Ceremony in The Church
Throughout the service, upon a table close to the coffin stands a dish containing kolyva, made of wheat—symbolic of the grain which falling to the ground dies and brings forth much fruit (John 12:24)—and honey—symbolic of the sweetness of the Heavenly Kingdom. A taper is placed in the kolyva and is lit during the service.
In the Orthodox funeral, the coffin is usually open in church (unlike the West, where it is usually closed), and the lower part of the coffin is covered with a funeral pall. The lid of the casket may be left outside the church door, as an invitation to all who pass by to enter and join in the funeral.
Read more about this topic: Christian Burial, Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Burial Ritual
Famous quotes containing the words ceremony and/or church:
“We are nothing but ceremony; ceremony carries us away, and we leave the substance of things; we hang on to the branches and abandon the trunk and body.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“It is time that the Protestant Church, the Church of the Son, should be one again with the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of the Father. It is time that man shall cease, first to live in the flesh, with joy, and then, unsatisfied, to renounce and to mortify the flesh.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)