Hmmm... Good question. It seems to me that one is never "done" with being perfected (purified) even once in heaven. After death, perhaps there is no battle to be fought, but some kind of purification/perfecting process would seem to have to be going to on. But that doesn't mean they aren't in heaven. They are in the presence of God, they are among the saved... the battle is over, but process is never over- it is just... different.
I THINK you could say something like that as an Orthodox. Being purified doesn't mean that you are still sinning and trying not to sin... it can just mean that 1) the damage that was done to you by sin is being undone and more importantly 2) we are growing continually closer to God. I can't imagine number "2" above ever stopping. It doesn't make sense to me. As an Orthodox the first thing you learn is that one's relationship with God is NEVER stagnant. It never stands still... so there is no completely perfected point at which God says: Okay, I'm done... you are now perfect and there is nothing more to be done with you. (Correct me anyone if I am wrong here). You are either falling from God or coming closer to him. Well, if we are in Heaven after death, it can't be that we are ever falling farther from Him (in that way, I suppose, we ARE made perfect) so we have to be continually growing closer to Him. Is this not purification?
Anyhow, some Orthodox believe (and are perfectly welcome to believing) that right after death you are in heaven. No middle period. No intense period. You jsut go to Heaven or Hell. But in Heaven we will then be living an eternity of growing closer to Christ, which is, it would seem to me, nothing less than "purification".
I may personally believe different than this, but I would never tell an Orthdoox that they are wrong in their believe, and the OC would not tell them this either. I suppose the OC is more concerned with what one CANNOT believe in this isntance (an many other). Most doctrine and dogma are constructed to refute what we CANNOT believe (ie, heresies... this is made apparent when we look at the Councils).
It seems that the Catholic Church, while not saying that Purgatory is necessarily a physical place, it is a specific state, different from that of Heaven. An Orthodox however might say that that purification you talk about IS heaven itself (and perhaps this explains how we can say that there are certain Saints we believe to have reached Heaven while still physically alive on earth). It doesn't seem that the Catholic Church would jive with that (not the "Saint in Heaven" thing but the diea that a separate state apart from Heaven does NOT exist). It's such a blurring of the lines that if the RC did accept such an idea, it renders the Dogma/Doctrine of Purgatory pretty much useless. In such a case, I would ask, why was the doctrine formed in the first place... to protect what? That's not really a challenge. For, I suspect that it was formed to protect the idea that we must pray for the departed and, in a scholastically driven society, people needed reasons for their actions... to understand "Why should I pray for someone if they are already in Heaven?" Answer: "You don't, you pray for someone because they are not YET in Heaven." (pretty compelling reason, I must add).
In the East, such a question isn't really relevant. But if someone asked it, I imagine the answer(s) would be something like these:
1) "Apart from knowing that there is heaven and hell, life after death is quite a mystery... so we don't know what's going on"
2) and most importantly "Because we're Christians and it is our God-given duty to love all mankind and the greatest way we can possible show our love for them is to pray for them. God will do as He wills with those prayers... but we are assured that a sincere prayer is never wasted."
However ambiguous those answers may seem, they have indeed been enough to maintain very strongly the practices of interceding for the dead. A small prayer service (a Panakhida) is always offered for the deceased Orthodox 40 days after and on the anniversiary of the death. And, on a personal level, candles are lit in a special place and personal prayers are offered on a regular basis for the departed loved one. This isn't just a practice that exists in the books or among monks or in remote areas of Russia and Greece. This is Tradition is kept from the ethnic to the most "converty" Orthodox parish out there (if they expect to be taken seriously as Orthodox). It's an expectation that is not to be taken lightly.
Perhaps in the West, a more specific dogma (even if too specific) was needed to keep a society, which was becoming increasingly scholastic, praying for the dead. Perhaps they needed some tangible reason, and perhaps, for that reason, such a dogma/doctrine was a God-given because it would certainly be a tragedy if remembering the dead were ever to become a relic in the museum of past practices (nice little visual, eh?).
For that reason, it really doesn't bother me PERSONALLY that Rome holds this idea of Purgatory. The West has to deal with Her own demons... and the East, equally, Her own. For me it's not a reason to be divided. So what if there is a little bit of discord on this issue? As long as Rome can one day say "Okay, this, actually, is a Western theologuma (theological opinion) that helps us make sense out of prayer for the dead. There is no reason for the East to define it any way that we have"... then fine. (I don't think this will happen... but if it did, then cool).
The important thing, in the end, would be that we both believe that it is our duty to remember the dead and never lose faith in prayer. We hold that in common and I think that's what matters.
I've blabbed enough. Nothing like those stream of consciousness posts, eh? lol
God bless,
John
