Manager of the UOC Metropolitan Anthony of Boryspil and Brovary (Pakanich)
Prayer for the dead is the most important thing we can do for those who have passed on, who are no longer with us in earthly life, told Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanich).
Liturgical year-round there are special days of Church-wide commemoration, which are referred to as Saturday, said the Manager of the UOC Metropolitan Anthony of Boryspil and Brovary (Pakanich) in an interview to “Komsomolskaya Pravda in Ukraine”.
“In 1380, Prince Dimitry Donskoy, asked St. Sergius of Radonezh to commit to the Trinity monastery, a memorial service for the soldiers killed on the field of Kulikovo in the battle with the Mongol-Tatar Horde. Since then Orthodox Church on Saturday before the commemoration day of the Holy great Martyr Demetrius of Thessalonica steadily from year to year, doing the Church-wide commemoration of all pridetsia father and our brethren,” said the Bishop.
According to him, “if you understand, the deceased needs no grave, no monument in all it’s a tradition, even pious. But the eternally living soul of the deceased is in great need of our constant prayer, because she can do good deeds, which would have been able to be reconciled to God.”
“The Orthodox Church, every minute and every second praying for peace around the world, about their faithful children and their needs. Special care of the Church and those who had already completed his earthly journey, departed to the Lord, and another expects a trumpet, calling to appear at the last judgment. For them, repentance can not be. But the status and fate can only be changed by our love, which knows no barriers neither time nor space. This love is expressed first of all in prayer and good memory of man, and charity,” – said the Bishop.
In his opinion, “so our sacred Christian duty to pray for their deceased relatives. The Church at every divine Liturgy commemorates for the repose of those who do not forget and remember to pray kinsmen, intimates, that the Lord washed the sins of the departed with His own blood before an honest the prayers of His saints”.
“Listen to the words of St. John Chrysostom, who said: “we will Try as possible to help the departed, instead of tears, instead of crying, instead of magnificent tombs about them by our prayers, alms and offerings, that thereby they, and we, to the promised good””, he concluded.
November 3 – Demetrius Saturday. In all the churches on this day we commemorate a century from the departed Orthodox Christians.