Christian burial
A Christian burial is the burial of a deceased person with specifically Christian rites; typically, in consecrated ground. Until recent times Christians generally objected to cremation and practiced inhumation almost exclusively. Today this opposition has largely vanished among Protestants and Catholics alike, and this is rapidly becoming more common, although Eastern Orthodox Churches still mostly forbid cremation.
History and antecedents of Christian burial rites
Early historical evidence
The Greeks and Romans practiced both burial and cremation, with Roman funerary practices distinctly favoring cremation by the time Christianity arose during the Principate. However, the Jews only ever buried their dead. Even God himself is depicted in the Torah as performing burial: "And buried him in the depression in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Peor. No man knows the place that he was buried, even to this day.". Similarly, early Christians used only burial, as can be demonstrated from the direct testimony of Tertullian and from the stress laid upon the analogy between the resurrection of the body and the Resurrection of Christ.In the light of the dogma of the resurrection of the body as well as of Jewish tradition, the burial of the mortal remains of the Christian dead has always been regarded as an act of religious import. It is surrounded at all times with some measure of religious ceremony.
Little is known with regard to the burial of the dead in the early Christian centuries. Early Christians did practice the use of an ossuary to store the skeletal remains of those saints at rest in Christ. This practice likely came from the use of the same among Second Temple Jews. Other early Christians likely followed the national customs of the people among whom they lived, as long as they were not directly idolatrous. St. Jerome, in his account of the death of St. Paul the Hermit, speaks of the singing of hymns and psalms while the body is carried to the grave as an observance belonging to ancient Christian tradition.
Several historical writings indicate that in the fourth and fifth centuries, the offering of the Eucharist was an essential feature in the last solemn rites. These writings include: St. Gregory of Nyssa’s detailed description of the funeral of St. Macrina, St. Augustine’s references to his mother St. Monica, the Apostolic Constitutions, and the Celestial Hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite.
Probably the earliest detailed account of funeral ceremonial which has been preserved to us is to be found in the Spanish Ordinals of the latter part of the seventh century. Recorded in the writing is a description of "the Order of what the clerics of any city ought to do when their bishop falls into a mortal sickness." It details the steps of ringing church bells, reciting psalms, and cleaning and dressing the body.
Image:Funeral Procession - 15th Century - Project Gutenberg eText 16531.jpg|thumb|15th-century monastic funeral procession entering Old St. Paul's Cathedral, London. The coffin is covered by a blue and gold pall, and the grave is being dug in the foreground.
Traditionally, the Christian Church opposed the practice of cremation by its members. While involving no necessary contradiction of any article of faith, it is opposed alike to ancient canon law and to the usages of antiquity. Burial was always preferred as the method of disposition inherited from Judaism and the example of Jesus' burial in the tomb. During times of persecution, pagan authorities erroneously thought they could destroy the martyrs' hope of resurrection by cremating their remains. Though the church always taught that the destruction of the earthly remains posed no threat to the bodily resurrection, many Christians risked their lives to prevent this desecration of the relics of the saints. Furthermore, the bodies of Christians were considered to have been sanctified by baptism and the reception of the sacraments, and thus were to be treated with dignity and respect, as befits a "Temple of the Holy Spirit". In reaction against the Christian opposition to cremation some have deliberately instructed that their remains be cremated as a public profession of irreligion and materialism. The revival of cremation in modern times has prompted a revision of this opposition by many Christian churches, though some groups continue to discourage the practice, provided there is no intent of apostasy or sacrilege.
During the Middle Ages a practice arose among the aristocracy that when a nobleman was killed in battle far from home, the body would be defleshed by boiling or some such other method, and his bones transported back to his estate for burial. In response, in the year 1300, Pope Boniface VIII promulgated a law which excommunicated ipso facto anyone who disembowelled bodies of the dead or boiled them to separate the flesh from the bones, for the purpose of transportation for burial in their native land. He further decreed that bodies which had been so treated were to be denied Christian burial.
The wake
The custom of watching by the dead is an ancient practice probably derived from the similar Jewish custom of a pious vigil over the remains. Its origins are not entirely known. This was a Christian observance, attended with the chanting of psalms.In the Middle Ages, among the monastic orders, the custom was practiced in a desire to perform religious duties and was seen as beneficial. By appointing relays of monks to succeed one another, orderly provision was made that the corpse would never be left without prayer.
Among secular persons, these nocturnal meetings were sometimes an occasion of grave abuses, especially in the matter of eating and drinking. The following is found in the Anglo-Saxon canons of Ælfric, addressed to the clergy:
Ye shall not rejoice on account of men deceased nor attend on the corpse unless ye be thereto invited. When ye are thereto invited then forbid ye the heathen songs of the laymen and their loud cachinnations; nor eat ye nor drink where the corpse lieth therein, lest ye be imitators of the heathenism which they there commit.
In the earliest Ambrosian ritual, which Magistretti pronounces to be derived from Rome, the funeral is broken up into stages: at the house of the deceased, on the way to the church, at the church, from the church to the grave, and at the grave side. But it is also clear that there was originally something of the nature of a wake consisting in the chanting of the whole Psalter beside the dead man at his home.
Absolution
The Absolution became common in the second half of the eleventh century. It involves laying a form of absolution upon the breast of the deceased. This is enjoined in the monastic constitutions of Archbishop Lanfranc. Occasionally, a leaden cross etched with a few words was used for this purpose. Many such crosses have been recovered in opening tombs belonging to this period.Offertory
The medieval ritual also included an offertory in the funeral of well known and distinguished people. Generous offerings were made in money, and in kind, in the hope of benefiting the soul of the deceased. It was also usual to lead his war-horse up the church fully accoutered and to present it to the priest at the altar rails. It would later be redeemed by a money payment.Western Catholic burial ritual
The various Roman Catholic Church religious observances surrounding mortal remains can be divided into three stages. The following three stages assume, however, that the full funeral rites are celebrated, including the Funeral Mass, which, since it is a Mass, must be celebrated by a priest. If a Catholic deacon celebrates, the Funeral Mass does not occur, however, a Memorial Mass may be said later for the deceased. The deacon leads the prayer services at the home and the funeral home, blesses the remains at the church during another prayer service, and then leads the prayers of final commendation at the graveside. In an increasing number of cases where there are not enough priests and deacons, lay people will lead prayers in the home of the deceased, the Vigil for the Deceased at the church, and also prayers at the graveside. If the traditional three-part funeral rites are celebrated, they proceed as follows:Conveyance of the body to the church
The first stage involves the parish priest and other clergy going to the house of the deceased. One cleric carries the cross and another carries a vessel of holy water. Before the coffin is removed from the house it is sprinkled with the holy water. The priest, with his assistants, says the psalm De profundis with the antiphon Si iniquitates. Then the procession sets out for the church. The cross-bearer goes first, followed by members of the clergy carrying lighted candles. The priest walks immediately before the coffin, and the friends of the deceased and others walk behind it.Note that in the vast majority of cases none of the above will happen. The priest or deacon will go to the house without procession, or lay people will lead the prayers in the presence of the body if clergy are not available.
Image:Canterbury Cathedral 072 Funeral Procession from Healing window.JPG|thumb|Funeral procession from the "Healing Window" at Canterbury Cathedral.
As they leave the house, the priest intones the antiphon Exsultabunt Domino, and then the psalm Miserere is recited or chanted in alternate verses by the cantors and clergy. On reaching the church the antiphon Exsultabunt is repeated. As the body is placed "in the middle of the church," the responsorial Subvenite is recited.
Once again, this seldom happens. The coffin is brought to the church by the undertaker in a hearse. It may arrive the evening before, for a Vigil in the church, or it may arrive on the day of the funeral before the service.
Historical precedence provides that if the corpse is a layman, the feet are to be turned towards the altar. If the corpse is a priest, then the position is reversed, the head being towards the altar. The earliest reference to this is in Johann Burchard's "Diary". Burchard was the master of ceremonies to Pope Innocent VIII and Pope Alexander VI.
A little-known custom also exists that both before the altar and in the grave, the feet of all Christians should be pointed to the East. This custom is alluded to by Bishop Hildebert at the beginning of the twelfth century, and its symbolism is discussed by Guillaume Durand. "A man ought so to be buried", he says, "that while his head lies to the West his feet are turned to the East…" For clergy, however, the idea seems to be that the bishop in death should occupy the same position in the church as during life, facing his people who he taught and blessed in Christ's name. In practice, facing the east is scarcely ever observed today, but appears to have been a common custom in the early middle ages. Post-conversion cemeteries can be distinguished in England from their pre-conversion counterparts from the orientation and direction of inhumation burials. Such an example can be seen in the Chamberlain's Barn cemetery near Leighton Buzzard - around 650 CE, graves were increasingly organised into rows, facing west, and grave furnishings decreased.