Question: How is “resurrection from the dead” spoken of in Orthodoxy to be understood?

Answer: Yes, the belief in “resurrection from the death” is included into the Orthodox Creed. But Orthodox believers “aspire to resurrection from the dead” in bodies on the Earth, instead of yearning for mergence with the Father, for the sake of which one has to renounce all earthly attachments, including one’s body and the Earth itself.

In this belief one may see traces of the knowledge of multiple incarnations that was lost by mass Christianity, though formally the belief in the “resurrection from the death”, in the Orthodox version, is based on the information from Revelation of John the Divine.

Jesus taught of incarnations in various bodies. He said, for example, that John the Baptist is Elijah who came but was not recognized. Apostle Philip, a disciple of Jesus, devoted His gospel completely to this topic. But the church authorities at the council in Constantinople in 553 decreed that we live on the Earth only once. There was a certain sense in this: so that people were not tempted to postpone efforts on self-perfection until the next incarnation. So, they were told: we live just once, and it depends on this life, whether we will face torments of hell or the bliss of paradise. There is logic here, but not truth.

So, how should “resurrection” be understood? Yes, each new incarnation can be called that, indeed. But to aspire to this return into flesh instead of striving toward the Highest Goal... — this is not the true intention.