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:
“That popular fable of the sot who was picked up dead-drunk in the street, carried to the duke’s house, washed and dressed and laid in the duke’s bed, and, on his waking, treated with all obsequious ceremony like the duke, and assured that he had been insane, owes its popularity to the fact that it symbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the world a sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, exercises his reason and finds himself a true prince.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A church is disaffected when it is persecuted, quiet when it is tolerated, and actively loyal when it is favoured and cherished.”
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)