This faith, which has lived among the people of God since the Old Testament times, was fully expressed by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself when He came to earth: who did evil unto the resurrection of condemnation” (John 5:25, 29).
Thus the Lord spoke to His disciples about the Last Judgment. But in order for the people listening to Him to understand the Divine truths more clearly, the Savior expounded His teaching in parables.
The day of the end of the world and the Last Judgment will come suddenly. The dead will be resurrected and together with the living will stand before the Lord. Each person will have to give an answer to God about the good and evil that he has created during his life. Therefore, people should always be ready to meet the Lord.
And in order to warn people about the danger of a carefree life, the Lord told them the parable of the ten virgins.
According to Eastern custom, weddings took place at night. The groom followed the bride to her parents' house. In her best clothes, decorated with flowers, the bride was waiting for the groom. Having received the bride, the groom with a solemn procession brought her to a room specially prepared for the wedding feast.
The wedding procession was usually met by several young maidens with lighted lamps. In the parable, the Lord says that ten virgins with lamps in their hands were waiting for the arrival of the bridegroom.
The arrival of the groom could be delayed. Therefore, the maidens had to have spare oil in separate vessels, if the oil poured into the lamps burned out before the arrival of the groom.
Five wise, prudent virgins stocked up on oil. The five foolish virgins did not bother to take spare oil with them. Their lamps began to dim. While they were going to buy oil, the groom came. The wise virgins entered the wedding feast with the bridegroom, and the doors of the bridal chamber were closed.
And the foolish virgins, late for the arrival of the bridegroom, began to knock on the door, saying: “Lord! Open to us." He answered them, “Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.”
In this parable, the Lord compared the expectation of His Second Coming and the Judgment of God with the expectation of a wedding feast. The Divine Bridegroom will come to earth to bring His Bride the Church into the heavenly chamber.
The virgins who meet the bridegroom are an assembly of believers. But not all of them are wise. Some are completely careless about their salvation. The absence of oil in their lamps signifies the absence of good works. Faith without good works is dead.
Wise virgins who have a supply of oil in their vessels are true Christians, ready at any time to meet their Savior. By word Reverend Seraphim Sarovsky, the Holy Spirit dwells in their souls. For faith and good deeds, the Lord will introduce the wise virgins to the marriage feast of His Son - to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Continuing His discourse about the Last Judgment over the human race, the Lord offered the listeners a parable about the talents. In it we hear a warning about the need to give an account to God about the gifts received from Him. Has man done anything good with the help of the gifts of God? A lazy servant, like a foolish virgin, will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
The full picture of the Last Judgment appeared before the minds of the listeners when the Lord began to speak of His Second and Glorious Coming with the host of Holy Angels.
The Lord the King of Glory will sit on the throne and all the peoples of the earth will gather before Him. The dead will rise and stand before the Judgment of God. And the Lord will separate the good from the bad, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; right side and the evil ones on the left.
The righteous standing on the right side will hear the voice of the King: “Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you accepted Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me."
Then the righteous will ask Him: “Lord! When did we see You and help You?" And the Judge will answer them: “When in your life you did this to one of the people, smaller brothers mine, they did it to me.”
And the righteous will go to eternal life, and those who stand on the left, that is, those who did not do good deeds to their neighbors, will go to eternal torment.
These words of the Savior call us to love God and our neighbor. But one must love not in words, but to confirm one's love with deeds and throughout one's life. Only such love will help us to stand at the right hand of the King of Glory and enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Your judgment, Lord, I fear and torment
endless, but I do not stop doing evil ...
Rev. John of Damascus
In the series of days preparing for the Holy Forty Day, the Meat-Feast Week - about the Last Judgment - is perhaps the most expressive both in hymnographic and iconographic terms. Of course, on other preparatory days, the Gospel readings - about Zacchaeus (even before the beginning of the singing of the Triodion), about the publican and the Pharisee, about the prodigal son, cheese week - are of paramount importance for a Christian who is preparing to enter the saving field of Great Lent.
The rites of these days are deep and important, but there is a certain universality in the readings and hymns of the week about the Last Judgment, they are addressed to every person, as the apostle Paul wrote: it is appointed for people to die once, and then judgment (Heb. 9:27). In her concern for the salvation of each, the Church offers memories of this judgment in order to save at least some (1 Cor. 9:22).
Recalling the Last Judgment, the Holy Church calls everyone to repentance, at the same time pointing to the true meaning of hope in God's mercy: the Lord is merciful, but at the same time He is a righteous Judge, having to repay everyone according to his deeds (Rev. 22:12). Therefore, one should not be deceived about the responsibility for one's moral state and abuse God's long-suffering.
Turning our mental gaze to “eternal fire, pitch darkness and tartare, a fierce worm, the gnashing of teeth and unceasing, I have a disease to be sinned without measure”, “inscrutable trembling and fear”, “unwashed torture” and “spirited hell”, the Holy The Church inspires us with the idea of the need for repentance and correction, and an advance tearful prayer to the Lord, while there is still time and opportunity for that, and on behalf of all of us exclaims: “Today, having renounced my brother, we are worthy to repent by deed and sins.”
The author of the canon of the meat-fare week, the Monk Theodore the Studite, shows the trembling of the human soul before the terrible judgment of God. Recalling the day of the terrible Second Coming of Christ, he prays that the Judge will not announce the secret deeds of the sinful soul, but will spare her mercifully.
“Alas for me, gloomy soul, how long will you not get rid of the evil ones? How long will you weep with despondency? Why do you not think of the terrible hour of death? Why don't you tremble at the terrible judgment of Spasov? So what do you answer, or what do you deny? Your deeds are coming to your denunciation, deeds denounce slandering. Other things, about the soul, the time is now; Fathers, in advance, cry out in faith: I have sinned, Lord, I have sinned Thee! But we know, Lover of mankind, Thy goodness, good Shepherd, may not separate me at the right hand of Thee for the sake of Thy mercy, great for the sake of Thy mercy ”(Stihira on the verse, tone 8).
Also known are the hymns of the week about the Last Judgment of St. Roman the Melodist. In a Greek manuscript kondakar of the 12th century. (from the collection of the Synodal Library, State Historical Museum) contains 21 hymns per meat-fare week with an acrostic: “creation of the humble Roman”.
The hymns of the Meatfare Week present a detailed and expressive picture of how the Last Judgment of God will take place. The main source for the works of hymnographers is, of course, Holy Scripture: The Father ... gave Him the power to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this; for the time is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God; And those who have done good will go out into the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil into the resurrection of judgment. I cannot create anything by Myself. As I hear, so I judge, and My judgment is righteous; for I seek not my will, but the will of the Father who sent me (John 5:26-30).
In depicting the picture of the coming Last Judgment of God, Tradition could not be limited to liturgical texts. Since ancient Christian times, they have tried to convey the picture of the Last Judgment by pictorial means, because the Lord Himself describes His Second Coming in vivid visual images: the sun will fade, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the forces of heaven will shake; then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven; and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory; and he will send his angels with a loud trumpet, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other (Matt. 24:29-31).
The origins of the image of the Last Judgment date back to the 4th century, to the fresco painting of the catacombs. Initially, the Judgment of God was presented in the plots of the separation of the sheep from the goats and the parable of the ten virgins. In the V-VI centuries. separate parts of the picture of the Last Judgment itself appear, and by the VIII century. the finished composition appears in Byzantium.
Later, the Last Judgment established itself in the system of wall paintings of both Byzantine and Russian churches, and was also distributed in the West. In Russia, the earliest fresco depiction of the Last Judgment in the Cyril Monastery in Kyiv, made in the 12th century, in St. George's Cathedral, is known. Staraya Ladoga(80s of the XII century), in the Church of the Savior Nereditsa in Novgorod (1199), in the Dmitrovsky Cathedral in Vladimir (end of the XII century). Fragments of the Last Judgment, written by the Monk Andrei Rublev and Daniil Cherny on the walls in the Assumption Cathedral of Vladimir, have also come down to us. The earliest known image in iconography dates back to the 15th century. (icon in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin).
Terrible Judgment. Dormition Cathedral of the Kremlin
In its developed form, the iconography of the Last Judgment is based on the texts of the Gospel, the Apocalypse, as well as patristic works: the Words of Ephraim the Syrian, the Words of Palladius Mnich, the Life of Basil the New and other works of Byzantine and ancient Russian literature; later, in the iconographic details, one can also see the texts of folk spiritual verses. The Last Judgment depicts pictures of the end of the world, the last judgment on all mankind, the resurrection of the dead, scenes of hellish torment of unrepentant sinners and heavenly bliss of the righteous.
Second coming. Church of Panagia Chalkeon in Thessaloniki
Of the most famous monuments of the Byzantine world, the image of the Last Judgment can be found in the porch of the Church of Panagia Halkeon in Thessaloniki (beginning of the 11th century); in Georgia - in the David Gareji Monastery of Udabno, on the western wall there is a heavily damaged fresco of the 11th century; the poorly preserved frescoes of the Last Judgment in Aten belong to the same time. Fragments of the Last Judgment of the middle of the XII century. preserved in a small church in Ikvi. From the era of the faithful Queen Tamara, several monuments have survived, including the grandiose composition of the Last Judgment of the temple in Timotesubani (first quarter of the 13th century).
In Russia, compositions of the Last Judgment appear very early, shortly after her Baptism. This can be explained by the fact that the images of the Last Judgment were an effective means of persuading the pagans to convert to the faith of Christ. It is no coincidence that the Greek preacher, in the well-known episode of the choice of faith from the life of the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir, unfolds an impressive picture of the Last Judgment before the prince.
One of the earliest examples of the image of the Last Judgment among the monuments of art that have come down to our time Ancient Russia are the murals of the Nikolo-Dvorishchensky Cathedral in Novgorod at the beginning of the 12th century. The compositions “The Last Judgment” and “Job on the Fester” are preserved in the southwestern part of the basement of the temple. The programmatic theme in the murals of St. Nicholas Cathedral is the theme of repentance. Perhaps the reason for this was specific cases of "visiting God", i.e. those natural disasters that befell Novgorod: the death of cattle in 1115, which deprived the prince and his squad of horses; the storm of 1125, from which the mansions of the prince and "herds of cattle in the Volkhov" suffered; the famine of 1128. Perhaps this was also prompted by the grave illness of the prince, from which he was miraculously healed by the image of Nikola Lipnoy who sailed from Kyiv (acquired on Lipno Island on Ilmen).
It should be noted important feature images of the Last Judgment: they are not created in order to intimidate a person, but are designed to make him think about his sins; do not despair, do not lose hope, but initiate repentance.
Terrible Judgment. Novgorod, XV century
The Savior's sermon on salvation began with the words: Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand (Matthew 4:17). Repentance as an indispensable condition for achieving the Kingdom of God is one of the fundamental provisions of the Christian faith. Reverend Simeon The New Theologian says this about repentance: “Run in repentance along the path of the commandments… run, run, seek, knock, so that the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven will open to you and you will be inside it.”
For the Orthodox Church at the turn of the 11th-12th centuries, including in Russia, the question of repentance is not an abstract theological problem, but a living practice of spiritual life. The words of St. Hilarion of Kiev, St. Theodosius of the Caves, and finally, the penitential canon of St. Cyril of Turov are undoubted confirmation of this. The compilers of The Tale of Bygone Years see repentance as the basis of life: “If we repent, God commands us to live in it. For the prophet says to us: turn to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping. Yes, if we do this, we will forgive all the sins.
To induce a sinner to repentance, to affirm a repentant person in the hope of God's mercy, for the forgiveness of sins - this was the task set by the authors of the Nikolo-Dvorishchenskaya composition. Righteous Job and his wife are depicted surrounded by scenes of torment, under the image of the prince of darkness - Satan. Next to Job, on a mound on a dark red background, there is a figure of a naked man. This is a rich man sitting in flames and turning to the forefather Abraham with a request to send poor Lazarus to ease his suffering, to moisten his tongue (see Luke 16:24). The images of torments are located on the left in relation to the image of the Judge of Christ in the eastern part of the vault.
The image of the rich man and other scenes of torment next to Job are designed to emphasize not only the measure of suffering and sorrow that fell to Job, but also the thought of hope and faith in the unchanging mercy of the Lord, which does not leave the righteous even in hell. It is not the theme of intimidation that comes to the fore, but of salvation and personal conversion to the Lord, which is best expressed in the words of the Psalmist David: Lord, my God! I called to You and You healed me. God! You brought my soul out of hell and revived me so that I would not descend into the grave. You turned my mourning into rejoicing, took off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness (Ps. 29:3, 4, 12).
The iconographic solution of the Nikolo-Dvorishchensky Cathedral suggests the answer to the questions: why did the righteous go to hell; how can he get out of there, stand before the Lord again? In the “Izbornik of Svyatoslav” of 1076 we read: “And in the ditch of the underworld, as it is written in Job, in the dark earth and the grave ... where there is no light, no human life can be seen, in which Christ came, with a Divine soul and pure, visit those who sit in the darkness". The theme of the repentant weeping of a sinner awaiting the Lord's judgment not only reveals the main idea of the scene, but also indicates a direct connection between the image of the Last Judgment and the cycle of Great Lent services. A person who goes through a fast and makes true repentance, God restores in rights, like Adam and Job, and he, like a ladder, can climb from the abyss of sin to heaven; on the Sinai icon "The Ladder of John of Sinai" the path of the monks up to Christ begins from the black failure of the infernal abyss.
St. Andrew of Crete in his Great Canon speaks of "the ladder of the active ascent of the soul." In the same canon, the righteous Job is recalled as an example of justification at the Judgment of God: “Hearing Job in the dungeon, about my soul, who was justified, you were not jealous of that courage.” As a result, the one who used to be on the throne - “who was the first on the throne”, - “naked on the fester”, and the one who had a lot of household members and was glorified - “childless and homeless”, his chambers turned into into the dung, and the treasures - "beads" - into "scabs". Let us recall in this connection that Job is depicted sitting under the throne of Satan, and not far from him is the image of a rich man.
At the turn of the millennium, that iconographic canon of the Last Judgment was formed, which was destined to exist for at least another seven centuries. One of the most important sources, which influenced the composition and nature of the compositions of the Last Judgment, was the Life of Basil the New (X century). In the XI-XII centuries. at the same time, a number of the most significant images of the Last Judgment were created on the vast territory of the Christian world. The most famous of them are the murals of the church of Panagia Halkeon in Thessaloniki, 1028, the frescoes of Sant Angelo in Formis, two icons depicting the Last Judgment from the monastery of St. gr. 74), an ivory plate from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the grandiose mosaics of the Torcello Basilica in Venice, the frescoes of the Mavriotissa church in Kastoria, the murals of the Bachkovo ossuary in Bulgaria and the giant floor mosaics of the cathedral in Otranto, 1163, and close in time Trani.
Terrible Judgment. Sinai, monastery of St. vmts. Catherine
Christ, the Judge of the world, is depicted in the center of the composition. The Mother of God and St. John the Baptist - intercessors for the human race. At their feet are Adam and Eve, the first people on earth. On the sides of this central group sit the apostles (six on each side) with open books in their hands. Behind the apostles are angels, guardians of heaven. Eschatological themes are often associated with the four great archangels - Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel, who are first mentioned together in the apocryphal Book of Enoch. They must call with a trumpet voice all the dead to the Last Judgment, and they also protect the Church and every believer from the forces of darkness. Under the apostles, the peoples going to the Judgment are depicted. To the right of Christ are the righteous, to the left are the sinners. Among the latter in later compositions are depicted with appropriate signatures: Germans, Rus, Poles, Hellenes, Ethiopians (note that they are not included in the number of sinners on the basis of nationality). Sometimes groups of people are depicted addressing the Judge with the words, according to the Gospel, “when we saw you hungry” and so on.
At the top, God Sabaoth is often depicted, angels of light, casting down angels of darkness (demons) from Heaven, and as a symbol of the end of the world, heaven is always depicted in the form of a scroll twisted by angels. Below Christ, the Judge of the world, the prepared throne is written. On it are the clothes of Christ, the Cross, the instruments of passions, and the opened “Book of Genesis”, in which, according to legend, all the words and deeds of people are recorded: “The books will be unfolded, the deeds of man will be revealed” (Stichira on “Lord, I cried out” of the Meat-Feast Week ); “When thrones are set up and books are opened, and God sits in judgment, what a fear then, an angel coming in fear and a fiery attracting river!” (Ibid., Glory).
Upper fragment of the icon
Even lower are presented: a large hand holding babies, which means “righteous souls in the hand of God”, and here, nearby, “the measure of human deeds”. Near the scales there is a struggle between angels and demons for the soul of a person, which is often present right there in the form of a figure of a naked youth.
A naked human figure as the personification of the soul of a dying person is found in the illustrations of Psalm 118 (“Blessed are the Immaculate on the Road”) and “The Canon for the Exodus of the Soul” (murals in St. 1335-1336). Early attempts of this kind to illustrate the "Canon for the Exodus of the Soul" by St. Cyril of Alexandria are known, in particular, for the painting of the refectory of the monastery of St. John the Evangelist on Patmos at the beginning of the 13th century, where "The Death of a Righteous" and "The Death of a Sinner" are presented. The composition "Canon for the Exodus of the Soul" in the monuments of art of the XII century. known only from book miniatures (miniature of the XII century in the Psalter from the monastery of Dionisiat). Probably, from the illustrations of the manuscripts, this scene penetrated into the monumental painting of the late Byzantine period. So, in the painting of St. Gregory's Church of St. Sophia of Ohrid, XIV century, an extensive cycle of the canon is located directly under the composition of the Last Judgment.
In the lower part of the composition, scenes usually follow: “Earth and sea give up the dead”, “Vision of the youth Daniel” and compositions of heaven and hell. “Daniel the prophet, having been a man of desires, having seen the mighty God, he cried out: The Judge is gray, and the books are abhorred” (Ibid., stichera on praises). The earth is represented as a dark circle, usually irregular in shape. In the center of the earth, a half-naked woman is depicted - the personification of the earth; it is surrounded by figures of people rising from the ground - risen from the dead. Beasts, birds and reptiles, spitting out those they have devoured.
Fish swim in the sea that surrounds the earth. They, just like the animals on earth, deliver the resurrected to the Judgment of God. In the scene "The Vision of the Prophet Daniel", an angel shows the prophet Daniel four animals. These beasts symbolize the "perilous kingdoms" (kingdoms that are to perish) - Babylonian, Macedonian, Persian and Roman, or Antichrist. The first is represented in the form of a bear, the second - in the form of a griffin, the third - in the form of a lion, the fourth - in the form of a horned beast. Sometimes other animals were also written, which had an allegorical meaning. Among the latter, hares are especially interesting, which, according to the widespread idea in Russia, embodied in the verses about the Pigeon Book, were allegorical images of truth (white hare) and falsehood (gray hare).
Particular attention is paid to the images of hell in the scenes of the Last Judgment. Hell is depicted as a “fiery Gehenna”, with a terrible beast on which Satan, the lord of hell, sits, with the soul of Judas in his hands. Sinners tormented by the devils are burning in the fire. In special stigmas, sinners are shown subjected to various torments. From the fiery mouth of the infernal beast, a long writhing serpent, personifying sin, rises up to the feet of Adam. Sometimes, instead of a snake, a fiery river is depicted (on the icon of the Last Judgment of the first half of the 15th century in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin).
The fiery stream (river) is known from the so-called "Walking of the Virgin through the torments", one of the most popular apocrypha in ancient Russian writing. In the lists of the Journey, starting from the 12th century, it is indicated that “in this river there are many husbands and wives; some are immersed to the waist, others to the chest, and only the third to the neck, ”depending on the degree of their guilt. Starting from the 13th century, and in some cases even earlier (Torcello mosaic), the characters of the world of sinners, carried away by the fiery stream, are concretized: these are representatives of various social groups (nobility, persons in imperial crowns, barbarians, monks and even bishops, etc.)
In Byzantine art by the XI-XII centuries. a stable iconography of the prince of darkness, Satan, has developed as one of the main characters of the Last Judgment, personifying hell: a frontal image of a scary-looking half-naked old man with disheveled gray hair and a beard sitting on a sea monster, presented either against the background sea depths, or, more often - in the lake of fire (gehenna). At the same time, as a rule, the elder holds a small figure of Judas on his knees. Variations are insignificant: for example, a sea monster (dragon) can be single-headed, resembling a triton with the head of a beast (icons from the monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai), or two-headed, devouring sinners with both heads, as, for example, in the Torcello mosaic, the fresco of the Savior Nereditsa and the Nativity Cathedral of the Snetogorsky Monastery in Pskov. In addition, often the body of Satan has an ash-bluish color, in which echoes of a deep Hellenistic tradition are seen (this is how the prince of darkness is depicted in the Torcello mosaic).
Last Judgment, Torcello
A characteristic iconographic feature of the image of Satan: his figure is often depicted in the darkest corner of the temple, where a ray of daylight never penetrates; sometimes Satan is located on the edge of the wall: the artist seeks to cut, stop evil force, to show that the prince of darkness is devoid of a face, an image, that he is literally “without-image”.
Paradise is represented by several plots. These include the "Bosom of Abraham" - the forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with the souls of the righteous, sitting among the trees of paradise; the image of the Mother of God on the throne with two angels and a prudent robber on the sides against the background of trees; an image of the gates of paradise, to which the righteous approach, led by the apostle Peter with the keys to paradise in his hand. Paradise in the image of the holy city - the Mountainous Jerusalem with the righteous blissful in it, is written almost always at the top. Under the Mountainous Jerusalem, there is often an image of hermits flying to paradise.
At the top, between the scenes of heaven and hell, a “merciful fornicator” is depicted chained to a pole, who is “delivered for the sake of alms.” eternal torment but for the sake of fornication he is deprived of the Kingdom of Heaven.
In Sophia of Novgorod (1109), the composition includes an image of the prophet Daniel. On the scroll is an inscription conveying the words of the prophet Daniel: “Az Daniel saw? until the throne is set up and the Old Denmi sits; His throne is a flame of fire; fire burns His wheels” (Dan. 7:2, 9). A similar text is found on the Martorana mosaic in Palermo (c. 1146), in the monastery of St. Neophyte in Cyprus (c. 1183). Another text: "The likeness of the son of a man I will touch my lips" (Dan. 10:16) - in a mosaic of Monreale, Sicily (after 1183). The text from the prophetic vision given in the scroll is not used as paroemia reading. In his study, Gravgaard, referring to the texts of Herminia in 1701-1745, indicates that such texts were introduced into the images of the Last Judgment. In this text, a special place, along with the picture of the Court of Judgment, belongs to the image of the Ancient of Days, with which the image of Christ Pantocrator in the painting of St. Sophia Cathedral corresponds. Images of the "Vision of the Prophet Daniel" are known in the murals of the Church of the Apostles in Pech in the middle of the 13th century. and the cathedral of the Pskov Svyatogorsky Monastery.
The scenes of the punishment of sinners in the early iconography of the Last Judgment do not contain images of individual punishments (for belonging to other faiths, heretical teachings, for a profession objectionable to God, or for each specific type of crime). Later, for example, in the frescoes of the Pskov Snetogorsk Monastery of 1313, all sinners and types of sins are named. In the Church of the Savior on Nereditsa, there are inscriptions of the types of punishments: “Total darkness”, “Mraz”, “Worm that does not sleep”, “Resin”, “Hoarfrost”. Types of torment are presented on the sides of the prince of darkness, in the form of naked sinners entwined with snakes; this goes back to the earliest known depictions of hellish torments. entwined with snakes female figures are found, for example, in the paintings of Cappadocia of the tenth century, in particular, in Yilanli kilis, Ihlara. Descriptions of this type of torment abound in the Life of Basil the New (monk Gregory sees fiery snakes adulterers, fornicators, perjurers). The same motif is found in the apocryphal "Walking of the Virgin through the torments" and "Vision of the Apostle Paul" - snakes come out of the wife's mouth and eat her body. At the same time, women on fire, eaten by snakes, mean nuns who sold their bodies for fornication, or gossips (“Walking of the Virgin”). In a similar way, sinners are represented in the painting of the church of Mavriotissa in Kastoria (beginning of the 12th century), in the temple of Asinu in Cyprus, on the floor mosaic in the northern nave of the cathedral in Otranto (1163); seven sinners in Sopochany (circa 1272).
Here are some examples of the most famous monuments depicting the Last Judgment.
Miniature in the Greek Gospel of the 11th century. National Library in Paris (No. 74): Christ the Judge in a blue almond-shaped halo with rays sits on a throne; His hands are outstretched, and nail sores are visible on the palms. Under His feet is Ezekiel's chariot and cherubim; on the sides of the halo the Mother of God and the Forerunner in a prayer position; further apostles on thrones with books in their hands; above the dorino-bearing angels. Below the halo is the etimasia, which is approached from the left side by groups of the righteous; behind the righteous is an angel with an unrolled scroll; below them, the sea gives up the bodies of the dead and two groups of people going to judgment; to the right an angel trumpets, the dead rise from the graves, the beasts give up the bodies of the dead. The angel weighs the deeds of people on the scales, the cup of which is pulled by two demons. Below, on the left side, paradise is a garden: in it the Mother of God and Abraham sit on thrones, and next to it are righteous souls in the form of small children in shirts. The Apostle Peter leads a group of righteous people to the gates of paradise. The picture of hell is extensive: a fiery river emanates from the throne of the Judge and overflows into a whole lake, in which satan sits on a beast that swallows a sinner, with Judas in the depths; the merciless rich man stands and points his hand to his tongue; angels throw sinners into flames, and demons catch them. Under the lake of fire, six separate cells represent the types of torment of sinners.
Depiction in the Gospel of the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris
This Greek Gospel - in terms of the completeness of the iconographic material, safety and beauty, is the best of all the Byzantine obverse Gospels that have come down to us.
On Mount Athos, in the meal of the Lavra of St. Athanasius, on the entrance wall, at the very entrance above the doors and on both sides, there is a complex image of the Last Judgment, presented in the form of a series of separate scenes, provided with long Greek inscriptions of the charter letter. Above is Christ the Almighty, in a circle, on cherubs and seraphim; on His sides are the Forerunner and the Mother of God, 12 apostles on their solemn seats. There are four angels along the arch above the door, on both sides of the arch there are groups of people, turning to the Judge with words of recognition, according to the Gospel, on the topic: “when we saw you hungry and so on.” On both sides of the entrance, scenes of the righteous, resurrected for eternal life, and sinners, resurrected for eternal torment, are clearly presented. The first kingdom is depicted to the right of the entrance. Here is the prepared throne (h¢ e¢toimasi¢a tou~ qro¢nou) – a carved chair with a cross, a spear, a cane, a Gospel on a covered cushion; on the sides, Adam and Eve fell to their knees as an image of all the bowed righteous, redeemed humanity. Below, an angel points to this vision to the lying and awakened Daniel. The resurrected rise in the tomb with a prayer to God. On the left side are two groups of resurrected ones, a group of angels and several demons arguing over sacrifices in front of the scales (o¢ zugo¢V th~V dikaiosu¢nhV – scales of justice). The fiery river flows, expanding, and the angel plunges the emerged sinner into it. The side walls represent heaven and hell and additional scenes of the Last Judgment; to the right of the entrance is a large group of the righteous: the apostles with Paul at their head, the prophets (with Daniel and Solomon), saints (John Chrysostom and others), martyrs. They enter, led by Peter, who opens the locked door to paradise, above the entrance is a cherub with two spears and the inscription: jlogi¢nh r¢mjai¢a. Behind this entrance is the image of paradise in two paintings: the Mother of God on a throne with two angels and a prudent robber entering from the door, and below Isaac, Abraham and Jacob, sitting on a bench, keep in their covers the tiny heads of the souls of the righteous. Above, surrounded by cloudy glory, like dense foliage, groups of hermits, holy women, nuns, martyrs, saints and prophets are moving towards the Judge.
A similar painting in the Vatopedi Monastery is three times smaller than the Lavra one. Here are depicted: an angel trumpeting over the earth; the allegorical Earth riding a lion, and a lion vomiting up a childish figure, and next to it, predatory animals, birds, reptiles, a fantastic griffin and others return the pieces of bodies they swallowed. Four kings sit on their thrones: Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Alexander with a drawn sword and Augustus with a spear; in the midst of them are fighting a falling ram (according to the inscription - Darius) and a goat - Alexander (this is not in Vatopedi). Both paintings feature four apocalyptic beasts. Below is the open mouth of the hellish serpent, the worm (cf. Mark 9:48: where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched). The infernal serpent swallows a fiery river with victims and a demon on a two-headed sea monster, and hellish torments are depicted in 10 compartments to the side. The Lavra painter, apparently familiar with the naturalism of European painting, is trying to achieve precisely in the transfer of the hellish torments of reality both in forms and in color. So, the figure of a smoky demon with eyes popping out of their sockets is painted by the master in different tones of sepia and indigo, the outer darkness (outer darkness) is conveyed by green shadows and reddish reflections on the bodies of people. Tartarus is represented by two kings. The apostate Julian is entwined with a snake; presented in typical patterns: voluptuaries, thieves, adulterers, drunkards; the gnashing of teeth is represented by people tormented in flames. The Antichrist is depicted in rich clothes, surrounded by people and demons.
Here are excerpts from the words of St. Ephraim the Syrian, without which the description of the features of the iconography of the Last Judgment would be incomplete:
“Behold, brethren, that day will overtake us, on which the light of the sun will be darkened, and the stars will fall, on which the sky is twisted like a scroll, a great trumpet will sound and a terrible sound will awaken all the dead from eternity; on that day, on which, according to the voice of the Judge, the secret places (hiding places) of hell will be empty, on which Christ will appear in the clouds with holy angels to judge the living and the dead and reward everyone according to his deeds.
Indeed, the coming of Christ in glory is terrible! It's a wonderful thing to see the sky suddenly torn apart, the earth changing its appearance, the dead rising. The earth will present all human bodies as it received them, even though they were torn apart by animals, devoured by birds, smashed by fish; not even a human hair will be lacking before the Judge, because God will turn everyone into incorruption. All will receive a body according to their own works. The body of the righteous will shine seven times more than the light of the sun, but the bodies of sinners will be dark and full of stench; the body of each one will show his deeds, because each of us wears his deeds in own body his.
When Christ comes from heaven, immediately unquenchable fire will flow everywhere before the face of Christ and will cover everything. For the flood that was with Noah served as a type of that inextinguishable fire. As the flood covered all the tops of the mountains, so the fire will cover everything. Then angels will flow everywhere, and they will rapture all the saints and the faithful in glory in the clouds at the meeting of Christ…”
“The sky rolls in terror, the heavenly luminaries fall like unripe figs from a fig tree and like leaves from trees. The sun will grow dim from fear, the moon will turn pale, shuddering, the bright stars will darken in fear of the Judge. The sea, horrified, will tremble, dry up, disappear, and be no more. The dust of the earth will be engulfed in flames, and everything will turn into smoke. The mountains will melt with fear, like lead in a furnace, and all the hills, like burnt lime, will burn and collapse.
The Judge sits on the Throne of Fire, around Him is a sea of flame, and a river of fire flows from Him to put all the worlds to the test ... Who is swallowed up by the sea, who was devoured by wild animals, who were pecked by birds, who were burned in the fire - in the shortest moment of time, everyone will awaken rise up and appear. Whoever died in the womb of his mother and did not enter into life, he will be made of age at the very moment that restores life to the dead. The baby, whose mother died with him during gestation, at the resurrection will appear as a perfect man and recognize his mother, and she recognizes her offspring. Those who have not seen each other here will see each other there...
There, the good, at the command of the Judge, will be separated from the evil, and the former will be taken up to heaven, and the latter will be cast into the abyss; some will enter the Kingdom and others will go to hell.
Woe to the wicked and the wicked! They, in punishment for their deeds, will be tormented by Satan.
Whoever sinned and offended God on earth will be cast into outer darkness, where there is not a ray of light. Whoever concealed envy in his heart will hide a terrible depth full of fire and bogey. Whoever indulged in anger and did not allow love in his heart, even to the point of hatred for his neighbor, will be betrayed to cruel torment by the angels.
He who did not break his bread with the hungry, did not calm the languishing in need, he will cry out to the tormented, and no one will hear and give him rest. Who, with his wealth, lived voluptuously and luxuriously, and did not open his doors to those in need, he will ask for a drop of water in a flame, and no one will give him. Whoever has defiled his mouth with slander and his tongue with blasphemy, he will be mired in foul-smelling mud and will be deprived of the opportunity to open his mouth. Whoever plundered and oppressed others, and enriched his house with unrighteous wealth, unmerciful demons will drag him to him, and sighing and gnashing of teeth will be his lot.
Whoever was inflamed here by the shameful lust of voluptuousness and adultery, he, together with Satan, will forever burn in hell. Whoever violated the prohibition of the priests and trampled on the commandment of God Himself, he will be subjected to the most difficult and most terrible of all torments ... "
The iconography of the Last Judgment is one of the remarkable pages in the history of church art, not only and not so much in terms of the complexity of the plot, but in terms of the deep impact on the soul of a Christian who is preparing to enter the field of the Holy Fortecost: “Come, hear, king and princes, slaves and free, sinners and the righteous, the rich and the poor; as the Judge is coming, though he may judge the whole universe. And who will endure before Him, when the angels appear reproving deeds, thoughts and thoughts, even in nights and days? Oh what time then! But before death does not even come in time, rushing calling, soul; God, having converted, save me, as the One is merciful ”(Stikhira on the praises of the Week of meat-fare).
Archpriest Nikolai Pogrebnyak
Sources and literature:
1. Antonova V.I., Mneva N.E. Catalog ancient Russian painting XI- early XVIII centuries (State Tretyakov Gallery). T. 1–2. M., 1963.
2. Bulgakov S.V. Handbook for clergymen. Kyiv, 1893.
3. Ephraim Sirin, St. complete collection creations. Part 3. Sergiev Posad, 1907.
4. Kondakov N.P. Byzantine churches and monuments of Constantinople. M., 2006.
5. Kondakov N.P. Facial icon-painting original. T. 1. Iconography of the Lord our God and Savior Jesus Christ. SPb., 1905.
6. Ivanov M.S. Second coming. - Orthodox Encyclopedia. v. IX. M., 2005.
7. Kondakov N.P. Monuments of Christian art on Mount Athos. SPb., 1902.
8. Lazarev V.N. History of Byzantine Painting. T. 1–2. M., 1986.
9. Lazarev V.N. Russian medieval painting. M., 1970.
10. Lifshits L.I., Sarabyanov V.D., Tsarevskaya T.Yu. Monumental painting of Veliky Novgorod. End of the 11th - first quarter of the 12th century. SPb., 2004.
11. Pokrovsky N.V. The gospel in monuments of iconography, predominantly Byzantine and Russian. M., 2001.
12. Pokrovsky N.V. The Last Judgment in the Monuments of Byzantine and Russian Art. – Proceedings of the VI Archaeological Congress in Odessa. T. III. Odessa, 1887.
13. Pripachkin I.A. Iconography of the Lord Jesus Christ. M., 2001.
14. Sychev N.P. Forgotten fragments of Novgorod frescoes of the XII century. - Selected works. M., 1976.
15. Lenten triode.
16. Filaret (Gumilevsky), archbishop Chernigov. Historical review of hymns and hymns of the Greek Church. SPb., 1902.
It is believed that every bad deed of a person is taken into account and he will certainly be punished for it. Believers believe that only a righteous life will help to avoid punishment and end up in Paradise. The fate of people will be decided at the Last Judgment, but when it will be is unknown.
What does the Last Judgment mean?
The judgment, which will affect all people (living and dead), is called "terrible." It will happen before Jesus Christ comes to earth a second time. It is believed that the dead souls will be resurrected, and the living will be changed. Each person will receive an eternal fate for their deeds, and sins at the Last Judgment will come to the fore. Many mistakenly believe that the soul appears before the Lord on the fortieth day after its death, when a decision is made where it will go to. This is not a judgment, but simply the distribution of the dead, who will be waiting for "time x".
Last Judgment in Christianity
In the Old Testament, the idea of the Last Judgment is presented as "the day of Yahweh" (one of the names of God in Judaism and Christianity). On this day, the celebration of victory over earthly enemies will take place. After the belief that the dead could be resurrected began to spread, the “day of Yahweh” began to be perceived as the Last Judgment. The New Testament states that the Last Judgment is an event when the Son of God descends to earth, sits on the throne and all nations stand before him. All people will be divided, and the justified will stand by right hand, and the convicts on the left.
- Jesus will entrust part of his authority to the righteous, such as the apostles.
- People will be judged not only for good and evil deeds, but also for every idle word.
- The Holy Fathers said about the Last Judgment that there is a "memory of the heart" in which all life is imprinted, not only external, but also internal.
Why do Christians call God's judgment "terrible"?
There are several names for this event, such as the great day of the Lord or the day of God's wrath. The Last Judgment after death is called so not because God will appear before people in a terrifying guise, he, on the contrary, will be surrounded by the splendor of his glory and majesty, which will cause fear in many.
- The name "terrible" is due to the fact that on this day sinners will tremble because all their sins will be made public and they will have to answer for.
- It is also frightening that everyone will be judged publicly in the face of the whole world, so it will not work to evade the truth.
- Fear also arises from the fact that the sinner will receive his punishment not for some time, but forever.
Where are the souls of the dead before the Last Judgment?
Since no one has yet managed to return from the other world, all information regarding the afterlife is an assumption. Posthumous ordeals of the soul, and the Last Judgment of God are presented in many church writings. It is believed that within 40 days after death, the soul is on earth, living different periods thus preparing for a meeting with the Lord. Finding out where the souls are before the Last Judgment, it is worth saying that God, looking through the lived life of each deceased person, determines where he will be in Paradise or Hell.
What does the Last Judgment look like?
Saints who wrote holy books according to the Lord, was not transmitted detailed information about the Last Judgment. The Almighty showed only the essence of what will happen. The description of the Last Judgment can be obtained from the icon of the same name. The image was formed in Byzantium in the eighth century and was recognized as canonical. The plot was taken from the Gospel, the Apocalypse and various ancient books. The revelations of John the Theologian and the prophet Daniel were of great importance. The Last Judgment icon has three registers and each has its own place.
- Traditionally, Jesus is represented in the upper part of the image, who is surrounded on both sides by the apostles and they are directly involved in the process.
- Under it is a throne - a judicial throne, on which there is a spear, a cane, a sponge and the Gospel.
- Below are the trumpeting angels who so call everyone to the event.
- The lower part of the icon shows what will happen to people who were righteous and sinners.
- On the right side are people who have done good deeds and they will go to Paradise, as well as the Mother of God, angels and Paradise.
- On the other side, Hell is represented with sinners, demons and.
Different sources describe other details of the Last Judgment. Each person will see his life in the smallest detail, and not only from his own side, but also through the eyes of the people around him. He will understand which actions were good and which were bad. Evaluation will take place with the help of scales, so good deeds will be placed on one bowl, and evil deeds on the other.
Who is present at the Last Judgment?
During the decision-making, a person will not be alone with the Lord, since the action will be open and global. The Last Judgment will be held by the entire Holy Trinity, but it will be deployed only by the hypostasis of God's Son in the person of Christ. As for the Father and the Holy Spirit, but they will take part in the process, but from the passive side. When the day of the Last Judgment of God comes, everyone will be responsible together with their own and close dead and living relatives.
What will happen to sinners after the Last Judgment?
The Word of God depicts several types of torment that people who lead a sinful life will be subject to.
- Sinners will be removed from the Lord and cursed by him, which will be a terrible punishment. As a result, they will be tormented by the thirst of their soul to draw closer to God.
- Finding out what awaits people after the Last Judgment, it is worth pointing out that sinners will be deprived of all the blessings of the kingdom of heaven.
- People who have done bad deeds will be sent to the abyss - a place that demons fear.
- Sinners will be constantly tormented by the memories of their lives, which they ruined with their own words. They will be tormented by conscience and regret that nothing can be changed.
- In the Holy Scriptures, descriptions of external torments are presented in the form of a worm that does not die, and an unquenchable fire. Sinners are waiting for crying, gnashing of teeth and despair.
The Parable of the Last Judgment
Jesus Christ spoke to believers about the Last Judgment so that they would know what awaits them if they deviate from the righteous path.
- When the Son of God comes to earth with holy angels, he will sit on the throne of his own glory. All the nations will gather before him and Jesus will separate the good people from the bad.
- On the night of the Last Judgment, the Son of God will ask for every deed, claiming that all bad deeds committed in relation to other people were done to him.
- After that, the judge will ask why they did not help the needy when they needed support, and sinners will be punished.
- Good people who have led a righteous life will be sent to Paradise.
What is the Last Judgment? God's judgment is not a meeting with God? Or are Bosch's gloomy pictures of the torment of sinners true? Do we wait for the resurrection of the dead or for an existence in eternal torment? Will we stand before the throne of the Righteous Lord, or will we face eternal punishment? Protodeacon Andrey Kuraev will share his opinion in the book “If God is Love”.
What is the Last Judgment?
Sunday the week before Lent is called the Week of Meatfare (on this day, the last time before Easter you can eat meat), or the week of the Last Judgment. What is the Last Judgment?
Hearing about the “Last Judgment”, it is supposed to experience fear and trembling. “The Last Judgment” is the last thing that people will face. When the last second of the existence of the Universe expires, people will be recreated, their bodies will be reunited with souls - so that everyone can be accountable to the Creator...
However, I've been wrong. I made a mistake when I said that people would be resurrected in order to be brought to the Last Judgment. If we accept this logic, then an impartial thing will have to be said about Christian theology: it turns out that it presents its God in a rather unattractive way. After all, “we would never praise a simple sinful person for such a deed if he took the corpse of his enemy out of the grave in order to give him in all fairness what he deserved and did not receive during his earthly life” . Sinners will not be resurrected in order to receive a recompense for a sinful life, but vice versa - precisely because they will receive retribution, because they will certainly rise from the dead.
Unfortunately, we are immortal. Unfortunately - because sometimes I would really like to just fall asleep - so much so that no one else reminds me of my nasty things ... But Christ is risen. And since Christ encompasses all mankind with Himself, it means that we, too, will not be able to fit into the grave, to remain in it. Christ carried in Himself the fullness of human nature: the change that He made in the very essence of man will one day take place within each of us, since we too are human. This means that we are all now carriers of such a substance, which is destined for the resurrection.
That is why it is erroneous to assume that the reason for the resurrection is judgment (“The resurrection will not be for the sake of judgment,” said the Christian writer of the second century Athenagoras (On the resurrection of the dead, 14)). Judgment is not a cause, but a consequence of the renewal of our life. After all, our life will be resumed not on earth, not in the world familiar to us, which shields God from us. We will be resurrected in a world in which “God will be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28).
The Last Judgment: if there is a resurrection, then there will be a meeting with God
And, therefore, if there is a resurrection, then there will be a meeting with God. But meeting with God is meeting with Light. That Light that illuminates everything and makes everything clear and obvious, even what we sometimes wanted to hide even from ourselves ... And if something shameful still remains in us, still continues to be ours, has not yet been thrown away from us by our own repentance - then the meeting with the Light causes the torment of shame. She becomes judgment. “The judgment consists in this, that light has come into the world” (John 3:19)
But still, will there be only shame, only judgment at that Meeting? In the XII century, the Armenian poet (among Armenians he is also considered a saint) Gregor Narekatsi in his “Book of Sorrowful Hymns” wrote:
I know that the day of judgment is near,
And in court we will be convicted in many ways ...
But God's judgment is not a meeting with God?
Where will the court be? - I'll hurry there!
I bow before You, O Lord,
And, renouncing the fleeting life,
Not to Thy Eternity I will partake,
Though this eternity will be eternal torment?
And indeed, the time of the Judgment is the time of the Meeting. But what captivates my mind more when I think about her? Is it right if the consciousness of my sins obscures in my mind the joy of meeting with God? Is my gaze fixed on my sins or on Christ's love? What takes precedence in the palette of my feelings - the realization of the love of Christ or my own horror from my unworthiness?
It was precisely the early Christian feeling of death as a Meeting that once escaped from the Moscow elder Fr. Alexy Mechev. In parting words to his parishioner who had just died, he said: “The day of your separation from us is your birthday into a new, endless life. Therefore, with tears in our eyes, we greet you with an entry into the place where not only our sorrows, but also our vain joys are not. You are now no longer in exile, but in the fatherland: you see what we must believe; surrounded by what we should expect.”
With whom is this long-awaited meeting? With the Judge, who was waiting for our delivery to his disposal? With the Judge, who did not leave his sterile-correct chambers and now carefully watches so that the newcomers do not stain the world of ideal laws and truths with their not at all ideal deeds?
Again, in antiquity, Rev. Isaac the Sirin said that God should not be called “fair”, because He judges us not according to the laws of justice, but according to the laws of mercy, and already in our time the English writer K.S. Lewis, in his philosophical tale “Before We Have Faces,” says: “Hope for mercy - and hope not. Whatever the verdict, you can't call it fair. Are the gods not fair? “Of course not, my daughter! What would become of us if they were always just?”
Of course, there is justice in that Court. But this kind of justice is strange. Imagine that I am a personal friend of President B.N. We carried out “reforms” together, together - as long as his health allowed - played tennis and went to the bathhouse ... But then the journalists dug up “compromising evidence” on me, found out that I accepted “gifts” in especially large sizes ... B.N. calls me to him and says: “You see, I respect you, but now the elections are underway, and I cannot take risks. Therefore, let's do such a castling with you ... I will send you into retirement for a while ... ”. And now I’m already retired, I regularly talk with the investigator, I’m waiting for the trial ... But then B.N. calls me and says: “Listen, here Europe demands that we adopt a new Criminal Code more humane, more democratic. You still have nothing to do now, so maybe you can write at your leisure? And here I am, being under investigation, I begin to write the Criminal Code. What do you think I will write when I get to “my” article?..
The Last Judgment - a verdict?
I don't know how realistic this turn of events in our mysterious politics is. But in our Revelatory Religion, that is the way it is. We are the defendants. But the defendants are strange - each of us is given the right to make a list of those laws by which we will be judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged. If, at the sight of someone’s sin, I say: “He is in vain ... But he is also a man ...” - then the sentence that I once hear over my head may not be annihilating.
After all, if I condemned someone for his act, which seemed unworthy to me, then I knew that it was a sin. “Look,” my Judge will tell me, “since you condemned, it means that you were aware that it was wrong to do so. Moreover, you were not only aware of this, but you sincerely accepted this commandment as a criterion for evaluating human actions. But why did you yourself then so casually trample on this commandment?
As you can see, the Orthodox understanding of the commandment “do not judge” is close to Kant’s “categorical imperative”: before you do something or decide, imagine that the motive of your action suddenly becomes a universal law for the entire universe, and everyone will always be guided by it. Including in a relationship with you ...
Don't judge others, you won't be judged yourself. It depends on me how God will deal with my sins. Do I have sins? - Yes. But there is also hope. For what? The fact that God will be able to tear my sins away from me, throw them in the trash, but for me to open a different path than for my sinful deeds. I hope that God will be able to disidentify me and my actions. Before God, I will say: “Yes, Lord, I have had sins, but my sins are not all of me!”; “Sins are sins, but I didn’t live by them and not for them, but I had an idea of life - serving the Faith and the Lord!”
But if I want God to do this to me, then I must do the same to others. The Christian call to non-judgment is, after all, a way of self-preservation, concern for one's own survival and justification. After all, what is non-judgment? “To condemn means to say about such and such: such and such a lied ... And to condemn means to say that such and such a liar ... For this is a condemnation of the very disposition of his soul, pronouncing a sentence on his whole life. And the sin of condemnation is so much heavier than any other sin that Christ himself likened the sin of his neighbor to a twig, and condemnation to a log. This is how we want from God the same subtlety in distinctions at the judgment: “Yes, I lied - but I am not a liar; yes, I have committed fornication, but I am not a fornicator; Yes, I was cunning, but I am Your son, Lord, Your creation, Your image ... Remove the soot from this image, but do not burn it all!”
And God is ready to do it. He is willing to transcend the demands of “justice” and ignore our sins. The devil demands justice: they say, since this person sinned and served me, then You must leave him to me forever. But the God of the gospel is above justice. And therefore, according to Rev. Maximus the Confessor, “The death of Christ is judgment on judgment” (Maxim the Confessor. Question to Thalassius, 43).
In one of the words of St. Amphilochia of Iconium is a story about how the devil marvels at the mercy of God: why do you accept the repentance of a man who has already repented of his sin many times, and then returned to him anyway? And the Lord answers: but you, after all, every time you accept this person for your service after each of his new sins. So why can't I consider him My slave after his next repentance?
So, at the Judgment, we will stand before the One whose name is Love. Judgment is an encounter with Christ.
Actually, the Terrible, general, last, final Judgment is less terrible than the one that happens to everyone immediately after his death ... Can a person acquitted at a private trial be condemned at the Terrible? - Not. Can a person convicted at a private trial be acquitted at Terrible? Yes, for it is on this hope that church prayers for dead sinners. But this means that the Last Judgment is a kind of “appeal” instance. We have a chance to be saved where we cannot be justified. For in a private judgment we appear as individuals, but in a universal judgment as particles universal church, parts of the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ will appear before His Head. That is why we dare to pray for the departed, because in our prayers we put the following thought and hope: “Lord, maybe now this person is not worthy to enter Your Kingdom, but he, Lord, is not only the author of his vile deeds; he is also a particle of Your Body, he is a particle of your creation! Therefore, Lord, do not destroy the work of Your hands. With your purity, your fullness, the holiness of your Christ, make up for what a person lacked in this life of his!
We dare to pray like this because we are convinced that Christ does not want to cut off His own particles from Himself. God wants everyone to be saved… And when we pray for the salvation of others, we are convinced that His desire coincides with ours… But is there such a coincidence in other aspects of our life? Do we really want to save ourselves?
Who is judging us?
For the topic of the Judgment, it is important to remember: we are judged by Him Who seeks out in us not sins, but the possibility of reconciliation, combination with Himself ...
When we realize this, the difference between Christian repentance and secular “perestroika” will become clearer to us. Christian repentance is not self-flagellation. Christian repentance is not a meditation on the topic: “I am a bastard, I am a terrible bastard, well, what a bastard I am!” Repentance without God can kill a person. It becomes sulfuric acid, drop by drop falling on the conscience and gradually corroding the soul. This is a case of a murderous repentance that destroys a person, a repentance that brings not life, but death. People can find out the truth about themselves that can finish them off (remember the Ryazan film "Garage").
I recently made a surprising discovery for me (recently, due to my own, alas, ignorance): I found a book that I should have read at school, but I read it only now. This book struck me because before it seemed to me that there could be nothing deeper, more psychological, nothing more Christian and Orthodox than Dostoevsky's novels in literature. But this book turned out to be deeper than Dostoevsky's books. This is the "Golovlevs" by Saltykov-Shchedrin - a book that is read at the beginning and which is not read to the end, because the Soviet school programs turned the history of Russian literature into the history of an anti-Russian feuilleton. Therefore, the Christian meaning, the spiritual content of the works of our greatest Russian writers were forgotten. And so in the Golovlevs, the first chapters are studied at school, the chapters are terrible, hopeless. But they don't read the end. And at the end of the darkness even more. And this darkness is all the more terrible because it is associated with ... repentance.
For Dostoevsky, repentance is always beneficial, it is always good and healing. Saltykov-Shchedrin describes repentance that finishes... Sister Porfiry Golovleva participated in many of his abominations. And suddenly she begins to see clearly and understands that it is she (together with her brother) who is to blame for the deaths of all the people who met them on life path. It would seem so natural to suggest here the line, say, "Crime and Punishment": repentance - renewal - resurrection. But no. Saltykov-Shchedrin shows a terrible repentance - repentance without Christ, repentance performed in front of a mirror, and not before the face of the Savior. In Christian repentance, a person repents before Christ. He says: “Lord, this was in me, take it away from me. Lord, do not remember me as I was at that moment. Make me different Make me different." And if there is no Christ, then a person, as if in a mirror, having looked into the depths of his deeds, petrifies with horror, like a man who has looked into the eyes of Medusa-Gorgon. And just like that, sister Porfiry Golovleva, realizing the depth of her lawlessness, loses her last hope. She did everything for herself, and having known herself, she sees the nonsense of her deeds ... And she commits suicide. The unrighteousness of her repentance is evident from the second repentance described in "Lords of the Golovlevs". On Passion Week on Maundy Thursday, after the priest reads the service of the Twelve Gospels in Golovlev’s house, “Judas” walks around the house all night, he cannot sleep: he heard about the sufferings of Christ, that Christ forgives people , and hope begins to stir in him - can he really forgive me, can it be that the possibility of Salvation is open to me? And the next day, in the morning, he runs to the cemetery and dies there on the grave of his mother, asking her forgiveness ...
Only God can make the former non-existent. And therefore, only through turning to the One Who is above time, one can get rid of the nightmares creeping from the world that has already happened. But in order for Eternity to accept me without accepting my bad deeds, I myself must separate the eternal from the transient in myself, that is, the image of God, my personality, given to me from Eternity, separate from what I myself did in time . If I cannot make this division while there is still time (Eph. 5:16), then my past will drag me down like a weight, for it will not allow me to unite with God.
It is for the sake of not being a hostage to time, to his sins committed in time, that a person is called to repentance.
In repentance, a person tears away his bad past from himself. If he succeeded, it means that his future will grow not from a moment of sin, but from a moment of repentant renewal. To tear off a piece of yourself is painful. Sometimes you don't want to die. But here is one of two things: either my past will devour me, dissolve in itself both me and my future, and my eternity, or I will be able to go through the pain of repentance. “Die before you die, then it will be too late,” says one of Lewis's characters.
Do you want the Meeting not to become a Court? Well, combine two realities in your conscientious look. First: repentant vision and renunciation of one's sins; second: Christ, before whose Face and for whose sake the words of repentance must be uttered. In a single perception, both the love of Christ and my own horror at my unworthiness must be given. But still, Christ's love is greater... After all, Love is God's, and sins are only human... If we do not prevent Him from saving and having mercy on us, from treating us not justly, but out of condescension, He will do it. But shall we not consider ourselves too proud to be indulgent? Do we consider ourselves too self-sufficient to accept unmerited gifts?
Here it is just right to open the Gospel beatitudes and reread them carefully. This is a list of those categories of citizens who enter the Kingdom of Heaven, bypassing the Last Judgment. What do all of the people on this list have in common? The fact that they did not consider themselves rich and deserved. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they do not come to Judgment, but pass into Eternal Life.
Appearance at the Last Judgment is optional. There is a possibility to avoid it (see John 5:29).
Notes
137. Writings of ancient Christian apologists. - St. Petersburg, 1895, pp. 108-109.
138. This is a literary and very free translation (Grigor Narekatsi. The book of mournful hymns. Translation by N. Grebnev. Yerevan, 1998, p. 26). The literal one sounds different - more restrained and “orthodox”: “but if the day of judgment of the Lord is near, then the kingdom of God incarnate has drawn near to me, Who will find me more guilty than the Edomites and the Philistines” (Grigor Narekatsi. Book of Sorrowful Hymns. Translation from ancient Armenian M O. Darbiryan-Melikyan and L.A. Khanlaryan, Moscow, 1988, p.30).
139. “When one of our co-servants, being exhausted by infirmity and embarrassed by the nearness of death, prayed, almost already dying, for the continuation of life, a young man, glorious and majestic, appeared before him; he said to the dying man with some indignation and reproach: “And you are afraid to suffer, and you do not want to die. What am I to do with you?”... Yes, and how many times it was revealed to me, I was commanded to incessantly inspire that we should not mourn for our brothers, who, at the call of the Lord, renounce the present age... We must strive after them with love, but not complain about them in any way : they should not wear mourning clothes when they have already put on white robes ”(St. Cyprian of Carthage. The Book of Mortality // Creations of the Hieromartyr Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage. M., 1999, p. 302).
140. Prot. Alexy Mechev. Funeral speech in memory of the servant of God Innokenty // Father Alexy Mechev. Memories. Sermons. Letters. Paris. 1989, p.348.
141. St. Theophan the Recluse. Creations. Collection of letters. issue 3-4. Pskov-Caves Monastery, 1994. pp. 31-32 and 38.
142. “You see, Alyoshechka,” Grushenka suddenly laughed nervously, turning to him, “it’s only a fable, but it good fable, I heard her, still a child, from my Matryona, who now serves in my cooks, I heard. You see how it is: “Once upon a time there was one woman, angry, despising, and died. And not a single virtue remained after her. The devils seized her and threw her into the lake of fire. And her guardian angel stands and thinks: what kind of virtue should I remember her in order to tell God. He remembered and said to God: she, she says, pulled out an onion in the garden and gave it to a beggar woman. And God answers him: take this same onion, he says, stretch it into the lake, let it grab and stretch, and if you pull it out of the lake, then let it go to paradise, and the onion breaks, then the woman stays there, where now. An angel ran to the woman, handed her an onion: here, the woman says, grab it and stretch. And he began to carefully pull her, and he was already pulling her all out, but the other sinners in the lake, when they saw that she was being pulled out, and all began to grab hold of her, so that they too would be pulled out with her. And the woman was feisty, deceiving, and she began to kick with their legs: “They pull me, not you, my onion, not yours.” As soon as she uttered this, the onion broke. And the woman fell into the lake and burns to this day. And the angel wept and departed” (Dostoevsky F.M. The Brothers Karamazov. Parts 3,3 // Complete Works in 30 volumes. Vol. 14, Ld., 1976, pp. 318-319).
143. Lewis K.S. So far we have not found faces // Works, v.2. Minsk-Moscow, 1998, p.231.
144. “Abba Isaac of Thebes came to the monastery, saw a brother who had fallen into sin, and condemned him. When he returned to the wilderness, the Angel of the Lord came, stood before his door and said: God sent me to you, saying: Ask him where does he tell me to throw my fallen brother? - Abba Isaac immediately fell to the ground, saying: I have sinned against You, forgive me! - The angel said to him: get up, God has forgiven you; but henceforth beware of condemning anyone before God condemns him” (Ancient Patericon. M., 1899, p.144).
145. St. Nicholas of Japan. Diary entry 1/1/1872 // Righteous life and apostolic labors of St. Nicholas, Archbishop of Japan according to his handwritten notes. part 1. SPb., 1996, p.11.
146. “Christ of the Gospel. In Christ, we find, unique in its depth, the synthesis of ethical solipsism, the infinite severity of a person towards himself, that is, an impeccably pure attitude towards himself, with ethical-aesthetic kindness to another: here for the first time an infinitely deepened I-for-itself, but not a cold but immeasurably kind to the other, giving all the truth to the other as such, revealing and affirming the fullness of the value originality of the other. All People disintegrate for Him into Him alone and all other people, Him who is merciful, and others who are merciful, Him who is the Savior and all others who are being saved, Him who takes upon Himself the burden of sin and redemption, and all others who are freed from this burden and redeemed. . Hence, in all the norms of Christ, I and the other are opposed: an absolute sacrifice for oneself and mercy for another. But I-for-myself is different for God. God is no longer essentially defined as the voice of my conscience, as the purity of my relationship to myself, the purity of repentant self-denial of everything given in me, the One into whose hands it is terrible to fall and to see which means to die (immanent self-condemnation), but the Heavenly Father who is over me and can justify and pardon me where I cannot pardon and justify myself from within myself in principle, while remaining pure with myself. What I should be for another, God is for me... The idea of grace as a descent from the outside of a merciful justification and acceptance of the given, fundamentally sinful and insurmountable from within itself. Adjoining here is the idea of confession (repentance to the end) and absolution. From the inside of my repentance is the denial of all myself, from the outside (God is different) - restoration and mercy. A person himself can only repent - only another can let go ... Only the consciousness that I am not yet in the most essential is the organizing beginning of my life from myself. I do not accept my cash, I madly and inexpressibly believe in my non-coincidence with this inner cash of mine. I cannot count myself in all, saying: here is all I am, and there is nowhere else and in nothing else, I already am in full. I live in the depths of myself with eternal faith and hope for the constant possibility of the inner miracle of a new birth. I cannot value my whole life in time and in it justify and complete it in full. A temporarily completed life is hopeless from the point of view of the meaning that drives it. From within itself it is hopeless, only from without can a merciful justification come upon it, in addition to the unattained meaning. Until life is cut short in time, it lives from within itself by hope and faith in its non-coincidence with itself, in its semantic standing before itself, and in this life is insane from the point of view of its presence, for this faith and hope are of a prayerful nature prayerful and pleading and repentant tones)” (Bakhtin M. M. Aesthetics of verbal creativity. M., 1979, pp. 51-52 and 112).
147. Abba Dorotheos. Soulful teachings and messages. Trinity Sergius Lavra. 1900, p.80.
148. See, for example, Ancient patericon. M., 1899, p.366.
149. Lewis K.S. Until we have found faces // Works, v.2. Minsk-Moscow, 1998, p.219.
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From the book "If God is Love".
Meat Week (about the Last Judgment)- the penultimate Sunday before Lent, on which, according to the charter, eating meat ends. On this Sunday, the coming Last Judgment is remembered (Matthew 25:31-46). This reminder is necessary so that people who sin do not indulge in carelessness and negligence about their salvation in the hope of the inexpressible mercy of God. This is a reminder that we will be judged.
What does the Last Judgment mean? This is the completion of human history in the form in which we now have it and had it before. And often, and very often, people tried to look through time and imagine, but when will this Last Judgment come? Many tried to wishful thinking, appointed dates, times, said that they knew (when it would be), but this time passed, and these predictions did not come true. Because it is not necessary to engage in this unproductive speculation. For the Lord directly said at the end of the parable of the ten virgins, by the way, in the same 25th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, where the parable of the Last Judgment is, that people should be vigilant, and He says: because you do not know either the day or hour when the Son of Man comes. The only thing we can say with you is that the completion of this story, the Second Coming of the Lord, will come not during the spiritual flowering of mankind, but obviously during its spiritual decline.
Jesus Christ himself speaks of His terrible judgment: The time will come when all who are in the tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who have done good will come out to the resurrection of life, and those who do evil to the resurrection of condemnation"(John 5:28-29). From this it can be seen that before the coming of the last judgment, all the dead, according to the voice of the Son of God, will come to life, and kind people resurrect for eternal blessed life, and evil people - for eternal condemnation. The picture of the Last Judgment is also strikingly depicted by Jesus Christ himself in the following: “ When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory, and all nations will be gathered before Him.". These words of the Gospel are about the mystery of the First and Second Coming of Christ. His first Coming to earth was in humiliation, so that He could not be distinguished from other people. The Lord appeared so humbly that no one noticed His appearance. The Second Coming will be completely different. The first time the Lord came not to judge, but to save the world. The second time He will come for the Last Judgment.
The Last Judgment appears to many as abstractly distant, while the Lord is "near, at the door." People do not believe in eternal torment, or they believe, but they think that everything will not be so terrible, as the Gospel says. Why? After all, our entire earthly life is a distant shadow of a true and full life in the Kingdom of God; like all torments on earth are only a distant shadow of the terrible torments of sinners in hellfire. As St. Nicholas (Velimirovich) said: “Life on earth, no matter how sublime it may be, is still dissolved in flour, for there is no fullness of life here; just as the torment on earth, no matter how great it may be, is nevertheless dissolved by life. But at the Last Judgment, life will be separated from torment, and life will be life, and torment will be torment. Both will remain forever, each on its own. What is this eternity - our human mind cannot contain it. Whoever enjoys contemplation of the face of God for one minute, this delight will seem like a thousand years. And to the one who will be tormented with demons in hell for one minute, this torment will seem like a thousand years.”
This judgment will be so simple that it seems that we will not be asked about our faith, nor about how we prayed and fasted or theologised, but only about whether we were or were not people in relation to other people. However, in this ultimate simplicity, the mystery of the Incarnation of God and the Cross, and the Resurrection, and Pentecost is revealed. And His Second Coming in glory will be preceded by the appearance of the Cross in heaven, revealing the mystery of the dual commandment.
The mystery of the Last Judgment is the mystery of the general resurrection, the resurrection of each of the dead. And this is given to all of us - no one, not a single person is deprived of this. The martyrs bought the Kingdom with their blood, the desert fathers found grace through exploits of abstinence, and we, living in the midst of the world, can achieve the glory of the Lord in the simplest way. human help- feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the homeless, comfort the sick, visit the prisoner - this is what anyone can do. This is offered to us every day, this is what life consists of.
God's Law: About the Last Judgment
About His last, terrible judgment over all people, at His second coming, Jesus Christ taught as follows:
When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He, as King, will sit on the throne of His glory. And all nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate some people from others (the faithful and good from the ungodly and evil), just as a shepherd separates sheep from goats; and he will put the sheep (the righteous) on his right hand, and the goats (sinners) on his left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand: “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Because I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you accepted Me; was naked, and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me."
Then the righteous will ask Him with humility: “Lord! when we saw you hungry and fed you? or thirsty, and drink? When did we see you as a stranger and receive you? or naked and clothed? When did we see You sick or in prison and come to You?”
The king will say to them in response: “Truly I say to you, because you did this to one of the least of these My brothers (i.e., for needy people), you did it to Me.”
Then the King will say also to those who left side“Depart from me, you cursed, into eternal fire prepared for the devil and his aggels. Because I was hungry, and you did not give me food; I was thirsty, and you did not give Me drink; I was a stranger, and they did not receive me; was naked, and they did not clothe me; sick and in prison, and did not visit Me."
Then they will say to Him in answer: “Lord! when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and not serve you?”
But the King will say to them, "Truly I say to you, because you did not do this to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me." And they will go into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
This day will be great and terrible for each of us. Therefore, this judgment is called Terrible, since our deeds, words, and the most secret thoughts and desires will be open to everyone. Then we will no longer have anyone to rely on, for the Judgment of God is righteous, and everyone will receive according to their deeds.
Interpretations and sayings of the holy fathers on the gospel parable of the Last Judgment:
Great will be fear and trembling and frenzy at the hour when the Lord gathers an impartial judgment seat and terrible books are opened, where our deeds, words and everything that in this life we thought to hide from God, testing hearts and wombs are written ...
All will be clothed there with contrition of soul, except those who are perfect. The wicked will mourn, because they did not think about the end; sinners - because they did not seek salvation in repentance and mercy towards their neighbors. Those who loved the truth will also grieve if they did not remain constant, and those who repent if they did not correct themselves in time. When they see the crowns of the victors there, then they will bring to their memory their lives; they will know the fullness of the blessedness of those who labor and are burdened, they will know how excellent their life was, how good and merciful the Lord is to those who honor Him ... ( Rev. Ephraim Sirin).
Terrible Judgment! The Judge is coming, surrounded by a myriad of Heavenly Forces. Trumpets sound to all ends of the earth and raise the dead. Those who have risen in regiments flow to a certain place, to the Throne of the Judge, already anticipating in advance what a sentence will sound in their ears, for the deeds of each will be written on the forehead of their nature, and their very appearance will correspond to their deeds and customs. Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us! Let us cry now, if not with rivers of tears, then at least with streams; if not streams, at least raindrops; if we don’t find this either, let’s repent in our hearts and, having confessed our sins to the Lord, we will beg Him to forgive us for them, giving a vow not to offend Him anymore by breaking His commandments, and then being jealous to fulfill such a vow faithfully ( St. Theophan the Recluse).
Is there anyone now who would rightly judge himself and be rightly judged by others? It will not be the same there: we will all be open to ourselves and others. This universal vision of sins shakes the sinner in such a way that it would be easier for him if the mountains fell and covered him. No one can escape judgment, everything will be as it is written in the Gospel. Jealous in advance to justify yourself before God, washing yourself in tears of repentance ( St. Theophan the Recluse).
Now the Holy Church reminds us of the Judgment of God and thereby wants to inspire her children to great labors, and awaken the negligent from sleep... Our misfortune is that we are used to putting the hour of Judgment away from ourselves... But we will also have to stand before the Court and give an account for the days and years life… Isn’t it better to behave every hour as if the Lord were to appear now?.. The enemy knows the power of this thought and in every possible way obscures it in our memory… Now or tomorrow death will come and seal our fate forever, for after death there is no repentance ... In whatever death finds us - in that we will stand at the Judgment ... Imprint the image of the Judgment of God in your mind and heart and always remember it ( St. Theophan the Recluse).
Who, recalling to himself the Last Judgment of Christ, will not immediately be troubled in his own conscience, will not be embraced by fear and ignorance? Even if he realizes in himself the correction of life, then, looking at the severity of the Court, at which even the slightest oversights are examined, of course, he will be horrified by the expectation of terrible punishments, not knowing how the Court will end for him. The Divine Court, following an incorruptible and truthful verdict, according to our will, gives to each what a person has acquired for himself ( St. Gregory of Nyssa).
"TERMS OF JUDGMENT" (2007)
Year of issue: 2007
The country: Belarus
genre: documentary
Duration: 00:50:56
Producer: BPC News Agency. Vyacheslav Galuza
Cast People: Alexander Stepanov, Alexey Osipov, Vyacheslav Galuza
Description: End of the World, Apocalypse, Judgment Day... This topic has become too popular today... The authors of many films, books, newspaper articles, magazine publications enthusiastically draw a chilling picture of the death of mankind... Isn't it strange that this topic is so actively attracting the attention of modern society? When will the end come? Is it possible that the whole history of mankind will burn, disappear without a trace, be crossed out and forgotten?!
And the well-known "Last Judgment", "God's Judgment" causes a feeling of anxiety, misunderstanding and even protest ... Why will He judge people who is infinitely different from us, so weak and defenseless before His power and perfection?
The first Christians did not call the last judgment "terrible" and were not afraid of the coming of the last times. They waited for Christ with joy. So what are we afraid of?
Questions, questions, questions.
When you read the Revelation of John the Theologian, they appear endlessly. How to understand the meaning of the Last Judgment, knowing that God is love?
These and other questions are answered by: Bishop of Grodno and Volkovysk Artemy, priest Alexander Stepanov, rector of the Church of Anastasia the Solver in St. Petersburg, Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy A.I. Osipov.
