Do our prayers help the dead in Orthodox perspective?

Can I influence the posthumous fate of a deceased loved one through prayer?

Answer:

There are opinions in Church Tradition on this matter that differ greatly from each other.

First of all, we remember the words of Christ: “He who hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24). From this point of view, it is clear that a Christian already has eternal life and does not need any prayers after death to change his fate.

At the same time, no one can be sure that after baptism, which washed us from our old sins, we did not have time to pick up new ones. This means that a place in the Kingdom of Heaven is not guaranteed for us at all. Based on this, the Church suggests praying for all deceased Christians.

They say that prayers for the dead are contained in the texts of all ancient liturgies (both Eastern and Western; including Jacobites, Copts, Armenians, Ethiopians, Syrians, Nestorians). We read about the same in the Church Fathers.

St. Dionysius the Areopagite: “The priest must humbly pray for the grace of God, that the Lord may forgive the deceased the sins that arose from human weakness, and may He settle him in the land of the living, in the bosom of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

Tertullian: “We make an offering for the dead every year on the day on which they died.”

St. Gregory of Nyssa: “… this is a very pleasing and useful thing to do – to commemorate the dead in the true faith during the Divine and glorious sacrament.”

St. Basil the Great, in his prayer after the consecration of the Holy Gifts, addresses the Lord with the words: “Remember, O Lord, all those who have died before in the hope of the resurrection of eternal life.”

Blessed Augustine says: “…pray for the dead, so that they, when they are in a blessed life, will pray for you.”

For example, John Chrysostom makes an important remark:

“When all the people and the sacred council stand with their hands outstretched to heaven and when a terrible sacrifice is offered, how can we not propitiate God by praying for them (the dead)? But this is only about those who died in faith.”

Blessed Augustine also draws attention to this point:

“Our prayers can be beneficial for those who died in the right faith and with true repentance because, having departed to the other world in communion with the church, they themselves have transferred there the beginning of goodness or the seed of a new life, which they themselves only failed to reveal here and which, under the influence of our warm prayers, with the blessing of God, can little by little develop and bear fruit.”

And on the contrary, as John of Damascus asserts, no one’s prayers will help someone who led a vicious life:

“Neither his spouse, nor children, nor brothers, nor relatives, nor friends will give him help: since God will not look upon him.”

This is consistent with the opinion of Justin the Philosopher, who in his “Conversation with Tryphon the Jew” quotes Christ’s words: “In what I find you, I will judge you” and asserts that Christians who, under threat of torture or punishment, rejected Christ and did not have time to repent before death, will not be saved.

It follows that the human soul cannot undergo any qualitative changes after death.

The 18th definition of the “Confession of Faith of the Eastern Church” (approved by the Jerusalem Council of 1672) asserts that the prayers of priests and good deeds that their relatives do for the deceased, as well as (and especially!) the Bloodless Sacrifice performed for them, can influence the posthumous fate of Christians.

But only those who, having committed a mortal sin, managed to repent, “even if they did not bear any fruit of repentance by shedding tears, kneeling vigil in prayer, contrition, consolation of the poor and in general by expressing in deeds love for God and neighbor.”

Metropolitan Stefan (Yavorsky) explained that repentance removes from a person the condemnation to eternal punishment, but he must also bear the fruits of repentance through the performance of penance, good deeds or bearing sorrows. The Church can pray for those who did not manage to do this, in the hope of their release from temporary punishment and salvation.

But even in this case: “We do not know the time of their release” (“Confession of Faith of the Eastern Church”); “… to God alone… belongs the distribution of deliverance, and the Church belongs only to ask for the departed” (Patriarch of Jerusalem Dositheus Notara).

Note: this is specifically about repentant Christians. It inevitably follows that prayer for an unrepentant sinner cannot influence his fate after death.

At the same time, John Chrysostom in one of his conversations says something directly opposite:

“There is still, truly there is a possibility, if we want, to lighten the punishment of a deceased sinner. If we make frequent prayers for him and give alms, then, even if he is unworthy in himself, God will hear us. If for the sake of the Apostle Paul he saved others and for the sake of some he spared others, then how can he not do the same for us?”

Saint Mark of Ephesus generally asserts that one can pray for even the soul of a pagan and an impious person:

“And there is nothing surprising if we pray for them, when, behold, some (saints) who personally prayed for the impious were heard; thus, for example, blessed Thekla by her prayers transferred Falconilla from the place where the impious were held; and the great Gregory the Dialogist, as is related, – Emperor Trajan. For the Church of God does not despair in regard to such, and begs God for relief for all the departed in faith, even if they were the most sinful, both in general and in private prayers for them.”

“Requiem services, funeral services – this is the best advocate for the souls of the departed,” says St. Paisius the Holy Mountaineer. – Funeral services have such power that they can even lead the soul out of hell.”

However, a more cautious position is more common: prayer for the departed “brings them great benefit,” but what this benefit is and whether it is expressed in a change in the location of the soul from hell to heaven, we are not given to know.

The same Paisius of Mount Athos chose the following comparison:

“Just as when we visit prisoners, we bring them refreshments and the like and thus ease their suffering, so we ease the suffering of the deceased with prayers and alms, which we perform for the repose of their souls.”

As one straightforward priest said in a sermon on this topic:

“If you send a letter to your relative in prison, it is, of course, pleasant for him, but it does not affect the term of imprisonment in any way.”

I understand that all these explanations and quotes, due to their inconsistency, do not answer the question asked. At the same time, this question itself seems wrong to me.

Like most of the explanations given, it suffers from utilitarianism: can prayer for the dead be useful or not?

But the Lord is not guided by utilitarianism. It is strange to imagine Him as an accountant, balancing our good and evil deeds and counting the number of prayers offered for us and the money donated.

“We pray in the spirit of love, not of benefit,” said Alexey Khomyakov. So we pray for our loved ones and relatives not “for that,” but “because”: because we love. Because we will never be able to come to terms with their suffering.

“It would be better if I myself were accursed from Christ rather than my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Rom. 9:3). These seemingly insane and terrible words are spoken by the same one who said: “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). He is ready to be rejected from Christ for the sake of those he loves. In this desire to save his fellow tribesmen, he is guided not by prudence, but by love.

Yes, we are not given to know for sure whether our prayer helps the dead and how exactly. We have no certainty, but we have hope. But even if there was no hope left, would we give up and stop asking God for mercy?

“To say to someone ‘I love you’ is to say ‘You will never die’,” Gabriel Marcel once observed. I think our prayer for the dead is one of the most obvious and unconditional proofs of our love.

Love gives us strength, supports and inspires us here on earth. It changes us for the better, purifies our hearts. So why should death change all this?

And what’s more, even after death, can’t our love, expressed in prayer, change those we love?

“Let us pray for one another everywhere and always… and if any of us goes there first (to heaven) by the grace of God: may our mutual love continue before the Lord, and may our prayer for our brothers never cease before the mercy of the Father” (Cyprian of Carthage).

HOW PRAYERS RELIEVE FROM POST-MORTAL SUFFERINGS

Saint Gregory the Dialogist:

One brother, for breaking the vow of poverty, was deprived of a church burial and prayer for thirty days after his death, to the fear of others.

Then, out of compassion for his soul, the Bloodless Sacrifice was offered for him for thirty days with prayer. On the last of these days, the deceased appeared in a vision to his surviving sibling and said:

“Until now I was very ill, but now everything is fine: today I received communion.”

Once the great ascetic St. Macarius of Egypt, walking in the desert, saw a human skull on the road.

“When I,” he says, “touched the skull with a palm staff, it said something to me. I asked it:

“Who are you?”

The skull responded:

“I was the head of the pagan priests.”

“How are you, pagans, in the next world?” I asked.

“We are in fire,” the skull answered, “the flames engulf us from head to toe, and we do not see each other; but when you pray for us, then we begin to see each other somewhat, and this brings us comfort.”

St. John of Damascus:

One of the God-bearing fathers had a disciple who lived in carelessness. When this disciple was overtaken by death in such a moral state, the Lord, after the prayers offered by the elder with tears, showed him the disciple engulfed in flames up to the neck.

After the elder had labored and prayed for the forgiveness of the sins of the deceased, God showed him a young man standing waist-deep in fire.

When the elder continued his labors and prayers, God in a vision showed the elder a disciple, completely freed from torment.

Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow was given a paper to sign prohibiting the service of a certain priest who abused wine.

At night he had a dream: some strange, ragged and unhappy people surrounded him and asked for the guilty priest, calling him their benefactor.

This dream was repeated three times that night. In the morning the metropolitan called the guilty one and asked, among other things, for whom he was praying.

“There is nothing worthy in me, Vladyka,” the priest answered humbly. – The only thing that is on my heart is a prayer for all those who died accidentally, drowned, died without burial and were without family. When I serve, I try to pray fervently for them.

– Well, thank them, – Metropolitan Philaret said to the guilty one and, having torn up the paper prohibiting him from serving, let him go only with the order to stop drinking.