As to whether it is possible to pray for the deceased, opinions differ. In traditional Catholicism, such prayers are encouraged, and earlier even indulgences existed especially for those who thought that it was not enough to offer prayers to their deceased relatives. Protestants strictly reject the practice of prayer for someone who has already rested. In Orthodoxy, such prayers are approved and considered important both for the one who offers them, and for the one for whom they sound. Let's take a closer look.
general information
In the case when a person died, an experienced priest can tell how to pray. Ascension of prayer makes the person an active participant in the salvation of the soul, departed from the mortal body. Man, appealing to higher entities, creates an occasion to relate to the deceased better, more mercifully. The necessity of this prayer is explained by the fact that the soul, having torn itself away from the mortal body, is deprived of the opportunity to independently do something that could propitiate the highest divine essence. And then those who are still alive come to the rescue. Their petitions change the fate of the future in another world.
It is equally important to know how to pray for the dead, and from the point of view of the future salvation of the soul of one who still lives in our mortal world. Every prayer is an attempt by those living on our planet to be saved after death. Sacred texts, invocations and supplications that a person offers, adjust his spiritual essence in time with heaven.
A person leaves the mortal and the vain, leaves everything short-term beyond the threshold of his attention. When praying, a person is immersed in the sensation and memory of death, which means that he is saved from any evil. Regularly offering prayers, a person receives enough power in order to exclude arbitrary sins from his reality. In addition, they help the mourner to gain patience, become more generous, to know joy. Prayer is what makes the period of tribulation easier, as it gives hope for a bright future outside our mortal world.
Liturgy
Any prayer for the one who rested, gives a living person the opportunity to fulfill the commandment voiced by Christ, namely, to begin to prepare for a departure to another world at any moment of life. In lifting up her words, a person at the same time remembers that those who have died on the other side of being are also praying, but for the future of those who remain in their mortal bodies. Particular help comes from the prayers of the deceased, if they are blessed in eternity. A popular option is a church note. Health can be requested if a person is given a Christian name. It is only possible to make petitions for repose if a person has been baptized in a church.
So how do you pray for the deceased? During the liturgy, you can file a note. You can do this during the first part of the event. On proskomidii serve notes with names. For every name mentioned in such a paper, a piece of prosphora intended specifically for this is put. Then these particles are dipped in the blood of Christ, at the same time offering prayer speeches in which they plead for the remission of sins, asking the divine essence to forgive the person.
What to count on?
In the general case, a priest, explaining whether it is possible to pray for an unbaptized deceased, limits grieving relatives: in the church it is allowed to pray only for those who have been baptized in her bosom. If a person in life was dissolute, this excommunicates her from the church even if a person has been baptized and no one has officially excommunicated him. Counting on salvation in this situation is not easy.
Church prayers will not give salvation to someone who, being alive, did not exert any effort. In order to count on a bright afterlife, you need to do everything that you would like to receive from loved ones after death on your own during a mortal existence. Saint Gregory once spoke on this subject. He said that the outcome is much better for one who is free, especially compared to those who, being chained, try to find freedom.
Asking the holy father how to pray for the soul of the deceased, one can find out that the best and most effective prayers will be for those who were kindly Christian in frailty. Such a person rested in peace with holy powers, in spite of sin (after all, only God does not have him). Church prayer, committed in memory of the deceased, good deeds - all this allows you to incline divine essences in favor of the deceased, so that the soul is cleansed of sins.
An appeal to the Creator, ascension from the side of ordinary people is the result of a person’s life. For example, if a person behaved badly during his life, his relatives read prayers only on strictly agreed days, following the customs and nothing more, and after the 40th day, practically no one remembers the deceased in his prayers. A person who has done a lot of good in a mortal body is long mentioned in prayers. Accordingly, such a soul will be saved more likely.
The Indestructible Psalter
Based on the idea described above about why they pray for the dead, we can understand how important it is to do this not only on time, but also correctly. One option is the Indestructible Psalter. This prayer is offered so that the person will be healthy, and if he has died, so that the soul rests. For a long time, ordering such a prayer is one of the best ways to achieve true grace for the deceased.
You can order such a prayer for yourself. As the Holy Fathers assure, a person will surely feel that they support him, his good intentions are approved by higher entities. Churches practice eternal remembrance. This is a rather expensive service, but many are firmly convinced that the results of such prayer offerings are much more significant than the usual ones. If it is not possible to order an eternal commemoration, prayer is requested for short periods or is offered on their own.
Sometimes the townsfolk come to the priest to learn how to pray for deceased relatives who were not inveterate in accordance with the rites of Orthodoxy. The Holy Father will explain the importance of the funeral service. It does not matter when the person died, it is better to order this ceremony later than not to do it at all. True, first you need to make sure there are no stumbling blocks. The priest will not be able to conduct a full and effective rite if a person died of his own free will (suicide) or was not baptized in the bosom of the church.
There are many cases when relatives, wanting to offer prayers for the deceased, applied for a funeral service several months after the death of a person or even a year later. If you need to request a funeral service in a few years, it is better to use the help of the monastery. There is a huge variety of evidence confirming how important this rite is.
Spouses dedicated
Holy Fathers know how to pray for deceased relatives. Having come to the church for the first time, you should turn to the priest for help. The prayer texts are given below. They are exalted to the Almighty.
In prayer, a person turns to Christ. The person asks to rest the soul of the deceased spouse or wife, to allow the deceased to connect with other faithful slaves of the Lord. Be sure to mention the name of the deceased. Repose should be requested for the deceased if the marriage was consecrated by the church. This fact is also necessarily mentioned in the text of the prayer.
It is equally important to indicate how good the deceased was in mortal life. The prayer-maker assures that he is completely submissive to the Almighty’s will and worships him. In prayer texts, he who refers to higher powers asks to forgive the deceased (deceased) that he used mortal and earthly things during his life, and even loved it, since he who had departed to another world was humane, behaved for the good of all. The task of a person offering a prayer is to simplify the divine powers to have mercy on the deceased, spare him and not subject him to eternal torment, but to take him to his Kingdom, where the soul will be surrounded by eternal divine glory.
Tradition and faith
Since ancient times, people practice various funeral rites. The roots of modern prayer are in ancient habits, ancient rules of worship. It is known that in ancient times a man who died while hunting a mammoth could count on a grave decorated with flowers and bones of prey.
In antiquity, the ancestors were considered patrons, the Chinese offered prayers to the dead, asking them to grant wisdom to those who live in the mortal world. Slavs made sacrifices on the altars of their ancestors. Today in our country, the main religion is Orthodoxy. She forbids worshiping the human spirit, but allows prayers to be offered for the soul of the deceased. If you ask a priest about whether you can pray for dead unbaptized or not, he will answer negatively. After resting, the soul can no longer ask for higher forces for itself. For the unbaptized in the church, one who still lives in the mortal world cannot ask.
It is worth noting that the restrictions on asking for mercy are the foundation for the appearance of numerous rites. It is precisely because of the impossibility to ask for oneself even before repose that a person must repent, prepare for a departure to another world. The soul whose body has died can no longer speak. She can only in humility wait for a solution. Relatives, parents, children, spouses remaining in the mortal world can offer prayers to divine forces, thereby delighting the repose, lightening their burden and improving the future of the eternal essence. It has long been said that a person is alive only as long as she is in someone's memory.
Ask for help
If you ask the Protestant whether it is necessary to pray for the dead, a person will answer negatively. In this religion, it is believed that immediately after death, the essence is judged in accordance with deeds and falls into the bosom of divine mercy. In Orthodoxy, opinions about the afterlife are slightly different. It is customary for us to think that the relatives of the deceased should ask the Lord, as well as turn to God's angels. This allows you to somewhat soften the fate of a departed into another world. The hotter the prayer ascends, the stronger it is, the higher the chance for the newly-departed person to receive the mercy of a divine essence, which means that the future of the soul will be bright and happy.
A prayer book contains a huge variety of texts. They are applicable in different cases. There are special ones for those who passed away suddenly and unpredictably. There are motives that are exalted for those who died due to a tragic incident. There are texts dedicated to those who found their death in the war.
From the prayer book you can learn how to pray for a deceased baby, what texts should be read if the child was born dead. A complete list of various options is simply impossible to bring, so many prayers exist. The task of the relatives is to study the prayer book in order to determine which prayers are suitable for the current situation, and to use them specifically, referring to higher powers.
About unauthorized dead
Until recently, a man who died at his own hands was rejected by Christianity. More recently, a new canon has appeared. He was called "On the unauthorized stomach of those who died." As can be seen from the title, it is dedicated to those who committed suicide. Prayers for such persons were not allowed before. No circumstances could be the reason for the offering of divine powers. The Holy Fathers in the church today will not begin to ask God's mercy for those who themselves caused their deaths, who died at their own hands. The church, however, permits private prayer, that is, the offering of requests for the deceased at home. Suicide is a great sin in the understanding of any church. It is simply impossible to grind it, it is so big. And yet, the relatives of the deceased can offer their prayers to the higher powers in order to at least slightly soften their fate in the afterlife.
Parents and children
Children should ask how to pray for deceased parents. Religion is assigned to them the obligation of prayer for the deceased older generation. There are quite a few prayers. Some are designed specifically for children making a request for their reposed parents.
There are those in which the prayer asks for all Christians who died in Orthodoxy. The texts ask to remember the one who departed from life, the one who served the Lord all his life. During the ascension of conversion, it is necessary to bow to the divine essence.
Parents must be mentioned by name in the places of the prayer text intended for their insertion. Here they are asked to remember all the "relatives in the flesh." Offering such a prayer, they pray for higher powers to give the deceased pleasure, to give infinite life. Asking for their deceased parents, the children beg to have mercy on them, crying out to God as a Humanitarian. Three times they ask the Lord to forgive the sins of the departed in another world and give him hope for resurrection. Three times they ask for eternal memory to all those who died in the Orthodox faith.
Asking the Lord to grant eternal life and enjoyment to the departed parents, the children simultaneously pray for the quenching of their sorrows. The priest, explaining how to pray for the deceased parents, will necessarily say about the need for the correct appeal to the divine powers.
Prayer is offered to Jesus, who comforts those who mourn, patronizes the Syrians, and grants refuge to those who are immersed in sorrow. When they offer prayers, they appeal to divine mercy, pointing to the virtues of children as an occasion to have mercy on their parents. When asking for divine powers to grant happiness and peace in the afterlife, children always say that God is the Father for all, and all people are his children, which means he must understand especially well why the posterity prays for their mother’s bright future and father. When praying, they turn to higher forces as "Gracious Lord." Be sure to include in the text the words that God is the only one on whom the petitioners can trust, hoping to implore happiness for the deceased.
Healthy and sick
Is it necessary to pray for the dead, who during their lifetime suffered a long illness, because of which they died? The Orthodox religion allows such prayers, moreover, approves them. If you turn to the prayer book, you can find special texts for such cases. There are two types of prayers. Both of them are dedicated to those who died due to a long illness. In their prayers, relatives must mention the name of the one who rested. The prayer addresses the Lord, saying that it was by his will that the deceased served the higher forces with his sufferings, illnesses, becoming part of the Passion of Christ. Relatives, turning to higher powers, ask them to honor the deceased participation in the glory of Christ.
When offering prayers, they ask for a prayer for whoever rested. Turning to higher powers, they beg to forgive the sins of the one who prays, and to help the deceased relative of the prayer. In addition, they are crying out for assistance in the fight against evil schemes, asking for deliverance from troubles and diseases, as well as other evils.
The worshiper promises to live righteously, despite the fact that any mortal people are unworthy. He offers a prayer for the deceased, asking him to be merciful to him and the most praying person, who will praise the One Lord with his whole life.
About educators
Holy fathers can help those whose mother has died. How to pray in such a situation, the priests explain using a prayer book. In similar ways, one can offer prayers for mentors.
If these people were important for a person turning to the divine powers, then educators are to some extent equated with their parents in the perception of another world. Accordingly, begging higher powers to give them happiness and save them from punishment, a person uses the same texts that were created for appeal in the name of parents. True, in this way you can ask only for those who were really important for the person who raised him. You can use a separate prayer. The prayer book contains a special text of an appeal to higher powers, used if you need to urge the Lord to be merciful with a mentor.
About the rules
You can learn how to pray for the deceased by referring to the recommendations and advice of the holy fathers. The general rules for ascending petitions to divine powers are known. In general, prayers are offered while at home or visiting a cemetery. At home, you can beg the Lord daily in the evening, when the time comes for the commemoration of the deceased in accordance with Orthodox rites. If a person died no more than 40 days ago, one can offer prayers dedicated to him daily in the afternoon, when other texts are recited. , , .
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The importance of prayer
Do not underestimate the importance of knowing how to pray for the deceased. Of course, when a person dies, his memory can be immortalized with a magnificent monument, a specially allocated place in the cemetery. You can arrange numerous and magnificent ceremonies. However, this is all material, which means that it doesn’t matter to a soul that has flown into another world. The only thing that can affect the spiritual aspects is the offering of prayers to divine powers.
Saving the soul of the deceased, a person thereby gives salvation to the family. Only the petition of the living can be a source of mercy for the deceased. Praying for the newly-departed, the person tunes himself in harmony with higher powers, becomes closer to the heavenly and spiritual, distracted from fuss and temporality, from the transitory, surrounding us in this world. Prayer is one of the ways to secure a future for ourselves outside the mortal world and save ourselves from arbitrary sin.
If you know how to pray at home for the deceased (the general rules are described above), if you regularly raise such words for your deceased loved one, you can thereby set your soul to an end. One of the key Christian commandments is the readiness to retreat at an unpredictable point in time. Praying regularly for the departed, a person thereby makes such a transition more predictable, familiar, which means he can come to terms with him in advance. If a departed person has found eternal bliss and in the world offers prayers for someone who still lives with us, such appeals are especially appreciated because they help more than anyone else.
Must and may
Orthodox canons, rules on how to pray for the deceased, indicate the commemoration of the deceased in prayers as a duty and obligation of every person who converted to Orthodoxy. Church canons demand especially responsibly and carefully, regularly and zealously offer prayers in the first 40 days after the person’s death.
A widow must pray for her deceased spouse; children are required to offer petitions in the name of their parents. If a loved one dies, a true Orthodox Christian will commemorate the deceased daily in his appeals to divine powers. Reading names is carried out using a commemorative party created specifically for this purpose. This is the name of the little booklet, which lists the names of all the relatives who have died and are still living in the body. There is such a pious Orthodox custom according to which the family’s commemoration is being conducted. A person, turning to divine powers, must read the names of all his relatives, even if they lived several generations ago. Thanks to such books, people can remember even those of their relatives who died for many years, decades, centuries ago.
If you ask the holy father how to pray for the deceased until 40 days, the priest will advise you to offer prayers at home. They are considered the most effective. But after this moment, at home, the prayers of divine powers have practically no result and you need to contact the church.
At home until 40 days, you can offer petitions both for those for whom it is allowed to pray in the church, and for those who are not accepted in it (such as suicides). Not every text can be read within the walls of an Orthodox institution, but any prayer can be offered at home. If a person has not been baptized and died, you can pray for him at home. The official church refuses requests for such a deceased. In order for prayer to give results, you need to concentrate on the ritual and follow your intentions as much as possible. It is equally important to reproduce the exact text of the prayer. Do not be distracted or make changes to your liking. Neither the time of the ceremony, nor the text of the appeal, nor the nuances of the conduct can be adjusted.
Important Rules
Priests know how to pray for the deceased after 40 days. It is recommended by religious rules to offer prayers for the deceased after this day as often as possible. Be sure to contact here on days that are established by religious rites as intended for commemoration. It will not be superfluous to use the help of priests at any other moments when it is possible to come to church in order to pray for the departed.
There is a special evening rule. Appeals to divine powers shortly before going to bed are necessary for every person to regularly think about death. It so happened that ordinary people, lost in everyday life, do not at all remember the moment of departure to another world. Knowing how to pray for the deceased before 40 days at home, knowing how to offer evening prayers daily and after this period, the person resigns himself to the thought of impending death. None of our contemporaries knows what will happen tomorrow or in a day, no one knows when it is time to leave the mortal world. By observing the nightly prayer ceremony, you can prepare for the moment of the exodus, no matter what day it falls.
About the most important and not only
Learning from the priest how to pray for the deceased up to 40 days, you can hear about the importance of the divine liturgy. The process is accompanied by a sacrifice to the divine powers without blood. When the liturgy ends, the requiem begins. The ceremony is carried out at the eve - a table with candlesticks, on which a crucifix is ​​depicted. The ceremony is necessary to remember the deceased. Arriving at the church, a person leaves an offering that goes to church needs.
Understanding how to pray for the deceased up to 40 days, do not forget about the magpie. This ministry must be ordered by contacting the Orthodox Church. It is considered one of the most important for the deceased. Sorokoust is a liturgical Orthodox rite that begins when a person leaves the mortal world and ends by the 40th day. When the magpie ends, you can order a new conduct of this rite. Long memorial periods can be ordered immediately for six months or even for a whole year.
The easiest way to commemorate the deceased is a candle set for repose.
About kids
Sometimes parents are forced to seek help from priests to learn how to pray for a deceased child who has not been baptized. Traditionally, the baptismal rite is carried out 40 days after birth. Throughout this period, it is believed that the mother and her child are protected by one Angel. The rite of baptism allows the child to receive his own keeper. If it so happened that the child rested, not having had time to survive the rite of baptism, it is necessary to pray for him especially sincerely, strongly, fervently. Any true Christian feels heaviness in his soul, realizing that someone has died outside the bosom of the church. In order for the afterlife of such a soul to be as calm as possible, heartfelt prayers are offered.
In churches, transmitting requests indicating the name of the deceased unbaptized is strictly prohibited. Priests, telling how to pray for the unbaptized dead, indicate the possibility of offering petitions to the divine powers only at home or in the cemetery. If a person has not entered the bosom of the church, she cannot be mentioned by the holy fathers. The person who mentions it in prayer at home becomes all the more significant to the soul.
If you ask how to pray for the unbaptized deceased, a knowledgeable person will probably recommend making requests to Saint Huar. There is a special canon. The saint dedicated himself to prayers for the unfortunate, who failed to enter the fold of the Orthodox Church. By sincerely addressing this martyr, the afterlife of the soul can be facilitated.