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Bless me a sinner, Father Mark!

Thank you, once again, for the blessing of your words!

I have an Old Believer icon with OLGS Jesus Christ enthroned surrounded by the Mother of God and others - a total of nine figures.

Is this icon a special one in some way owing to the number "nine?"

Please forgive all these questions!

Kissing your right hand, I again implore your blessing,

Alex

Alex,

I am so glad to see that it's not just me that asks questions constantly

Let the education continue

And on this special day for you Old Calendar Folk :-

May Our Blessed Lady Mary ever Virgin , Mother of us all and Our Mistress, keep you in Her most tender care.

Angela

It may very well be Alex. We all know about Orthodoxy and numerology - especially Old Rite Orthodoxy -

seven buttons on the priests stole - nine on the bishops - nine buttons on the feast day sarafan - three ribbons on each shoulder - seven crosses (for the councils) under the East wall icons of the chapel ... and so on, i vo vyeki vyekom!!!

Who are the saints in question?

Spasi Khristos -
Mark, monk and sinner.

Bless me a sinner, Father Mark!

In addition to OLGS Jesus Christ enthroned, there is the Mother of God and the Forerunner, the Archangels Michael and Gabriel, Sts. Peter and Paul, and Sts. Zossima and Savvaty of the Solovetsky Islands.

Kissing your right hand, I again implore your blessing,

Alex

Dear Lady Angela,

Thank you so much for the kindness of your words and blessing!

Thank you as well for respecting the rites of us Old Calendarists!

I really do believe that we are all serving God, whether we are New Calendarists or Old, you know!

You New Calendarists are serving God your way - and we Old Calendarists are serving God His way . . .

God bless,

Alex

Dear Friends In Christ,

A Question: I have been told that when a priest reposes the Gospel is read over the body instead of the Psalter. What is read over a reposed deacon?

Dear MM,

The funeral of a deacon is like that of a layman -the Psalter would be read over a reposed deacon.

But Andrew Rubis can correct me - and if I'm wrong, you can count on it!

Alex

"The notes in the back of the Holy Transfiguration Monastery's Psalter of the Seventy explain the reading of the psalter for the dead and the prayer to be said for the repose of the departed at the end of each Kathisma." from Diak

What I learned was a variation on the practice that the illustrious Dr Roman mentioned: the reading of the Troparia for the Departed after the first and second stasis and the Penetential troparia of the Kathisma for the reader, as is found in the GCU Psalter of 1921.

Not to change the subject much. But going back to a post on page (1) of this thread-- I believe it was Alex who noted the idea of kissing the icon in the casket instead of the deceased. Aren't we supposed to venerate the icon in the casket first and then kiss the deceased goodbye??

I find it interesting the different regional customs. Here in the "Coal Region" of PA we don't think twice about touching or kissing a deceased person. When I visited my cousin in Cleveland, she was surprised that we here in PA "kiss and touch" a corpse. When I asked her why, she said they never did this in OH and never heard of it till I mentioned it.

Comments anyone about this custom in your local areas??

God bless & Blessed St. Nicholas day!!!
Dan

Among the Greeks, the custom is that when the person is in the casket in the church, at a certain point in the funeral service, near the end, the priest bids the family and close friends to come up for the "last kiss". We approach the casket, make the sign of the cross, a slight bow, venerate the icon in the person's hand, and then kiss the person either on the hand or on the cheek, and say our final words of farewell. It is a gut-wrenching experience, but when it is done, each participant achieves the reality of having "said good-bye" until later.

We believe that the soul of the departed remains around his/her home for 40 days, at which point the soul goes to its apointed place to await the Second and Glorious Coming of Our Lord. Thus, there is a gradual "leave taking" of the deceased.

May the Lord remember in His Divine Mercy the souls of all those departed in the faith, as well as the souls of all those who have no one to pray for them. Lord, have mercy.

Bless me also, dear Father!

I believe that many of the bezpopovtsy including the "Pomorians" of which the Vyg community was part, relied heavily on the cast copper/bronze icons for their home iconography and placed them under srubs in the cemetaries at the foot of the graves as well.

These truly are beautiful. I agree with you on your general observation of the bezpopovtsy and am also an admirer of their tenacity in preserving their heritage, cultural, spiritual and liturgical. During my bachelor days I was very tempted to go and join the community on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska for these reasons discussed above.

The copper/bronze icons were often placed on the cross (usually wooden) which was placed at the foot, not the head, of the gravesite. I learned from a Pomorian friend that they do not accept the crosses with the "old man" over the cross inscription at the top of the crucifix - many have the Holy Trinity depicted with the "old man" and the dove.

Instead, the Pomorian tradition, which is very reasonable, is that God the Father is true spirit and can never be depicted iconographically. Instead, the Pomorian crosses have the Obraz - the Icon made without hands - over the inscription at the top of the crucifix being held and flanked by angels.

Father Mark, what is the typikon for reading the psalter in your usage? Is the prayer to be recited at the end of each of the three stasis of each kathisma? Obviously the Psalter of the Seventy by HTM is of the Greek usage and reflects their usage with the single prayer at the end of the entire kathisma.

Nitty-gritty as Alex well says, and because I have been involved with a couple of funerals in our Ukrainian parish recently that all or part of the psalter were read over the departed, I am interested in this detail.

I have not seen this practice done at most Greek Catholic funerals nor many recent Orthodox funerals either. A sad omission of a most beautiful and praiseworthy practice.

My English manuscript translation of the Slavonic psalter unfortunately does not have many notes nor mentions the recitation frequency of the prayer for the departed.

As one who has seen some older Slavonic original Psalters, perhaps you could enlighten us, Father Mark, as to the Old Believer practice in this regard with the frequency of the prayer for the repose of the departed. Each stasis or at the end of the Kathisma? Perhaps it is a matter of economia.

Dear Diak,

Last week, I received my Old Believer Psalter from Kyiv and it states that the prayer for the dead is to be recited at the end of each Stasis i.e. three times per Kathisma.

The prayer is said, as you know, following the three "Lord have mercy" and just before the final "Glory be."

The Old Believer prayer is somewhat different from that used by the Niconian and Holy Transfiguration Psalters as well.

Alex

Dear Alex:

I have only just now read these posts.

Thanks for the clarification on the funeral repast, the "before the funeral" makes perfect sense.

It is a relatively common practice amongst the Portuguese to be buried in Carmelite habit.

Though the practice is definitely on the decline here in Canada and even back home.

At the last funeral I went to, the little 90 year old lady (God rest her beloved soul) had made her own habit many years before.

It was perfect in every detail, she wore a full scapular on her breast, with a cord around her waist, and of course a beautiful white silk mantilla on her head.

She looked like a true Saint, which she undoubtedly was.

defreitas

PS.
For some reason I have never seen a man buried in the habit.

Dear Diak -

I've only just caught up with thread - and by now Alex has answered your question!

Regarding crosses - the doctrinal priestless Old Beleievers (i.e. those who reject the idea of a valid priesthood remaining on earth, rather than those who simply lost contact with what they considered valid) are loyal to the Stoglav Council and reject icons with the Father and the dove cast on the top. This is ot just a question of affiriming that the Father is Spirit, but also of resisting the literal portrayal of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove!

One old practice of the Old Rite - more among bezpopvtsy than popovtsy - was to sleep with the fingers of the right hand arranged in the Old Orthodox configuration of the sign of the cross, so that if the night was to be one's final one...

Often, embroidered towels are draped around the cross, which as you say is often embellished with cast ikons.

An interesting part of Russian lore and custom surrounding deat are the appeals made to the Martyr Uar (Varus) for the souls of those deceased outside the Church of Christ. This allowed at least some form of prayer when panakhydy are forbidden.

The Old Believers made cast icons of St Uar.

Spasi Khristos -
Mark, monk and sinner.

+ Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us. Amen.

Bless me a sinner, Father Mark!

The bronze icons were made in connection with Our Lord's words in the third chapter of John about being raised up just like the bronze serpent was in the desert by Moses.

I have read that sometimes bronze iconography included small depictions of serpents in the frames and that people sometimes wore a bronze serpent on their necks with their Neck Cross - is this true?

St Antipas of Pergamum is the patron against toothache and his bronze icon often has the Slavonic letters for "Tooth Patron."

Should the neck cross also be bronze - traditionally?

Do Old Believers wear large neck Crosses of this type? Do they prefer to use cords rather than neck chains? (I find these questions fascinating!)

And just so you don't think I'm not totally given to detail , when one makes the Sign of the Cross the Old Believer way, should the two fingers touch the body at their point or on the flat surface?

The item we spoke about last week will be prepared soon!

Kissing your right hand, I again implore your blessing,

Alex