Aerial toll house

File:Devils at an aerial toll house.jpg.]]

The most detailed account of the aerial toll-houses is found in the {{ill|Life of Basil the Younger|lt=biography|ru|Житие Василия Нового}} of Basil the Younger,{{cite book | last1=Sullivan | first1=Denis F. | last2=Talbot | first2=Alice-Mary Maffry | author2-link=Alice-Mary Talbot | last3=McGrath | first3=Stamatina Fatalas-Papadopoulos | title=The Life of Saint Basil the Younger | publisher=Dumbarton Oaks Studies | publication-place=Washington (DC) | date=2014 | isbn=978-0-88402-397-5}} found in the Lives of Saints for 26 March. In this rendering, Theodora, spiritual student of Basil, appeared to another student, the pious and holy layman Gregory. According to the story, Gregory had prayed to God and asked him to inform them of what happened to Theodora after her death. God answered his prayers (according to this account) by sending Theodora herself to Gregory; and told him, in great detail, about her journey through the toll houses.{{Cite web|title=St. Theodora's Journey Through the Aerial Toll-Houses|url=http://orthodoxinfo.com/death/theodora.aspx|access-date=2020-08-31|website=orthodoxinfo.com}}

According to Theodora's teaching, every Christian has a demon who tempts him or her. These demons keep a record of every sin of thought or action they succeed in tempting a person to commit, though repented sins are erased from the demonic records. On the third day after the soul separates from the body, according to this account, it is carried by angels towards Heaven. On the way, souls must go past twenty aerial toll-houses. Each toll house is populated by demons devoted to particular sins. At each toll-house, demons demand that souls "pay" for their sins by giving an account of compensatory good deeds. If the soul is unable to compensate for a sin, the demons take it to hell.

File:Rilakloster n 20090407 013.JPG]]

There are twenty toll-houses, though the number is not dogmatic and different sources list varying numbers. On the first aerial toll-house, the soul is questioned about the sins of the tongue. The remaining are, in order:

{{div col|colwidth=20em}}

• Lies
• Slander
• Gluttony
• Laziness
• Theft
• Covetousness
• Usury
• Injustice
• Envy
• Pride
• Anger
• Remembering evil
• Murder
• Magic
• Lust
• Adultery
• Sodomy
• Heresy
• Unmercifulness

{{div col end}}

Mentions of toll houses can be found in the hymnology of the Church, and in stories of the lives of some saints and their writings.

Prayers mentioning the aerial accusers can be found in Liturgical texts and official E. Orthodox books like the Slavonic Great Euchologion (The Great Book of Needs): "do thou banish from me the commander of the bitter toll-gatherers and ruler of the earth [...] O holy Theotokos" (Ode 8, Troparion 3).[https://archive.today/20131005212859/http://www.stspress.com/products-page/books/the-great-book-of-needs-complete-set/ The Great Book of Needs], St Tikhon's Monastery Press Other church hymns say that the souls have to "pass through the rulers of darkness standing in the air."January 27, The Recovery of the Holy Relics of our Father among the Saints John Chrysostom, Troparion 1, Ode 5 of Orthros: "Grant me to pass untroubled through the host of noetic satraps and the tyrannic battalion of the lower air in the hour of my departure..."Parakletike, Friday Vespers, Second Mode: "When my soul is about to be separated violently from the members of the body, then, O Bride of God, come to my aid; scatter the counsels of the fleshless enemies and shatter their millstones, by which they seek to devour me mercilessly; that, unhindered, I may pass through the rulers of darkness standing in the air." In the Greek and Slavonic Euchologion, in the canon for the departure of the soul by St. Andrew, the following words are found in Ode 7: "All holy angels of the Almighty God, have mercy upon me and save me from all the evil toll-houses". In the Canon of Supplication at the Parting of the Soul in The Great Book of Needs are found the following references to the struggle of a soul passing through the toll houses: "Count me worthy to pass, unhindered, by the persecutor, the prince of the air, the tyrant, him that stands guard in the dread pathways, and the false accusation of these, as I depart from earth" (Ode 4, p. 77). "Do thou count me worthy to escape the hordes of bodiless barbarians, and rise through the aerial depths and enter into Heaven" (Ode 8, p. 81).

The toll house doctrine can be found for example in the Life of Saint Anthony the Great written by Athanasius of Alexandria,{{Cite book|last=Athanasius of Alexandria|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/lifeofantonyth00atha_0/page/80|title=Athanasius: The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus|publisher=Paulist Press|others=§ 66|year=1980|isbn=0-8091-2295-2|location=Mahwah, New Jersey|pages=[https://archive.org/details/lifeofantonyth00atha_0/page/80 80]|translator-last=Gregg|translator-first=Robert C.|chapter=The Life and Affairs of our Holy Father Anthony (Written and dispatched to the monks abroad)}} in the life of Basil the New and Theodora,{{Cite journal|last=Constas|first=Nicholas|date=2001|title="To Sleep, Perchance to Dream": The Middle State of Souls in Patristic and Byzantine Literature|url=https://www.academia.edu/10373713|journal=Dumbarton Oaks Papers|volume=55|pages=91–124|doi=10.2307/1291814|jstor=1291814|via=Academia.edu}}{{Cite book|last=Popović|first=Justin|title=Догматика Православне Цркве|volume=3, part 2|trans-title=Dogmatics of the Orthodox Church|chapter=БОГОЧОВЕК КАО СУДИЈА - Есхатологија - Посебни суд|trans-chapter=THE MAN-GOD AS A JUDGE - Eschatology - Special Court|chapter-url=https://svetosavlje.org/dogmatika-pravoslavne-crkve-tom3-2/61/}} in the homilies of Cyril of Alexandria,Cyril of Alexandria Ephesi praedicata depoito Nestorio, ACO.14(5².405D) as referenced by Lampe, G. W. H., A Patristic Greek Lexicon, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1961, p.1387 or in a discourse of Abba Isaiah.{{Cite book|title=Abba Isaiah of Scetis Ascetic Discourses|publisher=Cistercian Publications, Inc.|year=2002|isbn=0-87907-5503|pages=40|translator-last=Chryssavgis|translator-first=John|chapter=1: Rules for the Brothers who live with Him|quote=Keep death before your eyes daily, and be concerned about how you will leave this body, pass the powers of darkness that will meet you in the air, and encounter God without hindrance, foreseeing the awesome day of his judgement and reward for all our deeds, works, and thoughts.|translator-last2=Penkett|translator-first2=Pachomios (Robert)}}{{Cite web|last=Archpriest Oleg Stenyayev|title=How angels help us pass through the tollhouses. Examples from the Lives of the Saints|url=http://www.orthochristian.com/98887.html|access-date=2020-07-11|website=Православие.RU}} Some authors of the Philokalia, "an authoritative anthology of writings on the prayer of the heart",{{Cite book|last=Phillips|first=Suzette|title=Christian Spirituality: The Classics|date=2009-09-10|isbn=978-0415776028|editor-last=Holder|editor-first=Arthur|page=294|chapter=ANONYMOUS. (mid-nineteenth century). The Way of a Pilgrim|doi=10.4324/9780203874721}} taught about the toll houses. For example, {{Interlanguage link|Theodoros the Great Ascetic|lt=Saint Theodoros the Great Ascetic|fr|Théodore d'Édesse|WD=}} instructs to "reflect on the dreadful reckoning that is to come, how the harsh keepers of the toll homes will bring before as one by one the actions, words and thoughts which they suggested but which we accepted and made our own".{{Cite book|last=St Theodoros the Great Ascetic|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aBkJAARHyoMC&q=dreadful&pg=PA3|title=The Philokalia: The Complete Text. Compiled by St Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St Makarios of Corinth|publisher=Faber & Faber|year=1990|isbn=978-0-571-26876-4|editor-last=Palmer|editor-first=G. E. H.|volume=2|pages=21|language=en|chapter=A Century of Spiritual Texts|orig-year=1981}} The same way, Saint John of Karpathos wrote: "When the soul leaves the body, the enemy advances to attack it, fiercely reviling it and accusing it of its sins in a harsh and terrifying manner. But if a soul enjoys the love of God and has faith in Him, even though in the past it has often been wounded by sin, it is not frightened by the enemy's attacks and threats."{{Cite book|last=Saint John of Karpathos|title=The Philokalia: The Complete Text. Compiled by St Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St Makarios of Corinth|publisher=Faber & Faber|year=1984|isbn=978-0-571-26616-6|editor-last=Palmer|editor-first=G. E. H.|volume=1|pages=303|chapter=For the Encouragement of the Monks in India who had Written to Him: One Hundred Texts|oclc=978256777|orig-year=1979}}

"The tradition of the tollgates was firmly established throughout the east long before the end of late antiquity, although it received typically Byzantine elaboration in the tenth-century Life of Basil the Younger (d. 944)." Gennadios Scholarios, Patriarch of Constantinople from 1454 to 1464, "stated that the trial of the 'tollgates' was, in fact, the Byzantine equivalent of purgatory, minus the fireworks".

{{See also|Theologoumenon}}

The 19th-century saint Ignatius Brianchaninov insisted on the truthfulness of the teaching.{{Cite book|last=Brianchaninov|first=Ignatius|url=http://xn--80abexxbbim5e6d.xn--p1ai/sobranie/tom3_slova.shtml|title=Собрание сочинений святителя Игнатия (Брянчанинова)|volume=3, Слово о чувственном и о духовном видении духов. Слово о смерти.|trans-title=Collected Works of St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov)|chapter=35. Воздушные мытарства|trans-chapter=Aerial toll houses|chapter-url=http://xn--80abexxbbim5e6d.xn--p1ai/tom3/35.shtml}} Seraphim Rose claims the teaching is taught in some forms in hagiographical and other spiritual texts from quite early in the history of the Church.{{Cite web|last=Werbiansky|first=Andrew|title=Death and the Toll House Contraversy [sic]|url=http://www.stlukeorthodox.com/html/evangelist/2000/deathtoll.htm|access-date=2020-08-31|website=Saint Luke the Evangelist Orthodox Church|archive-date=2016-11-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161106080904/http://www.stlukeorthodox.com/html/evangelist/2000/deathtoll.htm|url-status=dead}}{{Cite book |last=Rose |first=Seraphim |title=The Soul After Death |publisher=St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood |year=1980 |isbn=0-938635-14-X |edition=5th |publication-date=2020 |pages=70–78 |chapter=Six}}

A number of contemporary church figures support the teaching on toll-houses, including Ephraim (Moraitis),Vid. Ephraim, Elder, [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0966700023 Counsels from the Holy Mountain], St. Anthony's Greek Orthodox Monastery, Arizona, 1999, pp. 436, 447. Constantine Cavarnos,Cavarnos, Constantine, [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0911165061 The Future Life According to Orthodox Teaching], Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, Etna, California, 1985, pp. 24-26. Fr. Seraphim (Rose),{{Cite web|last=Seraphim Rose|author-link=Seraphim Rose|title=Answer to a Critic: Appendix III from The Soul After Death|url=http://orthodoxinfo.com/death/critic.aspx|access-date=2020-08-31|website=orthodoxinfo.com}} Met. Hierotheos (Vlachos),{{Cite web|last=Hierotheos (Vlachos)|title=The Taxing of Souls|url=http://orthodoxinfo.com/death/soul_taxing.aspx|access-date=2020-08-31|website=orthodoxinfo.com}} John of Shanghai and San Francisco,{{Cite web|title=Life After Death by St. John Maximovitch, a description of the first 40 days after death|url=http://www.orthodox.net/articles/life-after-death-john-maximovitch.html|access-date=2020-07-11|website=www.orthodox.net}} Justin Popović in his Dogmatics of the Orthodox Church, Nikolaj Velimirović,{{Cite news |last=Velimirović |first=Nikolaj |title=Да ли душа постоји |trans-title=Does the soul exist |pages=1 |work=Тромесечни црквени лист (Жичка јеванђелска делатност) |publication-date=August 1939 |url=http://borbazaveru.info/content/view/8177/31/}} and Michael Pomazansky.{{Cite book|last=Pomazansky|first=Michael|title=Orthodox Dogmatic Theology: A Concise Exposition|date=2005|publisher=Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood|isbn=978-0-938635-69-7|chapter=Addendum On the question of the 'Toll-Houses'|oclc=82600287|chapter-url=http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0824/_P2I.HTM|via=IntraText}}

The Eastern Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart considers this teaching to be a heresy,{{Cite web|last=Hart|first=David Bentley|date=2019-05-08|title=Nor Height Nor Depth: On the Toll Houses|url=https://publicorthodoxy.org/2019/05/08/hart-on-the-toll-houses/|access-date=2020-07-11|website=Public Orthodoxy|language=en-US|quote=the teaching of the toll houses might very well be regarded as the very epitome of heresy}} and the Eastern Orthodox theologian Adnan Trabulsi opposes the toll houses teaching. Eastern Orthodox theologian Dr Paul Ladouceur{{Cite web|title=Faculty {{!}} Orthodox School of Theology at Trinity College|url=https://www.trinityorthodox.ca/faculty|access-date=2020-07-11|website=www.trinityorthodox.ca}} considers the Life of Saint Basil to be a forgery{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}; furthermore, he writes that the toll-house teaching "is not the sole strand of thinking on the afterlife within the Orthodox tradition. It is not unusual in Orthodoxy to have different and even apparently overlapping elements within the overall tradition, on matters on which there exist no formal church dogmas. It is thus misleading and erroneous to present toll-house theology as 'the teaching of the Orthodox Church' when in reality it is only part of Orthodox tradition concerning the afterlife."{{Cite web|last=Ladouceur|first=Paul|date=2017-08-18|title=Orthodox Theologies of the Afterlife: Review of "The Departure of the Soul"|url=https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/orthodoxyandheterodoxy/2017/08/18/orthodox-theologies-of-the-afterlife-review-of-the-departure-of-the-soul/|access-date=2020-07-11|website=Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy|language=en-US}}

Likewise, Religious Studies Professor Stephen J. Shoemaker wrote: "The truth of the matter is that the state of the dead was never precisely defined in the Orthodox tradition, and just as in other matters related to the afterlife, 'the Byzantines had no ‘system’ around the last things. Eschatology remained for them an open horizon within theology{{' "}}{{Cite web|last=Shoemaker|first=Stephen J.|date=2017-10-17|title=Aerial Toll Houses, Provisional Judgment, and the Orthodox Faith|url=https://publicorthodoxy.org/2017/10/17/toll-houses-review/|access-date=2020-07-11|website=Public Orthodoxy|language=en-US}} He also stated that the belief in toll houses was "an error" which "must be regarded as an opinion, even if sometimes a popular one in sometimes popular times and places, rather than a fundamental element of the orthodox Christian faith." He stated that since "[s]uch a doctrine was almost unknown during the first millennium, and even during the second, it remains but one vision of the fate of the soul among other alternatives"; he adds that since the only references to this belief during the first millennium are to be found in St. Athanasius' Life of Anthony, in an homily "widely regarded as spurious[ly]" attributed to Cyril of Alexandria, and in "pious tales attributed to a certain Macarius and Anastasius of Sinai", the doctrine "fails spectacularly" to pass the test of the Vincentian canon. He adds that moreover the E. Orthodox prayer for the dead does not mention toll houses. Shoemaker states that the belief that when the soul leaves the body it is met by angels and demons who fight to get the soul and that the outcome of the fight is greatly influenced by the sins of the soul, is a separate belief to that of the toll houses. He says this belief, contrarily to the toll houses belief, was "expressed by a number of [Eastern] Orthodox writers across the ages", but that it remains an opinion "among many other [Eastern] Orthodox opinions about what happens to the soul after it leaves the body."{{Cite journal|last=Shoemaker|first=Stephen J.|date=2018|title=The Departure of the Soul According to the Teaching of the Orthodox Church (review)|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/702321|journal=Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies|volume=1|issue=1|pages=109–111|doi=10.1353/joc.2018.0009|s2cid=171732076 |issn=2574-4968}}

The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia had a session on "a controversy raised by Deacon Lev. {{Interlanguage link|Lazar (Puhalo)|lt=Puhalo|ru|Лазарь (Пухало)}}," the main opponent of the toll-house teaching. The resolution stated the Holy Synod "demands the cessation in our magazines of controversy", "this controversy must be ended on both sides", and "Deacon Lev Puhalo is forbidden to lecture in the parishes."{{Cite web|title=The Debate Over Aerial Toll-Houses|url=http://orthodoxinfo.com/death/tollhouse_debate.aspx|access-date=2020-07-10|website=orthodoxinfo.com}}

Michael Azkoul argues that Seraphim Rose is its only contemporary theological proponent. Rose, an American Orthodox hieromonk and theologian, wrote a book on the subject, The Soul After Death. While Ignatius Brianchaninov, John Maximovich, Rose and Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos endeavored to demonstrate that this teaching is derived from patristic and other church sources, his opponents, among them Azkoul and Archbishop {{Interlanguage link|Lazar (Puhalo)|ru|Лазарь (Пухало)}} (a retired hierarch in the Orthodox Church in America, who had previously been defrocked from the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia), found his conclusions questionable.{{Cite book|last=Azkoul|first=Michael|title=The Toll-House Myth: The Neo-Gnosticism of Fr. Seraphim Rose|chapter=Introduction}}

However, two dedicated chapters in the book The Departure of the Soul According to the Teaching of the Orthodox Church allegedly reveal for the first time over 100 falsifications, misrepresentations, and errors in Puhalo's and Azkoul's writings. Puhalo reportedly falsified reproduction of several ancient icons and falsified translations of the writings and lives of several saints, while Azkoul is said to have falsified several patristic texts. Both writers' works are asserted to contain an inordinate number of gross misrepresentations and errors, all attempting to support their allegedly incorrect opinions about the Eastern Orthodox teaching on the toll-houses.{{Cite book|title=The Departure of the Soul According to the Teaching of the Orthodox Church: A Patristic Anthology|year=2016|isbn=978-1-945699-00-9|pages=720–911|chapter=Chapter Seven - On the Falsifications, Misrepresentations, and Errors of Those Who Oppose the Teaching of the Orthodox Church|oclc=982492609}}

• Matarta in Mandaeism
• Bardo in Buddhism
• Life of Basil the Younger (Russian Wikipedia)
• Coptic Apocalypse of Paul, a Gnostic text

{{reflist}}

• Azkoul, Michael. The Aerial Toll House Myth: The Neo-Gnosticism of Fr. Seraphim Rose
• {{Cite journal|last=Constas|first=Nicholas|date=2001|title="To Sleep, Perchance to Dream": The Middle State of Souls in Patristic and Byzantine Literature|url=https://www.academia.edu/10373713|journal=Dumbarton Oaks Papers|volume=55|pages=91–124|jstor=1291814|via=Academia.edu|doi=10.2307/1291814}}
• {{Cite book|last=Daley|first=Brian E.|url=|title=The hope of the early church : a handbook of patristic eschatology|date=2010|publisher=Baker Academic|isbn=978-0-8010-4597-4|location=Grand Rapids, Mich.|oclc=748265319}}
• {{Cite journal|last=Krausmüller|first=Dirk|date=2019-02-01|title=How widespread was the belief in demonic tollgates in sixth- to ninth-century Byzantium?|url=https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/byzs/112/1/article-p85.xml|journal=Byzantinische Zeitschrift|language=de|volume=112|issue=1|pages=85–104|doi=10.1515/bz-2019-0006|s2cid=192585260|issn=0007-7704}}
• {{Cite web|last=Lupascu|first=Silviu|title=In al noualea cer: fundalul gnostic al traditiei folclorice romanesti despre vamile vazduhului|trans-title=In the ninth heaven: the gnostic background of the Romanian folklore tradition of the "heaven's toll houses"|url=http://arheotim.uvt.ro/pag%20web/gnosis/istorie/lupascu.htm|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120709111523/http://arheotim.uvt.ro/pag%20web/gnosis/istorie/lupascu.htm|archive-date=2012-07-09|website=arheotim.uvt.ro}}
• {{Cite journal|last=Marinis|first=Vasileios|title="He Who Is at the Point of Death": The Fate of the Soul in Byzantine Art and Liturgy|url=https://www.academia.edu/11868768|journal=Gesta|year=2015|language=en|volume=54|issue=1|pages=59–84|doi=10.1086/679401|s2cid=191043555 |via=Academia.edu}}
• {{Cite book|last=Marinis|first=Vasileios|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/death-and-the-afterlife-in-byzantium/302B1ECE631885F7D01496CFB391A99F|title=Death and the Afterlife in Byzantium: The Fate of the Soul in Theology, Liturgy, and Art|date=2016|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-13944-2|location=Cambridge|doi=10.1017/9781316488850}}
• {{Cite journal|last=Murdoch|first=B.|date=2009-04-29|title=Tales from Another Byzantium: Celestial Journey and Local Community in the Medieval Greek Apocrypha. By JANE BAUN.|journal=The Journal of Theological Studies|volume=60|issue=2|pages=717–721|doi=10.1093/jts/flp046|issn=0022-5185}}
• Pomazansky, Michael. [http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0824/_P2H.HTM "On the Question of the 'Toll-Houses' "]
• Rose, Seraphim. The Soul After Death.
• {{Cite web|last=Archpriest Oleg Stenyayev|title=The Way of All Flesh: The Bible on the Aerial Tollhouses. Conversation 2, Part 1|url=http://orthochristian.com/98003.html|access-date=2020-07-10|website=OrthoChristian.Com}}
• Vlachos, Hierotheos (Vlachos). [http://orthodoxinfo.com/death/soul_taxing.aspx The Taxing of Souls.]
• The Departure Of The Soul, Saint Anthony's Monastery (Florence: 2017), pp. 14–22, 1099–1111. See also http://www.thedepartureofthesoul.org/hierarchal/, http://www.thedepartureofthesoul.org/foreword/, and http://www.thedepartureofthesoul.org/academic/

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