MEMORIAL SERVICES

The Orthodox Church accepts memorial services and more generally the prayers for our deceased brothers. The faith in personal existence after death and the tender bond of love that links us to the deceased brothers justifies memorial services.

The heavenly Church accepts our paraclesies and "mediates" for us to God. But we too, the earthly Church, being united to our deceased brothers in the one body of Christ, plead for them and conduct the divine eucharist for them, which brings together the whole of Church in the liturgical area, realising a continual communication and mutual influence. The divine eucharist is being offered "for the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church" and benefits everyone with its grace.

Already from the times of the post-apostolic Church, christians would gather by the graves of the martyrs the day of their memory (mneme; hence the word mnemosyna) and conduct the divine eucharist (c.f. Martyrdom of St. Polycarp 18). The conducting of the divine eucharist for the deceased is testified by Tertyllianus (On army's garland 3. On the one marriage 10. On praying 28), Cyprian (Epist. 1,2) and the great fathers of the Church.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem, analysing the divine liturgy to the neophotisti, underlines that in it we commemorate the "patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, in order for God to accept our entreaty via their blessings and delegations. We then commemorate also our pre-deceased [i.e. still alive] holy fathers and bishops, and simply every one of our pre-deceased (brothers), believing that greatest benefit ("onesis") will come to our souls, for which (souls) the entreaty of the holy and fearful sacrifice is done before us (in the first place)". (Myst. catech. 5:9).

In a similar fashion, St. John Chrysostom adds: "Let us therefore help these and let us conduct memorial services for them. For if the sacrifice of the father would cleanse Job's children, why do you doubt the fact that, if we too offer for the deceased, a certain amount of consolation is given to them?" (Jo. Chrys. To 1 Corinth. Speech 41:6).

The Orthodox Church believes that the prayers and the memorial services do not oblige God to respond, nor do they create any certainty regarding the results. After all, the Orthodox Church rejects the distinction between transitory and eternal sentences. The belief that the eternal sentences can be 'purchased' with the blood of Christ, whereas the transitory ones cannot, does not correspond to the orthodox faith. We believe that Christ's blood cleans us from "every sin" (1 John 1:7). This way Orthodoxy is guarded against both the Protestants and the Romeocatholics, that make this distinction and preach about "purgatory". As purgatory, i.e. as cleansing fire, we accept only the fire that will renovate the world, according to the word of the Bible (2 Peter 3:7).

EXPLANATION OF TERMS USED IN THE CHAPTER

memorial service = commemoration of the dead. Normally, the memorial service takes place right after the Divine Liturgy or just before it finishes. We often conduct Liturgies for the dead, since the whole of the Church meets mystically during the Liturgy (Church Militant and Church Triumphant are both parts of the same Church). The Orthodox Church, which is the Church of Christ, is not formed by putting together the various Orthodox Churches around the world and making one great whole. The Church is wholly present in the local Church, within each temple, wherever that may be on Earth. For this reason we do not ignore those who have fallen asleep for they are part of the Church. The Orthodox Church is Christocentric, and not anthropocentric, like the Roman Catholic Church is.

neophotistos = neos ( = new ) + photizo ( = to light) = recently enlightened one; neophotisti is the plural.