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Funeral Rituals In The Christian Community

A funeral can either be a family or a State ceremony, and it is held in the memory of the deceased person. It involves a series of rites and rituals that change according to the deceased’s culture and belief system.

A majority of Christian funerals have rites that are categorised into three main parts – visitation, funeral and finally, the burial. The first two parts, which are the most important ones as far as ritualistic aspects are concerned, are discussed below.

The first part is the visitation, when the body is laid in a casket for public viewing by friends and relatives. The body is clothed in the finest attire and adorned with precious jewellery. Some cultures require anointing the deceased for the occasion, while others don’t.

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Visitation mostly includes a display of pictures of the deceased by the family or a display of items that were cherished by the deceased during his lifetime. Some relatives also run a video or slideshow from the lifetime of the deceased.

The visitation is followed by the next service, which is the memorial service, also known as funeral, and it is carried out in a church. The casket with the dead body in it is carried in a vehicle to the church, surrounded by a funeral cortege of mourners. Then the casket is carried with its floral decorations and placed inside the church.

This involves offering of prayers by the attendees and reading out of the Bible or Holy Scriptures by the priests. The mourning groups also sing religious songs in chorus. The priest presiding over the ceremony gives a comforting speech, and it is followed by eulogies or tributes given by relatives and close friends of the departed, who speak of the latter’s merits and accomplishments. Though this is not a mandatory custom, but in some cultures, people are allowed to see the body once before leaving the church for burial. The service might be preceded and followed by gonging of church bells.

Once the first two services are over, the body is taken into a cortege for burial that forms the last phase of the rituals.

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