Retired Archbishop Theodosius (Bilchenko) is currently the oldest Orthodox bishop in Belarus—he is now eighty-one. For over two decades—from 1997 to 2019—he headed the oldest diocese in the Belarusian land, that of Polotsk and Glubokoye. For his spiritual and educational activities, he was awarded the Prize of the President of the Republic of Belarus “For Spiritual Rebirth”.
His Eminence has an interesting biography full of extraordinary events. Thus, before entering the Moscow Theological Seminary he had obtained a technical education and worked for several years at the Institute of Low Temperatures and the Institute of Radiophysics and Electronics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
After graduating from the Moscow Theological Academy in 1978, the future hierarch and brilliant preacher was appointed teacher of homiletics and taught this subject at the Moscow Theological Seminary and Academy for almost twenty years. In 2002 he was the first in the Republic of Belarus to obtain a Master’s degree in Theology.
Here is the full version of our talk about the Christian attitude to death, which was conducted for the “Isnasts” spiritual and educational program on Channel 1 of Belarusian television. Twenty years have since passed, but Vladyka’s words have not lost their missionary significance, as he addresses issues of concern to people at all times from two (sometimes conflicting) perspectives—the religious and the scientific.
Photo: Vladimir Orlov / Orlov74.livejournal.com
Should the pendulum stop?
—Since the first centuries of Christianity, commemoration of the dead has been an integral part of church services. It is very hard for our contemporaries, who were brought up in the USSR on purely scientific theories of the universe that deny the existence of a Creator, to believe in an afterlife. Your Eminence, please explain the attitude of Christianity towards death. Why do Orthodox Christians pray for those who have departed to God?
—In the Holy Gospel the Lord says: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly (Jn. 10:10). These words need to be explained in order for modern people to meditate on and take a good look at the bottomless depths of Christ’s words.
What is life and what is death? Based on our everyday understanding, life is always joy, triumph, pleasure and enjoyment, whereas death is nothingness, dust, melancholy and hopelessness. Life is perceived as something ordinary, necessary and obligatory. Man can never accept that he will die, although his reason and experience say the opposite, that everyone will inevitably die. We do not believe in this nor not want to, because man was created for eternal life. And death is something foreign, something incomprehensible to us, to our self–awareness.
There is another understanding of life and death—the scientific one. Biologists recognize that life is the greatest miracle, because the second law of thermodynamics—that is, the law of death—is applied everywhere in the universe. Scientifically, it sounds like this: any closed system, isolated from external influences, tends toward equalizing energies—that is, to rest. Everything must stop and cease to exist. This law can be visualized using a pendulum: as long as the source of external energy gives it power, it swings. Once we stop swinging the pendulum, it stops. Another example: we know from life experience that any building can stand for centuries, but it will surely collapse if we do not repair and restore it. However, hundreds of years will pass, and only an empty space will remain from any beautiful building—it will collapse or turn into ruins.
Even the latest progressive science about the origin and existence of the universe, the Big Bang theory or the Expanding Universe theory, says that the world must cease to exist. When there is a critical number of hydrogen atoms in a unit of space, a collapse will occur and the world will disappear.
Yes, the Word of God, our Christian faith, fully agrees with the conclusions of science and life experience that we have. A person lives for a certain number of years and then must die. But this is where Christianity’s agreement with the arguments of Soviet science and with our life experience ends. Then something begins that is unique to the Christian faith and teaching. The Word of God teaches that man was created by God and is a part of the visible material world: not only a part, but the crown of God’s Creation.
Man consists of a body and a soul. According to the law of death, the body ceases to exist and goes into the bowels of the earth, into the matter from which man was created. In addition to his body, man has an immortal soul, which after death goes to God. All people are immortal—not only in soul, but also in body, because when Christ comes to earth for the second time, all the bodies will rise and acquire a new divine state. The most solid proof of our resurrection is the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was resurrected in a renewed body and could pass through closed doors, appear suddenly and disappear, and could become invisible. The Holy Scriptures say, But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept (1 Cor. 15:20). And if so, He paved the way for our immortality.
That is why, while we are still here and until the end of the world, the Church of God prays for all our departed brothers, for their immortal souls, so that on the great day of the universal Resurrection, having received forgiveness of sins, our fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers and grandmothers can rise from their graves in renewed bodies and inherit eternal life.
Someone may argue: “This is only the private opinion of the Christian Church.” But this supposedly “private opinion” is supported by historical, scientific, and anthropological evidence. The truth of God is certainly present in all the nations of the world, and all past civilizations bore grains of God’s truth. But it was fully revealed only in the Holy Scriptures, in the Gospel, which is God’s gift to man and contains the deepest mysteries of the universe and human existence.
Our ancestors believed in the afterlife
Let’s turn to a very ancient civilization, that of Babylon. There is the legend of Gilgamesh known to historians. He had a friend, Enkidu, a warrior who died. The early authors, who of course possessed inner revelation, put the following words into Gilgamesh’s mouth. He asked the gods to reveal his friend’s destiny beyond the grave. At his request, the spirit of Enkidu appeared. Gilgamesh asked him immediately: “Where are you? How do you feel there?” The warrior told Gilgamesh, “If you knew where I am and what horrors I am experiencing, you would weep day and night.” In this fragment of a very ancient legend, we see an indication of the spiritual realm of being. According to the beliefs of this civilization, after the death of the body a person did not disappear and did not dissolve; his immortal spirit went to the nether world.
Let’s take another unique human civilization, the Egyptian. When exploring the ancient pyramids, scientists very often found “The Book of the Dead.” When they managed to translate very early Egyptian texts, it became clear that this book was nothing other than the confession of a man who was dying and waiting to meet God in another world. His soul, going into eternity, was trembling and striving to assure the Creator that he had lived his earthly life worthily.
Let’s take the Greco-Roman civilization. We know of the philosopher Plato, who created a whole school of philosophers who succeeded in getting very close to the Christian understanding of existence. Plato said in one of his treatises: “The soul’s dwelling is in Heaven on high”—that is, he recognized that our earthly life is a temporary state, that man consists of a body and a soul, and eventually the soul must go to Heaven.
If we consider the archeological finds in our country (Belarus), we see that our forebears also believed in the afterlife. They would visit the burial sites of their relatives every year, bringing food and commemorating their departed ancestors. This was before the adoption of Christianity.
We can conclude that faith in the afterlife, in immortality, is common to all mankind. The mysteries that, like separate pearls, we find in the beliefs of various ancient peoples, are fully revealed in the teaching of the New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ.
On spiritual intuition
In addition, there is amazing evidence of the life of the soul and immortality in our time. At the end of the last century, news spread all over the world that the physician Raymond Moody had discovered the existence of the human soul. This doctor, who dealt with intensive care issues, examined hundreds of patients who had had near death experiences. And most of them told him what they had experienced when their hearts were not beating and they were showing no signs of consciousness. Based on their evidence, Dr. Moody drew up an outline of what a person experiences in the first minutes after his death. Even acclaimed newspapers and journals, such as Meditsinskaya Gazeta (Medical Journal), published articles on this issue. After that there were studies on the same subject by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, as well as by the Orthodox physician Pyotr Kalinovsky who wrote the book, Transition: The Final Illness, Death, and Beyond.
—Vladyka, besides these scientific arguments, there is amazing evidence of such a phenomenon as premonition of death. There are many such examples in the Lives of the saints.
—It happens in our days too. I had a relative, servant of God Justina. In our family she is remembered as a person of remarkable meekness, humility and patience. She was in her eighties. That generation had gone through everything: the Civil War, the subsequent famine and devastation, the Second World War, and the tough post-war years. In the village where this woman lived, no one had ever said anything bad about her. One day Justina tidied herself, washed, dressed cleanly, went around the village, calling on every house and saying: “Forgive me.” The village residents answered her, “Aunt Justina, why should you apologize? You are a very special person in our village!” When she returned to her house, her son was in her room. She asked him to go out for a while. He went out, and when he returned five minutes later, he saw his mother lying on her bed with her arms folded on her breast, and with her eyes fixed on heaven—she had already departed to God. Thus, she had known not only the day, but even the minute of her death beforehand.
There are also special occurrences in our lives that we call emergency situations. They intensify our spiritual intuition, and often help us feel eternity, the higher Heavenly realm, and our souls. Those who experience this state become different people.
I often recall the story of Major-Paratrooper Anton Malshin. He is a hero of the Chechen War, an eyewitness of many terrible events. He talked about one of them openly to many.
“It was during the first Chechen campaign. We were in the first line of attack. A soldier fell a few yards away from me. I ran up to him and saw that his feet had been blown off, and his chest had been pierced by shrapnel. I dragged him to a safe place and tied up what was left of his legs with belts so that he would not bleed. And suddenly he said, ‘Commander, hear my confession’. The soldier confessed for half an hour. He cried, and so did I. After that he took a deep breath and said, ‘It’s a pity that I’ve never confessed to a priest. Lord, receive my spirit in peace.’”
We, the clergy, marvel at how a young man, who may never have been to church and never confessed, suddenly came to his senses on the verge of death and did not think about his parents or girlfriend, but about his future, his immortal soul—that it must go there prepared and cleansed. From the theological point of view, this is a terrible yet wonderful example.
Is death evil?
—We usually take death with sorrow and tragically. But can we say unequivocally that it is evil for man?
—I will answer this question the way the Holy Fathers did. Death is a phenomenon that is ordained for us from above, which means it is good. Imagine if there were no death—the villain would commit his atrocities infinitely, and the murderer would murder others without end. Death sets a limit to our existence: both to our sufferings and trials. And it naturally sets a limit to evil. So, by Divine Providence, death is of great importance for our eternal fate. If we have lived a sinful life, the Lord chooses the means that purify us. These are, first of all, the Church sacraments of Confession and Communion. These are also the hardships and tribulations that we must bear in this life. Everything leaves a trace with God: our sufferings, our torments, and our sorrows are all imputed by God for the cleansing of our souls.
St. John Chrysostom said the following about this: in terms of their fate after death, all people can be divided into three categories. Some people sin as they live on earth, and on the same earth they are cleansed of their sins by illnesses, sufferings, and sorrows. They pass into eternity purified. The second category are those who sin on earth, but do not have time to be completely purified on earth, and some of the punishments fall on them in the afterlife. There is also the third category: These are people who live on earth in luxury, comfort and abundance; they sin and do not suffer any illnesses or sorrows on earth. These are the most unhappy, because the whole burden of punishment will fall on them in the afterlife.
—Christianity teaches us that God is good and He created man to be immortal. Why did death enter this world, and where did the law of death come from?
—St. John Chrysostom asks: “Why does the Gospel speak of hell and torment?” And he answers: “Think about these words deeply and read them carefully! God created hell for the devil and his angels, not for man. And He told us about it so that you and I would not go there.”
The cause of death is man himself, his free will. He consciously violated God’s commandment, consciously fell away from God and cut off the flow of Divine grace, so he has only himself to blame for this.
Each one of us sometimes feels joy in his soul, sometimes oppression, sorrow, and mental anguish. Undoubtedly, it is our fault. By doing something unbecoming, indecent, and sinful, we cut off the grace of God and the joy that He gives us. So if, having sinned in this life, someone goes into the realm of eternal torment and despair, it is not God Who is to blame for this, but the person himself. For he deliberately shut down and isolated himself from God, and moved away from the realm of goodness, peace, joy, and happiness. And it is said: even if a sinner is forcibly sent to Paradise, it will be a completely foreign element for him. He will not find peace in the world of grace, joy, and happiness, because by his previous life he prepared himself for darkness, gloom, sorrow, and torment. He chose this form of being himself, and it is impossible for him to achieve anything else. Human free will is at work here, and the Lord has given every person the right to choose.
