Burial - Priest
The rite of Christian Burial bears a very strong resemblance to the Matins of Holy Saturday which Father Alexander Schmemann called that “bright sadness” which predicts the glorious brilliance of the Resurrection of Christ. Gathered around the mortal remains of a believer, Christians do not commemorate death; they bear emphatic testimony to their belief in God in whom everyone is alive. Man does not disappear in death: creation cannot annihilate that which God has called out from non-being into being.