BURIED OR BURNED ?

A letter from a Christian correspendent was read to the Metropolitan during the meeting, with the following question:

“....Nowadays we hear many cases of people who wish to be cremated and not  buried, after they die.  Could you please guide us on this subject?”

The Metropolitan’s comments to this question were as follows:

No, there is a decision by our Holy Synod, that not only should we NOT accept this choice (that it become customary among Orthodox Christians in our land), but that if there are those who do choose to do it, we must impose a restriction that will not allow the deceased to be read funeral rites by the Church.

This is because at times, we have relatives coming to us, saying “We will bring the ashes to church, so that the funeral rites can be performed over them”.

This cannot possibly be done – to bring us burnt human remains and expect the Orthodox funeral rites performed over them!  It would be a lost cause!

We have the example of Saint Arsenios of Cappadocia, who used to read rites over soil – but, note this:  the soil is generally full of life, right?  Hence, we have reasons that pertain to symbolism in this matter.

We are also asked why we must prefer burial and not cremation...

Well, firstly, because that is what was done to the Body of our Lord, which is the par excellence Perfect Body. Right?  If the perfect Body of our Lord had condescended to be buried, all the more so should our bodies.

Secondly, it is about honouring – pay attention to this detail – it is a fundamental detail (and I probably should have noted it as the primary one), i.e.:  burial is also the honouring of the human body.  

Just as the soul – when departing from the body (because “death” means the separation of the soul from the body) - embarks on an ascent towards the heavenly abodes, honorarily accompanied by angels who also defend it during that ascent - an Orthodox person’s body (which you may regard as a mere inanimate corpse when it doesn’t have a soul inside it) – is however a baptized body, it is an anointed body, it is a body that has received Holy Communion again and again... How do we know for sure that the body of an elderly grandmother or grandfather, or of a young child, or of a cancer sufferer who bore her sickness patiently, will not become holy relics tomorrow? Eh? A holy relic, that may even exude a heavenly fragrance, a holy relic, that may be a miracle-working relic?

Speaking of which:

You may remember the exorcism rite that we performed the other day on a demonically possessed young woman that was brought to us from overseas to be read the exorcism prayers; well, I had brought with me a very tiny piece of a holy relic that belonged to the Elder Panayis of Lysis (Cyprus †1989 - his photo was chosen to honorarily adorn the cover of a church calendar here as a dedication to him).  I had personally met the Elder in Greece, when I was still a young Deacon... one could tell he was a blessed man... a Lysian saint...

Anyway, when making the sign of the Cross over our ailing sister (the possessed woman) during the exorcism, her body suddenly lifted itself well above the ground, with her screaming “Whose is that relic?!!??”

I replied that it was a relic of the Elder of Lysis.

“It’s exuding myrrh!” she shouted.

But I had never mentioned anything about it being a myrrh-streaming relic; I told her that I couldn’t perceive any fragrance of myrrh, and that perhaps it was only her imagining it.

“It IS streaming myrrh, and it is burning me!!!” she screamed.

So, dear audience, did you notice those words?  Should that blessed Elder’s remains have been incinerated? In a few years, the Church of Cyprus will be “registering” him among the Saints, I can assure you (because of the clearly witnessed miracle-working signs).

I am telling you, that if you only read his teaching “On Marriage” – by a person who had never been married, nor had ever become a monk (out of self-perceived unworthiness)... unmarried, yet living in the world... well, I’m telling you, by reading ONLY his teaching on Marriage – his counsel in plain, everyday, Cypriot dialect – you will immediately discern that he is a holy man.

When dressing him – his corpse – for his funeral, God had allowed me and an assisting elderly grandmother who was also from Lysis, to indeed witness a sublime fragrance streaming from his remains.

In other words, when we have bodies that have been blessed with such potential – that is, when normal bodies can become relics of saints and acquire a verifiable, miracle-working, saintly potential – we must not destroy them by incinerating them.

How can we possibly know how God will judge a person – how they lived, or what degree of repentance they had shown?  Moreso, those who had lived ascetically all their lives, but whose way of life other people had no personal knowledge of?

We must never, never, never accept the incineration of the deceased, because after all, it is an insult to the human body..

Let’s not forget, that Christ had borrowed His enfleshed Body from none other than the all-holy Virgin Mother, who was a human being made of earth.

And something even more significant: we are all made of earth, and we all return to the earth with burial. That is the one aspect. But the even more significant point is the honouring of the human body - which our God Himself had desired to take on, and did so, from the Holy Virgin...  And He is now offering us that resurrected Body, during each Divine Liturgy, with His Body and His Blood – for the forgivness of sins and eternal life, so that our bodies can also be deified and be resurrected when the Time comes!!....

Watch above related video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ul5G3nLeTOA

 1 Corinthians 15:50-55 :

50 Now this I say, brethren - that flesh and blood cannot inherit the realm of God; nor can corruption inherit incorruption. 51 Behold, I am telling you a mystery:  not all shall sleep (die), but all shall be changed 52 in a moment, in the blinking of an eye, at the last trumpet; for it shall sound, and the deceased shall be raised incorruptible, and we too shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible (body) must be clothed with incorruption, and this mortal (body) must be clothed with immortality. 54 And when this corruptible (body) has been clothed with incorruption, and this mortal (body) has been clothed with immortality, then shall be brought to pass the written word: “Death was swallowed up into victory.” 55 “Where, o Death, is your sting? Where, o Hades, is your victory?”

Translation: E.N.