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Question
22.
Father, Your blessing!
Our local Churches here often conduct memorial services (μνημόσυνα) during
the Divine Liturgy on Sundays. To be more specific, these memorial
services are conducted after the singing of
«τό ὄνομα Κυρίου
εὐλογημένον ἀπό τοῦ νῦν...» (Blessed is the Name of the Lord from
this time forth and for evermore) and before the Dismissal. I have heard
of the memorial services being conducted after the Gospel reading in the
local Antiochian Churches. Also, I have noticed that memorial services do
not seem to be conducted on Sundays in Cathedrals like those of the
Annunciation in Athens and of St George in the Phanar.
I am a little confused with the different practices.Therefore I ask, when
should memorial services be conducted (κατά τήν τάξιν) on a Sunday? As the
Divine Liturgy is about life, Christ's conquering of death, should a
memorial service be conducted after the
«Δι' εὐχῶν» (By the prayers
of our holy fathers…) and begin immediately next with the
«Εὐλογητός ὁ Θεός ἡμῶν
πάντοτε...» (Blessed is our God…)? What is the local custom of the
Churches in Limassol?
With respect
Evangelos
Answer to Question 22.
Dear Evangelos,
You’re quite right to be confused. There are various practices from one
national church to another and so we need to see how these came about. In
older times memorials were conducted on Saturdays. In general all
Saturdays are days which the Church has dedicated to the Martyrs and to
the departed. This you can verify for yourself if you look at the Saturday
matins services as found in the Paraklitiki (Oktoihos). But even on these
Saturdays memorials were not conducted as they are today. A true memorial
is offering the Divine Liturgy on behalf of the departed. People would
bring the bread and wine and anything else needed for the Divine Liturgy
to be served. The departed would be commemorated during the Proskomede
service and again in the “Common Prayers” said after the reading of the
Gospels and before the Great Entrance which as you mentioned your local
Antiochian Churches do today. The memorials were not the annual memorials
but for those recently departed. After the first year all the departed
were remembered during the two Saturdays of the year which the Church has
set aside as Saturdays for the Departed. The first is on Meatfare
Saturday. It is the last Saturday on which we may eat meat before the
Great Fast begins. On the following day, Sunday, the Church commemorates
the Dread judgment of Christ, thus the Church prays for all that have
departed in faith and in the hope of the resurrection, beseeching God, the
righteous judge to show forth His mercy upon them before the universal
judgment. The other day is the Saturday before Pentecost. The day of
Pentecost is the day the Holy Spirit descended upon the earth to teach,
sanctify and lead all people to eternal salvation. Therefore, the holy
Church calls upon us to make a commemoration on the Saturday before the
feast, that the saving grace of the Holy Spirit wash away the sins from
the souls of all our forefathers, fathers and brethren, that have reposed
throughout the ages and, asking that they all be united in the Kingdom of
Christ.
How and when memorials moved from Saturday to Sunday is not clear but the
main reason must be because Saturday is a working day and not
convenient for families to come together and pray for their dead. The move
to Sunday is clearly an “Economia” and as with all “Economies” they are
not the ideal situation but a compromise. Probably the thought to place
the memorial at the end of the Liturgy, in other words after the
Communion, was to separate it from the Resurrection character of the
Sunday Liturgy. But placing it at the end meant developing a separate
service. Thus the service developed by taking the “Eulogitaria” from the
Saturday Matins service and the funeral service and joining them to the
Trisagion service said at the graveside. Thus the Memorials we now serve
are in fact only Trisagia for the dead. Let’s now see from a theological
point of view if it is correct to have memorials after Communion. The
Divine Liturgy is the most perfect prayer that we can offer and which is
offered to us. To offer other things at the end only diminishes what is
perfect thus it is theologically wrong to offer memorials at the end of
the Liturgy as it is also wrong to offer the prayers for the commemoration
of a Saint’s day after the Liturgy which many Churches do. As for
memorials on Sunday, it is totally out of character with the celebration
of the Resurrection which we celebrate every Sunday. They compromise the
Resurrection character of the Divine Liturgy and its eschatological
dimension. For this very reason, during the Easter period, memorials are
forbidden until after Thomas Sunday. The teaching of the Resurrection is
that Christ has overcome death and has given life to all those who have
departed in the hope of the future Resurrection. One cannot celebrate the
joy and meaning of the Resurrection and then pray for the departed making
the teaching of the Resurrection of no effect. In spite of this
understanding most of the Orthodox Churches continue to offer memorial
services at the end of the Sunday Liturgy. One reason as I have already
mentioned is the “κατ' οἰκονομίαν”
which as I have told you in another
question is a concession or special consideration used for the good of
someone’s salvation. Here the excuse is that on Sundays all members of the
family can attend the service and even those who do not attend Church will
make the effort to be present for the memorial of a loved one. Another
reason, which I hesitate to say, but is the truth, is that memorials are a
source of income for the Church. She relies on them as she does the
commemorations for the feast days.
You ask: what is the local custom in Limassol? We have abolished the
commemoration of names and the Blessing of Bread and Kolyva at the end of
the Divine Liturgy. The Blessing of Bread is always done during Vespers
and commemoration of the names of those who observe the feast are said
during the Vespers petitions “Let us all say with our whole soul, and with
our whole mind, let us say” and again during the Divine Liturgy during the
Common prayers after the Gospel which again begin with
“Let us all say
with our whole soul, and with our whole mind, let us say.” At first, the
people reacted negatively, thinking that the Priest was trying to abolish
their reverent customs, but in time they came to accept the new rule and
even embraced it as their established custom. Sadly we still continue with
the Memorials at the end of the Liturgy except on the Great Feasts of the
Lord and the Mother of God on which we forbid memorials for the departed.
Abolishing the Sunday Memorials is a more difficult task and I cannot see
it happening in the foreseeable future. I think the “economia” adapted by
the Antiochian Church is the best possible compromise. By bringing the
memorial to after the Gospel reading, which is still the part of the
Liturgy we call the Liturgy of the Catechumen, it doesn’t come into
conflict with the Liturgy of the faithful and we end the Liturgy with the
joy of the Resurrection. Of course by moving the memorials to after the
Gospel would mean that we would not sing the “Eulogitaria” or the other
hymns of the Trisagion for the departed, but we would restrict ourselves
only to the prayers. Recently our Bishop has asked us to encourage people
to have their memorials on Saturdays, but this would not be practical for
the village Churches that only serve on Sundays.
There are still two more things we should consider.
The first is that if we did move the memorials to Saturday there would be
no difference as far as the teaching of the Resurrection is concerned.
According to the teaching of our Church, the Divine Liturgy, on whatever
day it is served is the Resurrection and Paschal mystery: the remembrance
of the Saviour Christ rising from the dead. Thus if the memorials were to
be held on Saturdays or any other day of the week the theological problem
of having the memorials at the end of the Liturgy would still exist.
The second is that just because the Liturgy is our participation in the
Resurrection and Ascension it doesn’t mean that we are forbidden to pray
for the departed. Death does not cause a spiritual separation between the
dead and the living, for Jesus is still the Lord of both groups. Together,
these two groups, the Church in heaven often called the Church Triumphant
and the Church on earth called the Church militant, comprise the one,
whole, undivided Church, which Saint Paul calls The body of Christ
(Eph.1:22, 23).
The Church is not only the visible congregation worshipping here on earth,
but also the invisible congregation of the saints and the angels
worshipping in heaven. The Church visible on earth lives in complete
communion and unity with the whole body of the Church of which Christ is
the Head. Our departed family members and friends are also members of this
one body and just because they have crossed over to the other side doesn’t
mean that they cease to exist or are no longer members of the Church of
Christ.
Our Christian parents, grandparents, children, brothers, sisters, and
friends live on with Christ after they die, and remembering the great
unity that we still have with them as fellow-members of Christ's Body, the
Church finds nothing in the Scriptures that would prohibit Christians from
expressing love for and maintaining a sense of fellowship with those who
have died. What better way do we have to express our love than to pray for
them? And this we do at every Liturgy and even during the Pascal Liturgy.
We pray for the departed from the very beginning and preparation of the
Liturgy during the Proskomede where we ask God to remember those we have
named and all our Orthodox fathers and brethren, fallen asleep in the hope
of resurrection, of life eternal and fellowship with him. During the
Liturgy we pray for the departed during the common prayers whether or not
we have a memorial: “Again we pray for the blessed and ever-memorable
founders of this holy Church [monastery] and for all our departed fathers,
brethren, and Orthodox Christians everywhere who have fallen asleep.” But
as we have already seen this does not come into conflict with the
Resurrection character of the Liturgy because it is before the Liturgy of
the Faithful. But we still continue to pray for the departed even after
the consecration of the Holy Gifts. The priest prays:
“Moreover, we offer
unto Thee this reasonable service for them that have gone to their rest in
faith: for our Forefathers, Fathers, Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles,
Preachers, Evangelists, Martyrs, Confessors, Ascetics; and for every
righteous spirit in faith made perfect.” And “remember all them that are
fallen asleep in the hope of resurrection unto life eternal: [and he
remembers such as he will of the departed, pronouncing their names]
and give them rest where the light of Thy countenance watcheth over them.”
We see therefore that the Church doesn’t forbid praying for the departed
on any day of the year not even on Pascha. The only problem seems to be in
the fact that after we have communed of the precious and life-giving
Gifts, when we should be filled with the joy of the Resurrection, to then
suddenly return our thoughts to the dead and begin again as though the
Resurrection has not taken place.
With love in Christ
Fr. Christopher
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