Author: PhD. student Constantin Strugariu (Theological Institute of Bucharest)
Keywords: Orthodox spirituality, Church, funeral rites, services, local traditions
Abstract:
The orders related to burial from the Orthodox Church have had its cultic and popular forms during times. The author of this study had the chance to use the best liturgical sources along with local Romanian folk traditions. What remains interesting for further study is the latter relation with the Church strict liturgical worship, for which the author, due to the nature of his study, could not insist on. The author focused instead on a schematic approach embellished with some textual examples and on the ethical and practical relevance of the Burial Service for the life of the faithful. This can be accounted on the one hand by the schematic structure of the study – 1. The actual forms of manifestation of the worship of the dead in Orthodoxy. 1.a. Burial Services 1.b. The services that take place after the burial (the prayers for/remembering the dead) 1.c. Times established for the prayers for the dead and their symbolic significance. 1.d. The remembering of the dead in the Divine Liturgy and other divine services. 2. The Hierurgies for the dead as a means and opportunity in pastorship. 3. The importance of the worship of the dead in the Orthodox spirituality and the missionary activity of the Church – and on the other, by the power of the examples or local practice gathered from the life of the faithful, present in the local (folk) traditions, either in the superstitious manner, or in a liturgical-inspired one. As a more schematic approach, the study is all the more valuable for it offers further directions of study for this field: a research in the Greek original sources, or in ethnology and folklore or liturgical orders.
(Republished from Biserica Ortodoxă Română CI (1983), issue 9-10, pp. 679-691)
Pages: 12-27