Orthodox Reflections

By Nicholas – member of the Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America

The family dog died late on a Saturday night. He had been a little off for a few days, but nothing alarming given his size and age. After evening prayers, the dog had suddenly gotten very sick, which prompted a trip to the emergency vet. The dog had died in the car on the way. My young son had slept through all the drama. He found out the following morning. From his perspective, he had gone to bed with a family dog snoozing on the living room floor, and woke up for Church with the dog gone forever. For an 8 year old, that was a massive shock. For a child, losing any beloved pet is hard, but losing a dog that had been his constant companion since birth was seemingly unbearable.

My son cried all the way to Divine Liturgy. When we had walked in and lit our candles, my son asked to see the priest. Fortunately, I was able to catch him between hearing confessions and the start of the service. After a hushed explanation from me, he came over to the chair along the back wall where my son was sobbing quietly. The priest, a father of five himself, put his hand on my boy’s head and gentled tousled his hair. My son looked up and asked, tears streaming down his little face, “Father, will I ever see my dog again?”

Our priest bent down, looked straight into my son’s swollen, splotchy face, and said, “Don’t you believe God loves you and wants you to be happy?” With that, the priest straightened up, and went to commence Divine Liturgy.

My son brightened immediately, dried his eyes, hopped down, crossed himself, and patiently waited for the service to begin. As a cradle Orthodox child of practicing parents, he knew some things for absolutely certain. Of course God loved him. God is love. God loves all of His creation, especially the animals. His entire life, my son had been staring at an icon of Christ creating the animal kingdom on the wall of his room.

Icon of The Creation of the Animal Kingdom

Of course God wanted my son to be happy! Even though he was just a child, he knew that prior to the Fall, man had lived in a perfect world. Man was created for joy, not sorrow. For life, not death. For laughter, not tears. My son also knew that our destiny as humans was to live not in Heaven, but on a newly restored Earth where all the Reposed in Christ have been resurrected into incorruptible bodies. On that Earth, just as Adam in the Garden of Eden, man would be surrounded by animals over which he would exercise a benevolent dominion. After all, my son had seen the icon of Adam naming the animals on our family icon wall his entire life. Animals were not some kind of afterthought, they were essential to God’s plan of creation.

Icon of Adam Naming the Animals

So on that sad Sunday morning, my son had quickly put all this together in his mind, and interpreted the priest’s words to mean that God, in the Age to Come, would give him back not just a dog, but his dog (with all his quirks, memories, and playful obsession with all things ball like). I had never seen a child go so quickly from despair to joy.

But was he right? Would he really get his beloved dog restored to him in the Resurrection?

The Orthodox Church does teach that all animals have souls, and that God does care for His creatures. Further, the Orthodox Church also teaches that through humans, the animals (and all of creation) will be saved from the fallen state that Adam’s disobedience has tragically caused. The Apostle Paul addressed this in his Letter to the Romans:

For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.

—-Romans 8:19

We also know that many of our Orthodox saints, men and women of amazing holiness, were very bonded to animals. In fact, this bond with the animal world appears to be an integral part of what it means to be truly holy. Just a few examples:

• St Sergius of Radonezh, St Seraphim of Sarov, and St Herman of Alaska all had close relationships with bears.

• St Melangell protected rabbits who were being hunted by packs of hounds.
• St Mark the Ascetic once healed a hyena pup that was blind. In gratitude, the mama hyena brought the holy man a sheepskin. St Mark thanked her, but then instructed her not to take sheep from the flocks of poor people.
• St Gerasimus rescued an injured lion. The lion then followed him around the rest of his life, and died in grief the same day as the saint.
• St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne once spent an entire night standing in the cold ocean surf in an effort to overcome temptation. When he came out of the water, sea otters wrapped themselves around his feet to help him get warm.

We could provide many more examples. Authors have filled whole books with such anecdotes. Nor is this connection between holy men and women and animals just ancient folklore. Modern monks and nuns continue to care for God’s creatures, even wild ones. Holiness and the care for God’s creatures go hand-in-hand.

Clearly animals matter to God, and should matter to us. Further, man will spend eternity with animals as he was meant to before the Fall. But do individual animals have immortal souls, the way humans do? Will my son’s childhood dog be restored to him someday, when all things are made new? I have absolutely no idea, though Orthodox teaching seems to indicate that the answer is probably not. Animals have souls, but the Patristic consensus seems to be that they are not immortal the way human souls are.

Does that mean my son was mistaken, or that his priest misled him?

Not at all. God is omnipotent, so He could, in His infinite mercy, absolutely recreate my son’s dog for him. Nothing for God is impossible. But then again, perhaps my son, surrounded by pure joy in a new Eden, would have transcended his attachments to our fallen world, and thus no longer need or want that specific dog. There is more than one way to interpret the priest’s words, a fact that my now fully grown son has come to realize. Though he does still currently want his childhood friend back.

Will my son get his dog back to play fetch with for all eternity? No one could be less qualified to render an opinion on that than I am. After almost three decades in the Orthodox Church, all I can is this.

God does love us infinitely, and He does want us to be happy.