ABSTRACT
Understanding death is central to the message of the Orthodox Christian faith. Approaches toward death in the Greek Orthodox tradition explain the direct relationship between a community of believers and the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. In a penetrating article on the social implications of this Orthodox message, Reverend Alexander Schmemann criticizes theological perspectives that try to center mortality by endorsing ‘secularized religion” and its psychological approaches to the therapeutic healing of illness or death. For Orthodox Christians, death is not a final stage but rather a transition in the Easter Faith, leading us toward resurrection. For Orthodox Christians, theological foundations rooted in the earliest Christian community set the tone for beliefs which take expression in liturgical practice, which directly confronts the experience of the dying and bereaved. The liturgical practices in Orthodoxy, speak to the holistic nature of our experience of death—engaging through ritual, body, mind, and soul, and activating all our senses.
