St. Demetrius and the Dead

St. Demetrius' Saturday, which follows his Feast, is one of the days on which the Church especially prays for the dead.

The Orthodox Church carefully prescribes prayer for the dead during Lent, during Pascha and on this Saturday when the falling leaves around us symbolically recall the experience of death.

The Orthodox Church surrounds her faithful with uplifted arms in prayer to God for their health and salvation.

Interestingly enough, there is no such thing as the "last rites" in Orthodoxy. Following the directives of the New Testament, the Church anoints with oil those who are sick in the hope that, if it is God's Will, He will raise them up in health to His service. During Great and Holy Wednesday in Passion Week, the Church invites everyone, sick or not, to approach to receive the Anointing.

The Rite of Anointing itself shows the beauty and spiritual depth of the Church's faith in the Glory of the Risen Lord.

Ideally, seven Priests are required to properly fulfill this Mystery. Three will do, but only in extreme circumstances would only one Priest suffice.

A mixture of boiled wheat is prepared on a table at the foot of the bed of the ill. Seven wands wrapped in cotton are prepared. Oil is also placed out. The Great Church of Constantinople uses wine.

The Priests then repeat the prayers as they dip a wand in the mixture and anoint the same parts of the body of the ill that were anointed during Baptism/Chrismation. The body is consecrated to God as His Temple.

For me, the rites and ceremonies of the Orthodox Church are, among many other things, a celebration of intimacy, the intimacy that God brings to us in Jesus Christ in the first place.

An Eastern European social scientist, living under communism, said that one of the most attractive things about the Church was how it provided opportunities for human warmth and intimacy that were absent in communist society.

There is the fellowshipping with other Christians, the closeness of Confession, the Holy Communion, the constant and loving touching involved in the Church's rites. We are composite beings, comprised of both matter and spirit. The Church allows us to experience salvation as whole beings with our individual, social, psychological and emotional needs fulfilled as well.

The experience of death is one of the most terrifying known to humankind. We are all afraid of it, in one way or another. In the Middle Ages, people did not live for very long, as we know. In some areas of Europe, a girl was lucky if she reached the age of 15! I remember visiting the tomb of Queen Charlotte of Britain. She had 18 children, all of whom died soon after birth.

Orthodoxy has special Canons and prayers that take one through all the final stages, sickness, the final hour, the moment of death, the time following death.

Based on the visions of St Macarius of Egypt, the Church serves a Divine Liturgy and the Office of the Dead for forty days after the repose of a Christian. St Macarius saw the souls of the departed wander for this amount of time, asking for the prayers of their friends and relatives in places familiar to them, being shown Heaven and Hell by God, until the fortieth day when they were assigned a place until the Second Coming of Christ.

This is why the Divine Liturgy is especially served on the third, ninth and fortieth days after the repose of a Christian. The half-year anniversary is also observed, as is the annual anniversary. It is customary to have the Divine Liturgy served for one's reposed relatives annually and, if possible, on their Namedays. Each Saturday is also devoted to the faithful departed in the Church's Horologion.

Prayer for the dead affirms our belief in the Communion of the Saints. We are one Body of Christ and death can no longer separate us from one another. We invoke the Saints and those who have gone ahead of us to assist us with their prayers and we ourselves help and honour them with our prayers and with the Divine Liturgy. The Great Cloud of Witnesses is our constant heavenly support!

Holy Church also comes to our aid with exorcisms and blessings of places that are disturbed by certain phenomena.

In the house where I grew up, my brother and I, who were about six and seven at the time, slept on the third floor with our parents in the next room across the hall.

One night, the lights went on and furniture began to move around the room. The really dramatic aspect occurred when clothing began to come out of the drawers and actually float around the entire room. At this, my brother got on the floor on this hands and feet and started to crawl out of the room. He was shaking violently and crying as our poor parents tried to figure out what had happened.

I suppose they thought it was all a prank, even though the furniture was much too heavy for small children to even budge. The clothing came to rest on me, placed neatly across me, from neck to toe, and that was the end of it. Or so we thought . . .

In the middle of the night some time later, I heard two voices speaking to each other in the hallway. It seemed like a language I had never heard before and the words were spoken rapidly. The next morning, I asked my parents who was over last night. With a surprised look on their faces, they said that no one had been over all week.

It would be years later that I would read that malevolent spirits, if that is what they indeed were, do things quickly and rapidly. It was Staretz or Elder Zachariah in Russia who once saw a demon read quickly from his Psalter. When he asked what he was doing, the demon said "I am offending God by my quick and careless reading."

A Priest was called in to perform an exorcism and the events were never repeated again in future. I have met others during this past year who have had similar experiences at home. In these and all other such cases let's not try to fight the battle alone. We will undoubtedly fail. Like St Demetrius, let's take up the spiritual Spear and, with the Church's help, ours will be the victory!