25. We Must Not Judge the Eternal Fate of Those Who Did Not Manage to Confess and Receive Holy Communion Before Death

Many simple folk, when they see that someone has died without managing to confess and receive communion before death, typically begin to condemn that person and say: “He lived sinfully, died without repentance and the sacraments—it will go badly for him in the next world!” In saying this, simple folk act wrongly: wrongly, first, because judging the living or the dead is not our business but God’s; and wrongly, second, because in their judgment about the afterlife of those who died without the last rites they may always be gravely mistaken. A young woman’s husband died without having managed to confess or receive communion before his death. At first the wife was in complete despair over this, but then, when she had somewhat recovered herself, she went to tell her grief to the venerable Seraphim. He said to her: “Do not be distressed about this, my joy; do not think that his soul will perish for this alone. God alone can judge whom to reward or punish with what. It sometimes happens that here on earth people receive communion, yet before the Lord they remain uncommuned; another desires to receive communion but for some reason his wish is not fulfilled, entirely independently of himself—such a one is invisibly granted communion through God’s angel” (“Account of the Life of Father Seraphim” by Schema-Abbot Seraphim, p. 193).

Another case. In the city of Thessalonica there was a women’s monastery. One of its nuns, having once left the convent, fell by the devil’s working into a mortal sin and then did not return to the monastery but remained in the world and spent several years in a sinful life. Finally, she came to her senses, grew wise, desired to turn to God, inwardly repented, and went again to the monastery where she had formerly lived, intending to atone for her former sins by a devout life. But it happened that just as she came to the monastery gates, she suddenly fell near them and died. After her death a certain bishop had the following vision. He saw angels who received the soul of the deceased, and demons following them, disputing with them over her soul. The angels said: “She lived for a long time in the monastery and served God for many years—therefore she is ours”; but the demons said that she had also gone to the monastery this last time in sloth, and therefore she belonged to them. To this the angels replied: “God saw her thoughts, her inward repentance, and that she was going to the monastery to begin a new life, and therefore He accepted her repentance; and as for the fact that she died suddenly, that is not our business but God’s” (Prologue, July 14). Thus, it is truly the case that those who judge the eternal fate of those who died without the last rites may always be gravely mistaken. And this is very understandable. Who is the sole Judge of the living and the dead? God, as it is written: There is one Lawgiver and Judge (James 4:12). In whose hands alone lies the power to save or destroy us? Again only in God’s hands, as it is also written: He alone can save or destroy. And therefore it may very easily come to pass that at the very time when we say that he lived sinfully, died without repentance, and that it will go badly for him in the next world—at that very moment the Lord at His particular judgment says to the one we have condemned: “I forgive you this, and that, and the other—I forgive everything.” And all of this, we repeat, can of course easily be so, for only God alone knows all the dispositions of a human heart and may have found therein, during the lifetime of the one we condemned, contrition, holy intentions, repentance, compunction, and much else unknown to us that was good—and for all of the latter has blotted out his transgressions like a mist and his sins like a cloud (Isa. 44:22). Yes, all of this can easily be, and therefore those who judge the eternal fate of those who died without communion must abandon their judgments about them forever and instead turn to God with fervent prayer for such departed ones—that the Lord would grant them rest and peace—and by this prayer obtain mercy for themselves as well at God’s judgment, from eternal condemnation for their sins. Amen.