Chuvash bishop calls for priests of the diocese to stop the funeral service outside the temples

Metropolitan of Cheboksarsky and Chuvash Barnabas (Kedrov) urged priests to put an end to the custom of the rank of funeral service outside the walls of temples.

“I hope that after receiving this message, my beloved fathers and brothers about the Lord will immediately move on to canonical practice of the funeral service only in temples. If the funeral service in the temple is impossible or any exceptional case arises, then the blessing of the ruling bishop must be asked for this,” the interfax-religion portal the text of the Metropolitan, the clergy of the Metropolitan, as saying, quotes the clergy, published on the website of the diocese.

“In case of violation of my archpastoral exhortation, you not only subject yourself to spiritual transformation, but also be punished according to church rules and canons,” the document said.

The bishop recalled that in the Soviet years the practice of performing funeral service "in houses and in apartments, at the entrances, in cemeteries, and later in morgues and various memorial and consumption institutions."

It developed due to the pressure of the state on the clergy and believers of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 20th century and was a forced measure, so as not to deprive the dead of the Church of the last parting words.

However, according to the bishop, such a practice "not only contradicts the canonical practice of the Church, but, unfortunately, leads to spiritual insensibility, the stale of many baptized people to the temple of God, and the priest himself is no longer perceived as a spiritual shepherd and a prayer book, but the hired performer Treb, which only belittles the dignity and dignity of the clergy."

“The very presence of people in the temple when funeral and“ last kiss ”helps the priest and praying to feel the grace of conciliar prayer, configure people to reverent behavior. As a person comes to church through the temple of God, and he goes through the temple,” the hierarch emphasized.

He noted that "contact with the sacrament of death makes people think and moves them to come to the temple."

“And we must help people enter the church if the Lord Himself moves them to this,” the letter said.