Purgatory, according to Catholic Church doctrine, is an intermediary state after physical death in which those destined for heaven "undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven".^[1] Only those who die in the state of grace but have not in life reached a sufficient level of holiness can be in Purgatory, and therefore no one in Purgatory will remain forever in that state or go to hell. This theological notion has ancient roots and is well-attested in early Christian literature, but the poetic conception of Purgatory as a geographically existing place is largely the creation of medieval Christian piety and imagination.^[2]
The notion of Purgatory is associated particularly with the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church (in the Eastern sui juris churches or rites it is a doctrine, though it is not often called "Purgatory", but the "final purification" or the "final theosis"); Anglicans of the Anglo-Catholic tradition generally also hold to the belief, along with many Lutherans of High Church Lutheranism. Eastern Orthodox Churches believe 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 Liturgy, and many Orthodox, especially among ascetics, hope and pray for a general apocatastasis.^[3] Judaism 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.^[4] However, the concept of soul "purification" may be explicitly denied in these other faith traditions.
The word "Purgatory", derived through Anglo-Norman and Old French from the Latin word purgatorium,^[5] has come to refer also to a wide range of historical and modern conceptions of postmortem suffering short of everlasting damnation,^[2] and is used, in a non-specific sense, to mean any place or condition of suffering or torment, especially one that is temporary.^[6]