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The Case/Rome

Purgatory, Indulgences, and Satisfaction

Orthodoxy prays for the departed and trusts God's mercy, but rejects the later Latin system of purgatorial satisfaction, treasury of merits, and indulgences.

Rival Claim

The Roman claim

After death, Christians who die in grace but still owe temporal punishment undergo purifying satisfaction in purgatory, and indulgences can remit that punishment.

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Prayer for the dead without the Latin system

Orthodoxy prays for the departed, offers the Eucharist for them, and trusts that God's mercy can help those who have fallen asleep. That is older and wider than the medieval Latin framework.

What Orthodoxy rejects is the defined system of temporal punishment, satisfactions, indulgences, and a treasury of merits. The dead are in God's hands; the Church intercedes, but does not reduce that mystery to an accounting of punishments and remissions.

  • 2 Maccabees 12:44-45
  • 1 Corinthians 3:12-15
  • St. Mark of Ephesus at Florence