6th–16th centuries

Purgatory: from Gregory the Great to the Council of Florence and indulgences

The doctrine of the intermediate state, according to Berkhof, long remained the least developed: the Apostolic Fathers held that the godly immediately inherit glory, while the later Fathers held that the dead descend before the judgment into hades with different compartments. The idea of a purifying fire developed mainly in the West, and Gregory the Great taught that "for certain light sins there is a purifying fire before the judgment," and was the first to clearly put forward the idea of deliverance from it by intercessory prayers and offerings, and according to Lane by the sacrifice of the Mass; therefore he is called the "inventor of purgatory." At the Council of Florence (1439) the Latins demanded that purgatory be accepted as apostolic teaching, while the Greeks replied that prayers for the dead give no grounds for it; the council's definition affirmed purification by the punishments of purgatory, but after the collapse of the union the East returned to its former position. In late medieval popular religion purgatory, requiem Masses and indulgences that promised a faster passage through it took a central place; the Council of Trent (1546) solemnly confirmed the doctrine, and the Reformers unanimously rejected it.