O God of spirits and of all flesh, Who has trampled down death, and abolished the power of the devil, granting life to Your world; do You, O Lord, give rest to the souls of Your departed servants in a place of light, a place of refreshment, a place of repose, where there is no pain, sorrow or sighing. As a good and gracious God, forgive every sin they may have committed in thought, word or deed, for there is no man living who does not sin. You alone are without sin, Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and Your word is Truth. For You are the resurrection, and the life, and the repose of Your departed servants, O Christ our God, and to You we give glory, with your eternal Father, and Your all holy, good and life-creating Spirit, now and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.from the Greek Orthodox Memorial Service
The subject of memorial services for the dead, our prayers to God on behalf of those who have reposed, is a difficult one to explain to Christian brethren outside of canonical Orthodoxy. Roman Catholics will just assume, without asking us, that we are praying for our dead to be released from purgatory, a place that for the Orthodox does not exist. Protestants will just be bewildered, asking, "Why pray for them, since they're either already saved and don't need our prayers, or already lost, and our prayers can't help them."
A contemporary church father, Michael Pomazansky, has written in his Orthodox Dogmatic Theology the following explanation.
In praying for the dead, the Church intercedes for the just as for the living, not in its own name, but in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (John 14:13-14), and by the power of His Sacrifice on the Cross, which was offered for the deliverance of all.
These fervent prayers help the seeds of new life which our departed ones have taken with them—if these seeds have been unable to open up sufficiently here on earth—to gradually open up and develop under the influence of prayers and with the mercy of God…
Similarly, powerless would be prayers for the dead who have died in impiety and without repentance, who have quenched in themselves the Spirit of Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:19). It is precisely concerning such sinners that one must remember the words of the Savior in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus: that there is no deliverance for them from the deepest parts of hell, and no transference for them into the bosom of Abraham (Luke 16:26). And, indeed, such people usually do not leave behind them on earth people who might pray sincerely for them to God; likewise, they have not acquired for themselves friends in heaven among the saints…
Of course, on the earth it is not known to what lot each has been subjected after his death. But the prayer of love can never be profitless. If our dead ones who are dear to us have been vouchsafed the Kingdom of Heaven, they reply to prayer for them with an answering prayer. And if our prayers are powerless to help them, in any case they are not harmful to us, according to the word of the Psalmist: “My prayer shall return to my bosom” (Psalm 34:16), and according to the word of the Savior: “Let your peace return to you” (Matthew 10:13).
These passages were brought to my attention in Fr Milovan's blog, Again and Again. To read them in the context of his original post, click HERE.
Yes, brother Hilarius, I am aware of the passage you cited in 2 Maccabees, and also aware that sectarians on both sides of the issue use it as ammunition against the other. It’s my belief and hope that Holy Orthodoxy shows the way to a resolution of the issue peaceably, leaving no one enemies, as there is only one Church according to the prayer of Christ (John 17:20-21), and it is in this conciliatory and hopeful spirit that I posted these clarifying words by this respected modern Church father.
ReplyDeleteI do not even exclude Martin Luther from the elect, as men are not damned for what they think, say or do, whether in ignorance or error, but saved by Him in Whom they have put their trust. As Father Pomazansky writes, “on the earth it is not known to what lot each has been subjected after his death,” and so we, the living, pray for our dead in the hope that “they made it,” that their trust in Christ to save them was real, and that they are now waiting for us to join them, either at Abraham’s bosom, or at the finish line, the Day of the Lord, the resurrection of the dead.
Holy Orthodoxy postulates in its tradition what is not to be doubted but also what is probable, or even possible, while admitting that everything that might be known is not open to us yet. Hence, the inscrutable judgments of God remain a mystery. Hence, we are given room to have faith in what is not only unseen but unknown. Hence, we are allowed the experience of hope.
Reading my words over before I post this response, I sound to myself as though I were a learned or authoritative man. You know that I am not. I’m only a simple believer who dares to hope all that is hopable. I do not hope, as do some church fathers, that even satan can, or will, repent; but it is my right to hope for the salvation of all who still have hearts within them, whose souls have not been shriveled by lust, and to make peace wherever I can between imagined opponents.
Thanks for your comments, brother.
I knew I would get into trouble with that word "hopable" or "hopeable" as you have spelled it. I blogged this post while at work, and so I did not the benefit of consulting my copy of the New Century Dictionary (2 massive volumes, 1927), to see if this word had a spelling or indeed a history of usage. When I got home I checked, and neither spelling appears in that weighty tome.
ReplyDeleteI followed by analogy how I thought other similar words might be spelled, such as grope/gropable, elope/elopable—all of them highly unlikely to ever be spoken or written.
But I was surprised that hopable has never been used before. Like the word "holily," to do something in a holy manner, which I have only encountered once, in the Penguin translation of Richard Rolle's The Fire of Love, I thought hopable would be rare but not unlisted in the dictionary. I found it in a few places on the internet, though, which indicates that I am not the only one who cannot figure out how to say this in a nicer way.
As for the topic under discussion, you already know where I stand on the issue itself. I only hope that quoting scripture passages in support of it doesn't elicit Western-style polemics from my readers. Besides, I myself do not depend on 2 Maccabees to justify prayers for the dead, and I don't think that Orthodox writers exclusively do either. There are plenty of other passages that can justify the practice within undisputedly canonical scriptures.
I am aware that Christians disagree as to the status of the Apocrypha (calling them that does not necessarily imply that one doesn't accept them as scripture), and that the dispute has been going on a very long time. It's just that in Orthodoxy, whatever we personally think, we don't find it useful or beneficial to keep arguing about it. I think this, almost more than anything else, is what draws bible-believing Christians to Orthodoxy and out of the Western churches. We argue far less, and (I hope) we love far more.
Indeed - in that vein, I am removing my original comment so as to not create a source of argument or division.
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