Prayers for the dead is a practice directly related to Purgatory found in
2 Maccabees 29-45 where we find prayers and sacrifices for the dead.
I'm a bit hesitant to discuss theology using deuterocanonical books, since they are not universally accepted among Christians and we are on a discuss thread for all of Christianity, I try to stick to the facts which are universally accepted among everyone here (the 66 book canon).
With that said, taking the verses (you didn't give me the chapter but I presume it was chapter 12) you sent me as both a historical event, and one that was meant to be seen positively I would remind you that the Pre-Jesus view of the afterlife differed from today. The Jews had a vague idea of the afterlife, which they referred to as "Sheol", everyone who died, regarding of what they did or their standing with God went there. Nobody (with the very rare exceptions of Elijah, Enoch, and possible Moses) was going to Heaven or Hell in those days, so trying to pray them out of purgatory and to the next stage wouldn't make too much sense.
And looking at the verses I found: "For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead," which seems to me to indicate this whole thing was a prayer for God to raise them from the dead once the Resurrection of the Dead occurs, which was a future event mentioned by Daniel occurring in the end times, not something with any ongoing theological implications.
Having said that, and as I have noted in this thread, you can kind of make purgatory work if you squint your eyes a little. The biggest obstacle it has is Jesus's words to the thief on the cross, "“I tell you the truth,
today you will be with me in paradise,"- Luke 23:43, but you can overcome this contradiction by having Purgatory be a place of no more than a few hours. The thief died shortly after 3 PM and we know he's in Heaven by midnight (per Jesus). Now I don't think theres any Catholic theologian who would think this but if we make purgatory a place people go for, say no more than 9 hours, you could make it work, it turns Purgatory into no more than a cosmic layover on your trip to Heaven but because I'm unaware of a Catholic doctrine that set a minimum time limit for Purgatory you can make it work.
But my main point really was that while you can overcome this obstacle of Catholic theology on the afterlife it becomes harder, if not downright impossible with the Orthodox theology. The only real problems Catholics have with their view of the afterlife is purgatory (which as we mentioned you can square up with the Bible if you try hard enough) and salvation for unbelievers (which you can't really square up with John 14:6). On the flip side looking at the Orthodox you've got this 40 day journey, a fireless Hell, literally praying people out of Hell.
At least for Catholics people sent to Hell actually stay there.
Follows the line of thinking that Hell is the absence of God. That line of thinking infers that there is no need for physical torture in Hell as the most painful thing man can experience is being in a time and space without God. Not everyone agrees with this.
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The Orthodox Church understands the Apostle Paul's words, "the fire shall try", in that sense in which the Fathers of the Church of the post-apostolic age explain them, i.e., in the sense of experience or trial,
but not in the sense of fiery torments"-
Source
I don't think I was misrepresenting you too much on this. Even assuming there are some who disagree your theologically as sound as your weakest link, and if your Church permits such ideals it must challenges to it on this basis.
Is a Russian centric cultural practice that has been pushed through a religious lenses. I never heard about it over here. One of the strange things that I did hear about is that the burdens you carry in your life manifest into a physical cross on your back during your journey to St. Peter. Avoiding your burdens removes chunks from the cross and you will need to use that cross to overcome challenges like using it as a raft to cross a river.
The real reason for these strange stories is that the Orthodox don't believe that the passing of the soul to the pearly gates as an instantaneous event, except for martyrs(martyrs are carried by angels straight to heaven, so is said). But after that there is no concrete idea. Some say that your past life influences that journey, others don't. Some say prayers help those on the journey others do not. It's a mystery, there are a lot of those, Orthodox Church being more content with unanswered and unanswerable questions.
Well I hope those who do cut it out, and fast. Christ's words to the thief don't allow for a 40 day journey like some Egyptian Pharaoh on his way to the afterlife.
Honestly when I read about it I was like, "uh... can you guys just do purgatory that was more theological sound than all this".
I also want to focus on praying people out of hell. If you believe the works you do on earth impact your salvation and that humans have free will. The idea of praying people out of hell makes logical sense.
The one thing I'll give the Catholics is at least the people they believe are sent to Hell can actually stay there.
I direct you to Jesus on this one, "And these will go away
into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."- Matthew 25:46.
