About Those Deprived of Church Burial #

It is permitted to give alms to the poor on behalf of non-Orthodox — this brings them some consolation, for God is pleased when we help one another.
— St. John Chrysostom

Church burial and commemoration are performed only for those who have died in the faith of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ and in His Resurrection, which is the beginning of our own resurrection (1 Corinthians 15). To be a Christian, baptism alone is not sufficient. One is worthy of a Church burial who attended church, had a spiritual father, confessed, and received the Holy Mysteries of Christ.

“We rightly send off the righteous with spiritual hymns and church songs, going behind them with incense and candles, as a sign that they, having finished the labor of earthly life, depart unto the True Light and eternal life.”
— “A Word on Patience, Thanksgiving, and Not Weeping for the Dead,”
St. John Chrysostom

The righteous are those who preserved the faith of Christ undefiled by heresies and various human errors, but believed as the Holy Apostles taught according to the commandments of Holy Scripture and Church Tradition. The hymns and sacred rites performed over the departed manifest his pleasing life before God and purity, and speak of the reward awaiting him. For this reason, it is unworthy to perform burial services over those who gave no care at all for their salvation.

Who Is Considered Unworthy of Church Burial? #

1. Those who do not believe in the One God, in the Resurrection of Christ, and in the general resurrection of the dead, and who consciously adhere to heretical teachings.

2. Suicides—those who voluntarily renounce the life granted to them by God and the duty to care for their own soul (14th Canon of Timothy of Alexandria). However, a person is not considered a suicide if they took their life while of unsound mind, or if possessed by a demon, or if they were a slave driven to this by constant deprivation and torture. For such as these, a Church burial is permitted (cf. the answers of John, Patriarch of Constantinople, to the questions of Theodore, Bishop of Saransk).

3. Those who, seeing obvious danger to their life and disregarding it without any reasonable cause (that is, not for the sake of saving others, but rather to gain fame for bravery, boldness, to win an argument, or while intoxicated), throw themselves into the sea, into a chasm, into fire, or go out in light clothing in extreme frost and die as a result. These are equated with suicides and are deprived of Church burial.

4. Those who die from wine, drugs, or a fatal blow received in a brawl incited by rage, revenge, or bravado.

5. Those who die from choking on food, drink, or a bone, due to greedily rushing at food or talking and laughing while eating or drinking.

6. Those who have deliberately inflicted injuries upon themselves which led to death. A person who has laid violent hands on himself may be granted the prayers of the Holy Church only if he repents of the deed, even if only on his deathbed.

7. Deprived of Church burial and commemoration also are those who died without repentance: those who denied the saving grace of God in the Holy Mysteries, and therefore did not attend church, did not pray at home, had no spiritual father, did not confess for many years, did not receive Communion, and those who scorned the sacrament of marriage and lived in an unlawful, unblessed union. Such Christians are called apostates from the Church of Christ. According to the 45th Canon of St. Basil the Great, “he who, being a Christian, mocks Christ will gain no benefit from the Christian name.”

8. Among those who died without repentance are also those who, although not formally separated from the Church of Christ and even attended church and received the Mysteries of Confession and Communion, nonetheless did not keep the promise made in confession to cease sinning, and fell back into mortal sins without repenting of them before death. Of such it is written:

“And if someone among us dies without repentance, it would have been better for such a one never to have been born. It is not fitting to offer oblations for them in the Church to God.”
(Book of Chrysostom)

9. Deprived of Church burial and commemoration are sorcerers, magicians, fortune-tellers, palm readers, astrologers, spiritists, and the like, if they do not repent and weep bitterly for their sins.

Difficult Cases of Burial Permissions Are Resolved by the Bishop #

When there is doubt as to whether Church burial and commemoration may be performed for the deceased, each such case is subject to the judgment of the bishop.

There are instances when a person dies suddenly, without the opportunity to repent — for example, in accidents, from heart rupture, cerebral hemorrhage, and the like. If the life of such a person, despite the lack of final repentance, was Christian and not burdened by grievous sins, he may be buried even without a final confession. However, if the deceased, even unintentionally, contributed to his own death (for instance, knowing he must not drink wine due to illness, but neglecting this), burial may be refused.

Often, when asked whether the deceased repented of their sins, the relatives respond: “Maybe he did — only God knows.” The traditions of the holy books do indeed include examples of many grievous sinners who, weeping in secret on their deathbed, when no one was watching, repented and were accepted by the merciful God. St. Athanasius the Great was once asked: “If someone commits a great sin, condemns himself for it, begins to repent, and then dies three days later, what should be thought of him?” The saint replied as follows: “If he, having begun repentance, restrained his soul from evil desires, made a vow to God not to return to his former sins, and dies in that state the next day — then God accepts his repentance, as He did that of the thief (Luke 23:40–43). To begin repentance is within the power of man, but to live or to die is in the hands of God. In His goodness, God often takes repentant souls from the earth for their benefit, foreseeing that if they continued to live, they might fall again and perish.”

Death comes unexpectedly. No one should postpone repentance until the hour of death. It is in just such an unexpected hour that many die — those who had no spiritual father and never confessed their sins, even though they had ample opportunity. They are punished with sudden death precisely because they abused God’s long-suffering and mercy.

In our time, when family-based religious upbringing is difficult and often inadequate, and the surrounding culture strongly opposes it, nearly every Christian family has members who live and die without repentance and prayer, in customs and actions alien to the faith. To this are added such sorrowful circumstances as the forced absence of clergy and the remoteness of churches. However, a life without repentance cannot be excused by the absence of a priest, for we have the direct instruction of the Apostle: “Confess your faults one to another” (James 5:16).

If the conscience is burdened by evil deeds, yet retains some spark of good, it will always seek a way to be cleansed. In such a case, a trustworthy fellow Christian may become the witness of that repentance, if no priest is nearby. It is the duty of that person to convey the contents of the confession to a priest at the first opportunity. He must strictly keep the secrecy of confession and transmit its contents precisely to the spiritual father. The confidant, either from the words of the penitent or written directly by the penitent (if he has the strength), may record the confession on paper and hand it to the priest in a sealed envelope.

Why Are Prayers Not Offered in Church for those who “have not been sung over”? Aren’t They in Even Greater Need of Help?

Our life after death is a logical continuation of our earthly life. A person cannot become part of the Church after death if he has not done what is necessary for it while alive. Prayer for such people may prove to be in vain — it may even be an offense to God. Of them may be said the words God spoke to the prophet Jeremiah regarding the Israelites: “Pray not for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to Me: for I will not hear thee” (Jeremiah 7:16).

Church tradition, in the rite of confession, prescribes: “If a Christian dies without repentance, the priest should neither sing over him nor bring offerings for him, for he did not fulfill the law of God nor the Christian faith” (Great Euchologion, folio 170).

The same is taught by the Holy Fathers and teachers of the Church. “For those who departed without faith (living, active faith), aided by love, and without participation in the Mysteries (Baptism, Confession, and Communion), it is in vain that their relatives perform acts of piety, since they bore no pledge of such piety in themselves while still here (on earth), not receiving the grace of God, but storing up — not mercy, but wrath.” (Blessed Augustine)

Likewise, St. John of Damascus teaches: “He who led a sinful life, one sown with thorns and filled with filth and impurity, who never heeded his conscience, but in carelessness and blindness plunged into the mire of lusts, satisfying all the desires of the flesh and caring nothing for the soul — whose thoughts were consumed with pleasing the flesh — and who in such a state was overtaken by death: for such a one no hand shall be stretched forth, and neither wife, nor children, nor brothers, nor relatives, nor friends shall render him help, for God will not look upon him.”
(Homily on the Faithful Departed, Christian Reading, 1827, XXVI, p. 328)

In the ancient Russian Kormchaya (Book of Church Canons), which is somewhat broader in content than the printed version familiar to us today, there is found under the name of St. John Chrysostom the following commandment: “If someone is healthy and does not come to church, first admonish him as a father would his child. If he still does not listen, admonish him again with the word of God before three witnesses. And if he does not heed, then do not accept his prosphora, nor his kolyvo, and cast him out of the Church. Do not bless offerings made in his name by his parents. And shame him before many, that perhaps he may come to his senses.” But only if all these measures prove fruitless, the Kormchaya instructs: “And if he dies, do not bury him. And let it be known, that many will come to repentance.”

There is a superstition that an unburied person “will not be accepted by the earth,” and relatives fear that he will haunt them in dreams or in waking life. Because of this, people often go to great lengths — by truth or deceit — to obtain a church burial even for those for whom it is clearly unlawful and sacrilegious. When refused by their own Church, they turn to the New-Rite clergy, justifying it by saying, “There is no other way.” But in such cases, the relatives are not truly concerned for the soul of the deceased, but merely wish to fulfill the outward ritual of “committing him to the earth.” Yet the very words proclaimed by the priest during the burial clearly declare that the earth receives all sons of Adam — the righteous and the sinful, the faithful and the faithless alike. Thus it is said: “All to the earth (Thou, O Lord,) sendest.” And the priest is not praying for what is eternally ordained by nature, but for the repose of the soul of the departed with the saints.

The goal of a believer’s life is to attain the eternal Kingdom with Christ at His glorious Second Coming. Shall we then, having such great promises, set our sights not on the radiant life, but on the dark earth, on forgetfulness and shadow?

Wherever we may live in the world, the most important thing is not to estrange ourselves in thought or belief from the unity of the Church. We must live worthily of the Christian calling, striving for brotherly communion with like-minded Christians — with our fathers and brethren in Christ — and then the intercessions and prayers of the Holy Church will never forsake us: neither in this life, nor in the life to come.

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