Photos

The funeral repast is a romanian old custom, a lot praciced in our churches

that picture is taken today, at the Holy Relics of the Saint Mina

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Our Help to the Deceased

Someone close has died… Sooner or later we all encounter the mysterious phenomenon of death. And every decent person, by measure of his power and opportunities, tries to give the deceased his last due, to worthily send him off on the path of the whole earth. We attend to obtaining a coffin, to organizing the funeral, to planning the funeral repast. But we sometimes do not realize that the deceased himself does not need either the coffin nor the meal. Naked a person leaves his mother’s womb, naked he returns to the womb of the earth. Only one thing he needs, and needs it extremely. That is prayer. After the body’s death God designates a place for the soul until the Final Judgment — either heaven or hell, depending on how he had lived his life. Prayers for the repose of the dead, panihidas and commemorating at the liturgy greatly help the soul in the other world.

There is tale in the Lives of the Saints about the Venerable Macarius the Great, who prayed for everyone who departed for the other world. Once he saw a skull in the desert, which by the power of God related to Macarius that through his prayers, even the worst sinners receive some relief from their sufferings.

(from here: http://www.orthodoxphotos.com/readings/beginning2/help.shtml)