An Orthodox funeral is a service of hope sung over an open casket. It’s liturgical, filled with ancient hymns and Scripture, and it treats the body with reverence because we believe in the resurrection of the dead.
If you’ve only been to Baptist or non-denominational funerals in Southeast Texas, you’ll notice differences immediately. The casket stays open throughout the service. The priest censes the body with incense. People line up to kiss the departed or venerate the icons placed on their chest. There’s chanting instead of a sermon, and the whole thing proclaims that death doesn’t get the last word.
The Service Itself
The funeral usually happens two or three days after death, held in the church. The casket is positioned with the deceased’s feet toward the altar, as if they’re standing to face God. Icons rest on the body, often Christ and the Theotokos, along with a cross and sometimes a paper crown printed with the Trisagion hymn.
The service lasts about forty-five minutes to an hour. It’s structured around psalms (especially Psalm 118), hymns called idiomela that move through different tones and emotions, and prayers asking God to grant rest to the soul “in a place of light, a place of refreshment, a place of repose, where all sickness, sighing, and sorrow have fled away.” You’ll hear the Trisagion, “Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us”, chanted multiple times.
There’s no eulogy in the Protestant sense. The service isn’t personalized with favorite songs or stories about the deceased’s hobbies. It’s the Church’s prayer, the same for every Orthodox Christian, whether they’re a bishop or a child. That might feel impersonal at first. But it’s actually the opposite. It places each person within the communion of saints, praying the same words the Church has prayed for centuries.
The priest censes the body and the congregation. He sprinkles holy water. Near the end, he anoints the body with oil and sprinkles it with earth while saying, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” Then comes the final kiss. People process around the casket counterclockwise, kissing the departed’s forehead or the icons on their chest, laying flowers from the church arrangements.
The service closes with “Memory Eternal”, Vechnaya Pamyat, chanted three times. It’s not a wish that we’ll remember them. It’s a prayer that God will.
At the Graveside
A shorter service called the Trisagion is chanted at the cemetery. The priest commits the body to the earth with prayers for the resurrection. He sprinkles soil in the shape of a cross over the casket. The body is buried, not cremated, because we honor it as a temple of the Holy Spirit that will rise again when Christ returns.
The Theology Behind It
Orthodox funerals don’t try to soften death or dress it up. The body is there, visible, because death is real. But so is resurrection. We don’t believe the soul “goes to heaven” in some disembodied eternal state. We believe in the resurrection of the body. The soul rests with God now, but the body waits in the earth for the day when Christ returns and reunites body and soul in the new creation.
That’s why we treat the body with such care. It’s not an empty shell. It’s a person made in God’s image, a member of Christ’s Body, anointed in baptism and chrismation. We kiss the departed because they’re still part of the Church. Death separates soul from body, but it doesn’t separate us from the love of Christ or from each other.
We also pray for the dead. Not because we’re trying to get them out of purgatory, that’s not our theology. We pray because they’re alive in Christ and still part of the Church. The living and the dead together make up the Body of Christ. Just as you’d ask your friend to pray for you, we ask the departed to pray for us, and we pray for them.
After the Funeral
The funeral isn’t the end of our prayer. We hold memorial services on the third day, the ninth day, and the fortieth day after death. Then on the one-year anniversary. Then annually. These services, also called Trisagion services or panikhida, are shorter, usually served before Vespers on Saturday evenings or after Liturgy on Sundays. They include prayers, psalms, and “Memory Eternal” again.
The fortieth day is especially significant. There’s a tradition that the soul experiences a particular judgment then, though this isn’t dogma. What is certain is that our prayers matter. We continue to pray for the departed, asking God’s mercy and their repose among the saints.
What to Expect If You Attend
Come. Participate as much as you’re comfortable with. You don’t have to kiss the departed if that feels too unfamiliar, but don’t be startled when others do. Stand when others stand. Cross yourself if you know how. If you don’t, just stand respectfully. Join in singing “Memory Eternal” if you can pick up the melody.
You’ll likely smell incense and see the priest in dark vestments. The church may be more dimly lit than usual. There’s grief, but there’s also a strange peace. Metropolitan Anthony Bloom once said that an Orthodox funeral is the one service where the Church most clearly shows what it believes. We believe Christ trampled down death by death. We believe the departed are held in God’s hands. And we believe we’ll see them again when the dead are raised and Christ makes all things new.
If you want to learn more about Orthodox views of death and resurrection, Fr. Thomas Hopko’s series “Speaking the Truth in Love” on Ancient Faith Radio includes several talks on this. But the best way to understand an Orthodox funeral is to attend one and let the service itself teach you what the Church believes about death and life.
