The Absolution Certificate #
If men sin against you, even seventy times seven, forgive them, that they may be forgiven on earth and in heaven.
(Prayer at the Burial)
One of the ancient Russian funeral customs is the placing of an absolution certificate into the hand of the deceased. After the farewell, the priest quietly reads aloud the written prayer of absolution over the coffin, inscribes within it the name of the departed and his own, and, in the presence of all, places the folded paper into the right hand of the deceased.
Nine hundred years ago, a warrior named Simon was the first to ask St. Theodosius of the Caves to place such a document in his hand after his death, and the saint fulfilled this request. The venerable Nestor the Chronicler notes:
“Before this, no one in Rus’ had done such a thing” (Kiev Caves Patericon, Discourse I).
Later, the deceased appeared in a vision to one of the monks of the Pechersky Monastery and said:
“Tell my son that I received all that is good through the prayer of the saint” (Patericon, Discourse II).
There is also a well-known case involving the pious Prince Alexander Nevsky, who had taken the Great Schema before his death. As he lay in his coffin, he miraculously stretched out his hand and received the absolution certificate from Metropolitan Cyril, as if alive.
It should be said, however, that some treat the absolution certificate superstitiously: certain Christians seek to obtain such a document with the priest’s signature in advance, “just in case.” This is entirely improper. In the absolution prayer written in the certificate, the priest, in the name of God, pardons his departed spiritual child of all sins for which the deceased had been under penance during life, or which he did not confess, whether through forgetfulness or other forgivable reasons. But to grant absolution for sins that a person has not yet committed—to absolve “in advance”—is meaningless and illegitimate.
The certificate itself cannot save a soul in the life to come. What saves a person is right faith, good works, and sincere repentance of sins. What saves are the prayers of the Church—that is, of all God’s saints, of the priesthood and monastic order, and of our fellow believers. The prayers of one’s spiritual father have great power before the throne of God.
The written certificate is a visible image of what is invisible—a symbol of prayer and forgiveness from a spiritual father. It exists to remind us who are still living to strive for repentance and the forgiveness of our sins. But if the conscience of the deceased is burdened with great unrepented transgressions, and he never once turned to God in prayer, saying, “Turn Thy face away from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities” (Psalm 50:10), then what benefit can a piece of paper bring him?