What is Orthodox Hell? | Eclectic Orthodoxy

What is Orthodox Hell? | Eclectic Orthodoxy:

What is the Orthodox doctrine of hell? I honestly do not know. I do know what many Orthodox have taught about hell during the past hundred years or so, and I know some�thing about what the Church Fathers taught about it during the first millennium of the Church’s history; but I cannot tell you what the Orthodox Church authoritatively and irreformably teaches about hell, beyond the fact that it is a horrifying possibility and therefore a destiny best avoided. As the Orthodox Church sings at the Saturday Vespers of the Sunday of the Last Judgment:

When the thrones are set in place and the books are opened, then God will take His place on the judgment-seat.
What a fearful sight! 
As the angels stand in awe and the river of fire flows by:
What shall we do, who are already condemned by our many sins, as we hear Christ call the righteous to His Father’s Kingdom, and send the wicked to eternal damnation? Who among us can bear that terrible verdict?
 Hasten to us, Lover of mankind and King of the universe: 
Grant us the grace of repentance before the end and have mercy on us!

The hymns of the Sunday of the Last Judgment might seem to give the definitive word, yet they, like the Scriptures, need to be interpreted in light of Pascha and the totality of the Holy Tradition.