The customs houses about which the Fathers write are symbols of a reality. The Fathers understand them as follows: after the fall of man, the soul is nourished by the body, in other words, it finds refreshment in material pleasures. After death, however, these bodily passions that used to divert the soul no longer exist, because the soul has left the body, and they choke and stifle the soul. These are the customs houses and eternal torment. Abba Dorotheos says that eternal torment is for someone to be shut up for three days in a room without food, sleep or prayer. Then he can understand what hell is.

—Elder Sophrony of Essex. I Know a Man in Christ

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