Perhaps the fullest and most striking experience of heaven recorded in Christian literature is that of St. Andrew, the Fool for Christ of Constantinople (9th century). This experience was written down in the Saint’s own words by his friend Nicephorus; we give only some excerpts from it here:
Once, during a terrible winter when St. Andrew lay in a city street frozen and near death, he suddenly felt a warmth within him and beheld a splendid youth with a face shining like the sun, who conducted him to paradise and the third heaven. “By God’s will I remained for two weeks in a sweet vision.... I saw myself in a splendid and marvelous paradise.... In mind and heart I was astonished at the unutterable beauty of the paradise of God, and I took sweet delight walking in it. There were a multitude of gardens there, filled with tall trees which, swaying in their tips, rejoiced my eyes, and from their branches there came forth a great fragrance.... One cannot compare these trees in their beauty to any earthly tree.... In these gardens there were innumerable birds with wings golden, snow-white, and of various colors. They sat on the branches of the trees of paradise and sang so wondrously that from the sweetness of their singing I was beside myself.... After this a kind of fear fell upon me, and it seemed to me that I was standing at the peak of the firmament of heaven. Before me a youth was walking with a face as bright as the sun, clothed in purple.... When I followed in his steps I saw a great and splendid Cross, in form like a rainbow, and around it stood fiery singers like flames and sang sweet hymns, glorifying the Lord Who had once been crucified on the Cross. The youth who was going before me, coming up to the Cross, kissed it and gave me a sign that I should also kiss the Cross.... In kissing it I was filled with unutterable spiritual sweetness, and I smelled a fragrance more powerful than that of paradise. Going past the Cross, I looked down and saw under me as it were the abyss of the sea…. My guide, turning to me, said, ‘Fear not, for we must ascend yet higher.’
“And he gave me his hand. When I seized it we were already above the second firmament. There I saw wondrous men, their repose, and the joy of their feasting which cannot be communicated by the human tongue…. And behold, after this we ascended above the third heaven, where I saw and heard a multitude of heavenly powers hymning and glorifying God. We went up to a curtain which shone like lightning, before which great and frightful youths were standing, in appearance like fiery flames.... And the youth who was leading me said to me: ‘When the curtain opens, you shall see the Master Christ. Bow down to the throne of His glory.’ Hearing this, I rejoiced and trembled, for I was overcome by terror and unutterable joy.... And behold, a flaming hand opened the curtain, and like the Prophet Isaiah I beheld my Lord, sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and above it stood the Seraphim (Isaiah 6:1). He was clothed in a purple garment; His face was most bright, and His eyes looked on me with love. Seeing this, I fell down before Him, bowing down to the most bright and fearful throne of His glory. The joy that overcame me on beholding His face cannot be expressed in words. Even now, remembering this vision, I am filled with unutterable joy. In trembling I lay there before my Master.... After this all the heavenly host sang a most wondrous and unutterable hymn, and then — I myself do not understand how — again I found myself walking in paradise.”41
When St. Andrew reflected that he had not seen the Mother of God in heaven, an angel told him: “Did you wish to see here the Queen Who is more brighter than the heavenly powers? She is not here; She has gone away to the world which lies in great misfortune, to help people and to comfort the sorrowing. I would have shown you Her holy place, but now there is no time, for you must again return.” Here once more the fact is affirmed that angels and saints can be in only one place at a time.
Even in the 19th century, a similar true vision of heaven was beheld by a disciple of Elder Paisius Velichkovsky, Schema-monk Theodore of Svir. Towards the end of his life he experienced God’s grace very strongly. Shortly after one such experience he fell into a sickness and for three days was in a sort of coma. “When a state of ecstasy began in him and he came out of himself, there appeared to him a certain invisible youth, who was sensed and beheld by the feeling of the heart alone; and this youth led him by a narrow path towards the left. Father Theodore himself, as he later related, had the feeling that he had already died, and he said to himself: ‘I have died. I do not know whether I shall be saved or perish.’
“ ‘You are saved!’ an invisible voice said to him in answer to this thought. And suddenly a power like a violent whirlwind carried him off and transported him to the right side.
“ ‘Taste the sweetness of the betrothals of paradise which I give to those who love Me,’ an invisible voice declared. With these words, it seemed to Father Theodore that the Saviour Himself placed His right hand on his heart, and he was transported into an unutterably pleasant dwelling, as it were, but one that was completely invisible and indescribable in the words of earthly language. From this feeling he went over to another even more exalted one, and then to a third one; but all these feelings, as he said himself, he could remember only with his heart, but could not understand with his mind.
“Then he saw something like a temple, and in it, near the altar, something like a tent, in which there were five or six men. A mental voice said: ‘For the sake of these men your death is set aside. For them you will live.’ Then the spiritual stature of some of his disciples was revealed to him, and the Lord declared to him the trials which were to disturb the evening of his days.... But the Divine voice assured him that the ship of his soul would not suffer from these fierce waves, for its invisible guide was Christ.”42
Other experiences of heaven from the Lives of Saints and ascetics could be given, but they do no more than repeat the characteristics already described here. It will be instructive, however — especially for purposes of a comparison with contemporary “after-death” experiences — to present the experience of a modern sinner in heaven. Thus, the author of “Unbelievable for Many” (whose testimony has already been quoted several times above), after escaping the demons of the toll-houses by the intercession of the Mother of God, described how, still being conducted by his angel-guides, “we were continuing to move upward...when I saw a bright light above me; it resembled, as it seemed to me, our sunlight, but was much more intense. There evidently is some kind of kingdom of light. Yes, precisely a kingdom, full of the power of light — because there was no shade with this light. ‘But how can there be light without shade?’ immediately my perplexed conceptions made their appearance.
“And suddenly we were quickly carried into the field of this light, and it literally blinded me. I shut my eyes, brought my hands up to my face, but this did not help since my hands did not give shade. And what did such protection mean here anyway?
“ ‘My God, what is this, what kind of light is this? Why for me it is like regular darkness! I cannot look, and as in darkness, can see nothing....’
41
Lives of Saints, October 2; English translation in
42
From the