack of philosophical/historical context) believed that one passed through the celestial spheres in order to henotically merge with their monadic singularity god.

Many Christian and quasi-Christian groups today, especially those who practice forms of angel worship, believe that Paul's mention of the Third Heaven dogmatizes the existence of a multi-tiered, mappable celestial realm.

None of this has any doctrinal basis in Orthodox Christianity, except perhaps as fodder for old-timey didactic imagery (I.E. heaven/God and the trials and tribulations of the fallen cosmos represented by the various spheres), or loving speculation on what the Angelic life is like.

Orthodox sometimes refer to those who have fallen asleep as being in Heaven, I.E. that the reposed are with God. Although we believe in Angels and an Angelic "realm", we do no believe that it is some mappable plane of existence with levels and whatnot corresponding to some spiritualized Ptolemaic model of the cosmos.

We also confess the Resurrection of the Dead and the life of the Coming Age. We do not believe that we spend eternity as disembodied minds or that the Coming Age is far off in a place called "heaven". That is paganism.

Knee V said:

The only thing close to that is that we believe that heaven is not static. By that I mean that our experience changes throughout eternity. That is not because God changes - He is completely perfect and is not subject to change - but because we are finite and are subject to change. Since God is eternal and we are not, there is no end to how much more we can come to know God, and there is no end to how much we can be conformed to His likeness.

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I really hope that's true because it sounds like a beautiful experience.

davidthegreek said:

is there such a doctrine in the easter Orthodox church?

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There are NO levels of heaven. When you are in, you are in!

In 2 Corth. 12:1-3 Paul speaks of a third heaven. What did he mean by this?

Although stated in an anonymous fashion (v. 2), it appears clear that Paul spoke of himself when discussing his vision of the third heaven. In it, he made reference to the cultural idea that included three levels of "heaven."

1).The first level referred to the sky.

2). The second level referred to the night skies or what we would call outer space.

3). The third heaven referred to the unseen heaven where God dwells with His people.

The Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons teach that there are more than one level of heaven but those are denominational teachings and have NO Biblical support.

While there are many views of heaven and the afterlife found in cultural and religious teachings, the Bible presents only two places in the afterlife—heaven and hell—and does not teach multiple levels of heaven. All of God's people will dwell in God's presence forever.