In this study, we examine the stance of the Orthodox Church towards the cremation of the dead, as this stance is primarily determined by the spirit of the Funeral Service that is chanted during the ceremony of Orthodox Christians.

This is the service that our national poet K. Palamas considers ‘a manifestation of the most beautiful and exalted of Greek Christian poetry’, the great teacher of ‘historiography’ S. Zambelios describes as ‘a spontaneous depiction of the Gospel’, and the late presbyter K. Kalinikos states that it is ‘the richest, most diverse, most dramatic, and most passionate of all our services’.

Above all, however, the Funeral Service uniquely expresses the entire Orthodox theology regarding the ecclesiastical burial of the dead, as summarized in the epigrammatic words of St. John Chrysostom: ‘We shall bury the departed as it is fitting to us and they, for the glory of God’.

Today, as the well-known phenomenon of ‘rejection’ of the dead reappears with the harsh face of their cremation, the Funeral Service, as the ‘last sacrament’, proves that the Orthodox Church has not ceased and will never cease not only to speak of the ‘great joy’ that comes from its engagement with the dead but also to send them off to the grave with a kiss, just like every caring mother does when she puts her children to sleep.

This very resurrecting ethos of ecclesiastical burial of the dead, which is elevated to a dogmatic status, is what we attempt to highlight in the pages of this work.