Why You Can’t Perform The Funeral Service For Suicides In The Orthodox Church

Why You Can’t Perform The Funeral Service For Suicides In The Orthodox Church
Why You Can’t Perform The Funeral Service For Suicides In The Orthodox Church

Video: Why You Can’t Perform The Funeral Service For Suicides In The Orthodox Church

Video: Why You Can’t Perform The Funeral Service For Suicides In The Orthodox Church
Video: Funeral Practices in the Orthodox Church 2024, December
Anonim

In the funeral ceremony, believers ask God for the forgiveness of the sins of the deceased. The priest reads a prayer of absolution, which forgives the departed sins. Living people hope in the mercy of God and hope that the Lord will receive his child. However, suicides are prohibited in the Church.

Why you can’t perform the funeral service for suicides in the Orthodox Church
Why you can’t perform the funeral service for suicides in the Orthodox Church

In the funeral service, Orthodox believers ask God to grant paradise to the deceased. Every member of the Church of Christ must be sung. But in the canonical practice of the Church, the funeral service for suicides is prohibited, regardless of whether the person was a Christian or not. This is due to the fact that a suicide of his own free will commits the sin of killing his personality. It is known from the Holy Scriptures that murderers do not inherit the kingdom of heaven. In addition to the case when a person was able to repent. The suicide has no chance of repentance. Therefore, the one who commits this atrocity with the sin of murder passes away into eternity.

The Orthodox faith determines that there is no sense in the funeral service for suicides in a measure of general understanding of the essence of the future life. Achieving paradise is not only a goal or a reward for a person. The kingdom of heaven is a consequence of human life. Death is the transition of a person from one state to another, and the vector of life of people on earth goes to eternity.

The main reason for suicide is the person's belief that his life has become unbearable and turned into hell. If a person thinks that he lives in hell and dies of his own accord, then the idea of hell follows him into another world. It turns out that the Church does not violate human freedom. If he committed suicide, if all life is hell and the person does not turn to God, but, on the contrary, violates the divine plan for himself, then the Church can no longer help. The man made his own choice.

However, there may be reasons for the suicide funeral service. For example, when there is medical evidence of a mental disorder of personality, when a person, due to a similar illness, injured himself to death. In this case, the funeral service may be performed with the permission of the bishop. But these cases are not so frequent.

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