Purgatory

Purgatory is the condition or process of purification or temporary punishment in which the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for heaven. This is an idea that has ancient roots and is well-attested in early Christian literature, while the conception of purgatory as a geographically situated place is largely the achievement of medieval Christian piety and imagination.

The notion of purgatory is associated particularly with the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church but some other Christian groups also assert the possibility of an improvement in the soul's spiritual situation following death.Anglo Catholic Anglicans generally hold to the belief. The Eastern Catcholic Church believes in the possibility of a change of situation for the souls of the dead through the prayers of the living and the offering of the Divine Litgury and many Orthodox, especially among ascetics, hope and pray for a general apocatasis A similar belief in at least the possibility of a final salvation for all is held by Mormonisim

Judaisim also believes in the possibility of after-death purification and may even use the word "purgatory" to present its understanding of the meaning of Gehenna However, the concept of soul "purification" may be explicitly denied in these other faith traditions.

The word "purgatory" has come to refer also to a wide range of historical and modern conceptions of postmortem suffering short of everlasting damnation, and is used, in a non-specific sense, to mean any place or condition of suffering or torment, especially one that is temporary.