QUESTION:

2/15/2009: Can you be a Universalist and a member of an Orthodox church? I have a problem with Hell, not because I don't like it, but because I do not think this is truly what Christ taught and that He used an already existing concept (inherited from pagans) to make a point, as he often did in His parables. Hell is noticeably absent from the OT and then we first hear of it on the lips of Jesus, but it is historical fact that He did not invent this language, but Hell was already a concept used by the Romans. From what I have read too, there are a few church fathers that were Universalists, one of whom was a direct descendant of John (was it Ignatius?). I am not currently a member of an Orthodox church, but I have been studying your faith lately and I am falling in love with it. I was just curious if one could believe in Universalism and still become a member of an Orthodox church. Thank you for your time.

ANSWER:

This is a common question. Orthodox Christians often understand hell (Gehenna, not Hades) as the experience of the love of God by those who hate it, reject it, and perceive it as suffering. As the Orthodox sing at Pascha (from the Psalm), "Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered and let them that hate Him flee ... As smoke vanisheth so let them vanish, as wax melteth before the fire! ... So let sinners perish at the presence of God and let the righteous be glad!" It is the same presence of the love of God, since God is love, that is experience as fire by the wicked and a cause of rejoicing by the righteous. As for Univesalism, it was certainly taught by Origen (who was lateron condemned for various speculations) and by Saint Gregory of Nyssa who was never condemned for it. It remain somewhat popular among some Orthodox theologians but it is by no means the normative Orthodox viewpoint. The Biblical data and Patristic consensus seems to refute Universalism and the understand of hell proposed above is satisfactory to most Orthodox. As a wise monk put it, "hell exists because what you are and what you do really matters."

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