Between Heaven and Hell: Toll-Houses of the Souls After Death in Slavonic Literature and Art

The idea of toll-houses, through which souls pass after death, gradually became widespread in popular Eastern Christianity mainly due to the Life of St Basil the New and his disciple Theodora who were probably travelling Paulician preachers from Asia Minor (9th century). The toll-houses are not evident in the Bible or the early church fathers and have never been approved by church councils. The present article discusses the sources of this myth which are found to be in the Egyptian Book of the Dead and various Gnostic apocrypha. Three versions of the toll-houses are reflected in folklore. They are present in literature, especially Russian, as well. The earliest available image of the toll-houses is preserved in the tomb of St Neophyte in Cyprus in 1183. Cycles of the toll-houses were widely depicted in Western Bulgarian art of the 19th century and exercised a strong didactical influence on the illiterate believers.