“Popular opinion today often states that all religions have the same God, that they all lead to the same place. And yet to become forgetful of the judgment of God is to trivialize His existence, suggesting that beyond this world there is no accountability; that the righteous will stand with the unrepentant enjoying the same place of Paradise.” (Archimandrite Sergius)
“Repose does not simply mean death, whether temporal or eternal – it is synonym for rest. It is possible that death may offer no rest, only eternal anguish resulting from an evil, unrepentant life. This truth is often glossed over at funerals out of a misguided respect for grieving friends and loved ones. Fortunately, the…Church does not overlook the reality that some of us pass our lives completely alienated from Christ. Such people may approach death with a false hope of finding bliss beyond the grave; perhaps they fantasize about reincarnation or anticipate only a blank, unconscious nothingness.” (Dynamis 7/29/2019)
“Hell isn’t for sinners, but for the unrepentant. For those who don’t feel their unworthiness, who don’t understand the magnificence of forgiveness, who have no concept of the paradise of God’s love, who don’t live in the hope that faith brings. The Church can say to each of us ‘Fear nothing and don’t be sad. Provided you repent, God will forgive you everything. In this world, there isn’t and can’t be any crime so great that God won’t forgive those who truly repent. Nor can we commit any sin so great that it will exhaust God’s measureless love’. (Bishop Agathangelos of Fanari)
“What is often labeled as God’s judgment, wrath, or punishment is really His allowing the perpetrators of iniquity to experience the full consequences of their sin. As always, this judgment is not punitive, though we may experience it as the punishment or the price of sin. Rather, to truly restore justice and order requires either repentance of the sin and evil that have disrupted the good order of creation or the removal of the unrepentant sinner.” (Fr. Stephen De Young)
“The Church is holy, although there are sinners within her. Those who sin but who cleanse themselves with true repentance do not keep the Church from being holy. But unrepentant sinners are cut off, whether visibly by Church authority or invisibly by the judgment of God, from the body of the Church. And so, in this regard, the Church remains holy…In other words, the repentance of its members preserves the holiness of the church…God’s love is a burning light that causes torment to the unrepentant sinner. Hell can then be seen as the absence of God’s love and light, in utter darkness. It is our choice whether we end up in the darkness of hell or in the light of God’s love eternally.” (St. Philaret of Moscow, Fr. Basil, Fr. David L. Fontes, PsyD)
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