Purgatory

=====Eastern Catholics=====
The popular conceptions of Purgatory that, especially in late medieval times, were common among Catholics of the [[Latin Church]] have not necessarily found acceptance in the [[Eastern Catholic Churches]], of which there are 23 in [[full communion]] with the Pope. Some have explicitly rejected the notions of punishment by fire in a particular place that are prominent in the popular picture of Purgatory.{{cn|date=August 2023}} 

The representatives of the Eastern Orthodox Church at the [[Council of Florence]] (1431-1449) argued against these notions, while declaring that they do hold that there is a cleansing after death of the souls of the saved and that these are assisted by the prayers of the living: 

{{quote|"If souls depart from this life in faith and charity but marked with some defilements, whether unrepented minor ones or major ones repented of but without having yet borne the fruits of repentance, we believe that within reason they are purified of those faults, but not by some purifying fire and particular punishments in some place."<ref>[https://archive.org/details/patrologiaorient15pariuoft/page/40 "First Speech by Mark, Archbishop of Ephesus, on Purifying Fire" in ''Patrologia Orientalis'', vol. 15, pp. 40–41]</ref> }}

The definition of purgatory adopted by that council excluded the two notions with which the Orthodox disagreed and mentioned only the two points that, they said, were part of their faith also. Accordingly, the agreement, known as the [[Union of Brest]], that formalized the admission of the [[Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church]] into the full [[communion (Christian)|communion]] of the Roman Catholic Church stated: "We shall not debate about purgatory, but we entrust ourselves to the teaching of the Holy Church".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1595brest.html|title=Treaty of Brest, Article 5|access-date=2007-12-26|archive-date=2007-08-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070830222705/http://www.fordham.edu/HALSALL/MOD/1595brest.html|url-status=live}}</ref>