Priest-Martyr Daniel Sysoyev

As you know, this subject is one that is absolutely relevant to everybody, as, like it or not, you will have to die. Unfortunately, since Adam and Eve, death has been everyone's fate. Although unfortunate, abnormal, unnatural, and contrary to what God intends for us, death become for us something of a second nature, one which the Lord defeated with His Resurrection. However, he did not commit the cruelty of giving us life immortal now, while we are still in corrupt bodies. Rather, he granted us Resurrection in immortal bodies. The very same ones, but immortal. One can understand why the Lord did not grant us life eternal right now. Grandmothers, consider this: would you like to live forever, continually sick? No.

Think about this: When people say that they would like to live forever, and don't think about the fact that while it would be good to live forever, it would also be quite desirable to live without illness. Would you not agree?

The History of the Fall and the Appearance of Hades

In order to understand what is happening to us in life, in our discussion of death we have to first clarify the structure of the Universe. We have to realize that the structure of the Universe was constantly changing in radical ways. Originally, there was no Universe; there was only the Lord God. The Lord created two worlds, two creations that were mutually interconnected: the invisible world and the visible world. Every day, we hear about this as Psalm 103 is chanted. Both the invisible and the visible worlds were split asunder as consequences of falls into sin: The first was the fall of the Morning Star and the Angels that followed him, and the second was the fall into sin by Adam and Eve, the first people. With sin, sicknesses, corruption, and death entered into the visible world. The Lord said to Adam: "...Dust thou art, and to dust wilt thou return" (Genesis 3:19) This contemplated not only man's bodily departure into the earth, but the fact that the human soul departs to the underground chasm of Hades, something that remained the case until the redemptive Resurrection by the Son of God was accomplished.

The Bible describes Hades for us quite succinctly and in considerable detail. According to the Word of God, Hades is an enormous underground place (Joshua 14: 15). Of course, despite the fact that many people have taken the words of the Bible literally and tried to find Hades in the bowels of the earth, that image should not be taken literally.

About five to seven years ago, there was a spate of published reports to the effect that drillers had discovered Hades below the surface of the earth. However, interestingly enough, those who reprinted the original newspaper report that led people astray failed to notice that the issue was published on April 1, and people simply did not get the [April Fools] joke. Actually, the underground does have a certain connection to Hades, and that connection is discussed in the lives of certain saints and in other sources of Church Tradition. However, the tie is not a geographic one, and does not suggest that geographically, Hades is below. In a certain sense, Hades is below, but in a different dimension. Our world has a dimension in addition to the three dimensions we use to measure space and time. I think that this is something each of us realizes, for we can guess things that are to happen, and we can comprehend time as such. Obviously, if we lived in but three dimensions, we would be unable to recognize or comprehend such a thing. Actually, our souls also belong to the invisible world, one with a relationship to this world, but as some type of supplemental dimension.

Thus, according to the Word of God, Hades, which appeared as the result of a rebellion by the first humans, is a prison for souls, as the Holy Apostle Peter says. Just like a holding tank, but not a place of torture, not a place of punishment, but rather a place where, as the Bible says, souls are in something akin to age-long sleep. But in what sense of the term "sleep?" Here we must clearly understand how Jehovah's Witnesses, who believe that the soul goes to sleep, are mistaken. For Jehovah's Witnesses, death is sleep without dreaming. Perhaps Jehovah's Witnesses do not in fact consciously have dreams, but all of us know that sleep is not a comatose state. While we sleep, our consciousness continues to function, but in a special way. We can even be conscious of ourselves, but we are incapable of influencing the dream. Do you see what happens? I can see something, but I am incapable of exerting any influence upon it. I can feel something, I can sense something, but it is impossible for me to change anything. Thus, you can see that the analogy to sleep is true. Like in ordinary sleep, in the underworld the same kind of fate awaits one who has gone down into the underground place of confinement for souls.

A few more words about Hades: Hades is a kind of underground into which people who have fallen into sin go, and to this day, all of the unbaptized, without exception, wind up there.

Hades is a place with a certain structure. One finds himself higher or lower within Hades, depending upon the extent of evil he has done. Before the Lord entered into Hades, there was a special section for the righteous. It was separated from the rest of Hades by a certain chasm, but nonetheless it remained in Hades. It was referred to as the Bosom of Abraham. Remember, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, there was a very clear description of a certain sheol, i.e. an invisible place. Actually, Hades is a Greek term for "underground kingdom." Sheol cannot be seen, because it is a place of darkness.

In that sheol there was a special place set aside for the righteous who hoped in Christ, in the coming of God and in God's intervention in history, a place for those who had encountered Christ God while they were yet alive. Experiencing that encounter made life more fulfilling for them, and, one might say, their hope made their life more substantial, more solidly built than that of the other occupants of Hades.