Mortuary practices and our views on death affect how we treat this life. Anyone may “reject” the idea of an afterlife. But it’s impossible for humans to live without the assumption that everyone desires to live forever or live as if they will in the different forms that takes for individuals. Any general study of cultures throughout time, universally among pre-modern people, will find a belief in a kind of existence, whether intact or altered, after death. This age or eschaton in Greek biblical terminology doesn’t imply that Christians, at least in Orthodoxy, have a so-called “linear” view of time and reality, since the “coming Kingdom” is eternal so that the end of this age is actually the beginning of eternity. The many parables and teachings of Christ focus on this eternal Kingdom that is coming from heaven to earth and how to live in that realm here while awaiting the one who is coming to us, the Son of Man. The end of time and the end of our individual lives coincide now and will take place soon. Likewise, the study of eschatology involves both a “personal” and an “universal-historical” aspect.
If each death of a person is not the end of one’s existence, then for the Christian there is not a never-ending tragedy or evil that we associate with such destruction in this world as mournful as it is. St. Isaac the Syrian calls death “falling asleep” because our body and bones wait for the return of the soul. In this way, grief can make us reflect on the hope we can have that our loved ones and our own bodies will some day reunite. But that hopeful view has not been the dominant philosophy of this age. Some question why death had to be introduced. St. Gregory of Nyssa explains death as providential and purificatory, since sin “flows away” at the separation of this dying body and soul so that a new creation can emerge without any “evil.” Death, suffering and evil, then, are not going to be allowed by God, as some people argue. The only charge against Him is the way that God conquers them.
An important point that is overlooked in this narration of eternity is the role of the demons who enslave people to evil desires and forgetfulness of God and doing good to others. Death was often a deity or a frightening, uncontrollable force for many cultures in the past as it is today in its modern forms. But for Orthodox Christians, even the fear of this inevitable event has lost its power because the Lover of Mankind, the Creator will not let the eternal separation reign in the universe that He created. Christians have the most hopeful and truthful creation story among the nations of people. The real fear is not mending our lives before we depart, as St. Macarius of Egypt teaches his monastic brothers.
The Orthodox Church teaches that those who die await the Last Judgment. This teaching is highlighted during the Synaxarion of Meatfare Saturday, which teaches that the dead are not judged now and may be helped by Christian prayer and ascetical offerings until that final day. The mentally ill, infants, even unbaptized ones as opposed to the Roman Catholic theological explanation of limbus puerorum or limbus infantum (limbo for infants/children), and youths who die early are not held liable for “retribution” because there wasn’t yet an intent to do evil or good. Often critics of Christianity blame God for death and corruption; there are questions about why He would allow it. But the real heading is that God is not going to allow for it all and His Son reversed it all, and His Son will come again to prevail.