Practices Concerned with Death

The discussion of Christians here will be limited to active ôcatholicö Christians (conservative Roman Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox communities, and ôHigh Churchö Protestants), who share similar beliefs about death, dying, and the afterlife, as well as similar funeral and mourning customs. It is restricted to active Christians (meaning those who attend Sunday worship services more than half the time, this being a current sociological measure to delimit those who are deeply committed to their religious tradition), since the experience of those who might attend a funeral but otherwise are almost never to be found in the vicinity of a church (professional clergypersons will sometimes refer to such persons sarcastically as ôhatch, match, and dispatch Christiansö) is radically different from that of people who are active participants in their tradition and who generally have a far more sophisticated concept of the significance of funerals and other community activities.

Likewise, discussion of Hindu practices will be limited to those of sects that share a common philosophy about the concepts of karma and rei

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cipate with the living in community worship. This is what is meant by the phrase ôthe communion of saintsö in the Nicene and ApostlesÆ Creeds, the faith statements held in common by all ôcatholicö Christians. And this is what is symbolized by the fact that in every Roman Catholic church, the altar must contain a physical relic of a departed saint (see The Code of Canon Law, #1237, º2, p. 216). Hindu funereal practice almost always involves cremation, in which the body, that burden of the soul, is destroyed in order to free the soul completely to move on to whatever the laws of karma have in store for it next. This tends to be a family affair, rather than an activity of a worship community. In fact, most Hindu puja (roughly equivalent to ôworshipö) takes place in the home, where the husband and father is considered the familyÆs priest and guru. This situation seems quite parallel to the ancient Roman family religious practices, in which the paterfamilias was also the family priest. For a long time widows were encouraged to freely immolate themselves on their husbandÆs funeral pyres, in order not to be separated from them, but this practice was outlawed by the British Raj in 1829, since it had become clear that often the widow
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Approximate Word count = 1357
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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