Old Believer Resources

The doctrine of the aerial tollhouses (мытарства) is a traditional Orthodox teaching, especially preserved among the Old Believers, the Russian Orthodox Church, and also within Greek patristic sources. It concerns the soul’s journey after death, specifically its passage through a series of demonic “tollhouses” where the sins of the soul are tested and judged.

According to this teaching, immediately after death, the soul undergoes a forty-day journey. During this period, it encounters demonic spirits at various stations (the tollhouses), each one testing the soul regarding specific types of sins: slander, pride, greed, fornication, heresy, and so forth. If the soul has not repented of these sins and does not have the protection of its good deeds, prayers, and divine mercy, it risks being seized by demons and cast into Hades.

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The Old Believers, who have remained steadfast in the pre-Nikonian Orthodox tradition, uphold the full and unbroken confession of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. Among these, the Fourth Ecumenical Council, held at Chalcedon in 451 A.D., is a cornerstone in the Orthodox confession of the Person of Jesus Christ. The purpose of this paper is to present the position of the Old Believers regarding the Christology of the non-Chalcedonian sects, namely the Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, and Ethiopian churches.

The Definition of Chalcedon
The Council of Chalcedon issued a Christological definition that preserved the Apostolic faith—Jesus Christ is to be “acknowledged in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.” Each phrase was chosen with precision to counter the errors threatening the Church—”without confusion” opposed the blending of divine and human into a hybrid nature; “without change” affirmed the immutability of the divine nature; “without division” and “without separation” upheld the unity of Christ’s Person. This confession safeguarded the full divinity and full humanity of Christ. The Fathers of Chalcedon did not invent new doctrine but clarified what had always been believed in the Church from the beginning, especially in the face of the Eutychian heresy, which blurred the distinction between Christ’s two natures, creating a false composite nature.

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