The experience of Paradise or Hell is beyond language and the senses. It is an uncreated reality, not a created one. The Franks forged the myth that Paradise and Hell are created realities. It is a myth that those in torment will not see God, as is the concept of the absence of God. The Franks (e.g., Dante) also understood the fire of Hell as created. Orthodox Tradition remains faithful to Scripture, which says that those in torment will see God (e.g., the rich man in the parable), but as a consuming fire. The Frankish Scholastics understood Hell as punishment and privation of the rational vision of the Divine essence. In Biblical and Patristic terms, however, Hell represents man’s failure and his refusal to cooperate with Divine Grace in order to attain to the illuminating vision of God (Paradise) and selfless love. ([Love] seeketh not her own—1 Cor 13:8). Consequently, there is no such thing as the absence of God, but only His presence. This is why the Second Coming is fearful. (How shall it be in that hour..., as we chant at the Praises on the Sunday of Meatfare.) It is an ineluctable reality, towards which Orthodoxy is permanently oriented (I look for the resurrection of the dead...).

The scholastic understandings and interpretations which, via the work of Dante ("The Divine Comedy"), have become pervasive in our own sphere have consequences that lead to idolatrous interpretations. For example, the separation of Paradise and Hell into two different places; this occurs because no distinction is made between the created and the uncreated. Similarly, the denial of the eternity of Hell, in the sense of the "restoration" of all things or in the sense of a "good God" (Bon Dieu). God is truly good (Mt 19:17) since He offers salvation to everyone. He will have all men to be saved. (1Tim 2:4). The words of Christ that we hear at funerals, moreover, are striking: I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me. (Jn 5:30) In addition, the concept of "theodicy" as applied in this case is misleading.

Everything is ultimately ascribed to God (He will save or punish), without taking into account synergy (cooperation) as a factor in our salvation. Salvation is possible only within the framework of man’s synergy or cooperation with Divine Grace. According to the Divine Chrysostomos, The greatest part, indeed nearly everything, belongs to God; yet He has left us a little something. This something is our acceptance of God’s invitation. The thief was saved by using as a key, "Remember me!" (Synaxarion for Great Friday). Equally idolatrous is the idea that God is angry against sinners, whereas God, as we have seen, is never at enmity. This is a juridical view of God, which also leads to the understanding of "penances" in Confession as punishments and not as remedies (means of healing).

The mystery of Paradise and Hell is also experienced in the life of the Church in the midst of the world. The believer’s participation in Grace is deified in the Mysteries, so that Grace might be activated in our life as we journey towards Christ. Especially in the Holy Eucharist, the Uncreated—Divine Communion—becomes within us either Paradise or Hell, depending on our condition. It is primarily our partaking of Divine Communion that constitutes our participation in Paradise or Hell in the context of history. This is why we entreat God, before Divine Communion, that the Precious Gifts be within us not unto judgment, or unto condemnation and not unto eternal punishment. For this reason, partaking of Divine Communion is bound up with the believer’s entire spiritual journey. When we approach for Communion impure and unrepentant, we are punished (burned). Divine Communion becomes inside us Hell and spiritual death, not, of course, because it is transformed into any such thing, but because our impurity cannot receive it as Paradise. Given that Divine Communion is called the medicine of immortality, there occurs precisely what occurs with any medication. If our organism does not have the necessary capacity to accept it, then the medicine will produce side effects and will kill instead of curing. In this case, it is not the medicine itself that is responsible, but the condition of our organism. It must be said that if we do not accept Christianity as a therapeutic regimen and the Mysteries as spiritual remedies, then we end up transforming Christianity into a religion; in other words, we turn it into a form of idolatry. This, unfortunately, happens most often when we understand Christianity as a "religion."

Furthermore, the present life is to be evaluated in the light of the dichotomy of Paradise and Hell. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness (Mt. 6:33), Christ advises us. We do all things in preparation for the next life, St. Basil tells the young. Our life must be a continuous preparation for our participation in Paradise, that is, for communion with the Uncreated, which begins already in this world. Hence, the Apostle Paul says: Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. (2 Cor 6:2). Each moment of our life is endowed with soteriological significance: either we gain eternity, eternal communion with God, or we lose it. This is why Far Eastern religions and cults which preach reincarnation do mankind a disservice, since they shift the issue to other (obviously non-existent) lives. There is, however, only one life, in which we are either saved or lost. Thus, St. Basil continues: We maintain that we must cherish and pursue with all our might those things which conduce for us to this life, while we must disregard those which are of no avail for it as being devoid of value. This is the criterion of Christian life. The Christian constantly chooses that which contributes to his salvation. It is in this life that we either gain Paradise or lose it and wind up in Hell. This is why St. John the Evangelist says: He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. (Jn 3:18).

The task of the Church is not to "send" man to Paradise or Hell, but to prepare him for the Last Judgment. The work of the clergy is therapeutic, and not moralistic or character-forming in the worldly sense of the term. The essence of life in Christ is preserved in monasteries—provided, of course, that they are Orthodox, that is, Patristic in spirit. The purpose of the cure offered by the Church is not to create "good" and fundamentally "useful" citizens, but citizens of the Heavenly (Uncreated) Kingdom. Such are the Confessors and Martyrs, the true faithful, the Saints.

This, furthermore, is the litmus test of our mission. To what are we calling people? To the Church understood as a hospital or clinic, or to an ideology that is Christian only in name? All too often we seek a secure place in "Paradise" instead of a cure. As such, we are preoccupied with rituals and not with therapy. This certainly does not mean that we should reject worship. But without ascesis (the ascetical life, practical therapy) worship cannot sanctify us. The Grace that flows from it remains inert within us. Orthodoxy does not promise to send man to any kind of Paradise or Hell, but has the capacity, as is evident from the incorrupt and wonder-working Relics of the Saints (incorruption = deification), to prepare man to behold the Uncreated Grace and Kingdom of Christ eternally as Paradise and not as Hell.