QUESTION:
What is the difference between "hell" and "hades"?
REPLY:
Hades is an indefinite expression that refers to a state or condition of the souls of the departed. In general, it refers to this state or condition before the original Holy Saturday, when Christ revealed redemption to those who had died in the faith in Old Testament times. This is why the only correct Orthodox icon of the resurrection is the one that shows Christ "trampling down the gates of hades." In primitive and peasant societies, "hades" was often understood as an actual place, and a host of folk mythologies grew up around it -- many of them quite fantastic. Since the word "hades" was used to translate a Hebrew concept into Greek, many peasant cultures adopted the pagan Greek mythology surrounding the idea of hades.
In Orthodox Christianity, hades is simply a convenient word to refer to an abstract concept of a state or condition of departed souls.
Hell (or Gehenna) is a term used to refer to the condition of everlasting separation from God in eternity. It does not refer to a "place" or to a physical fire, but to a psychological condition of eternal alienation and spiritual darkness. It is the condition of Satan and his angels and will be the condition of those who rejected Christ in this life.
+Archbishop Lazar
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