Donations may be made to St. John the Forerunner Orthodox church and specified of r use by the St. Joanna Myrrhbearer ministry. Click HERE to make a donation.

The St. Joanna Myrrhbearers burial society is a ministry of St. John the Forerunner Orthodox Church. Within reason, the ministry attempts to provide its services at little or no cost to the family.

Donations to the St. Joanna Myrrhbearers ministry can be made here: DONATIONS

Typically, we will provide transportation for the body up to a 50 mile radius from St. John at no cost. Beyond that, we will work with the family to provide transportation at a reasonable cost. Additional costs to the family may be incurred if it is necessary for the Myrrhbearers to rent a vehicle.

The exemption to this is for no cost the Myrrhbearers also will transport a body to the Holy Archangels Monastery in Kendalia, TX.

There are two notaries on the Myrrhbearer ministry team.

For an answer to this question in your specific circumstances, seek the counsel of your Spiritual Father.

In general, the Orthodox believe this:

The cremation of the bodies of the dead is contradictory to that which was established in the Christian Church from the very beginning. It also contradicts the content of the prayers contained in the Orthodox funeral rite which is based upon the burial of the dead as a fulfillment of the judgement passed by God over Adam: "Earth thou art, and unto earth thou shalt return" (Gen. 3:19). Only a few Saints are freed from this consequence of the fall of our foreparents. These Saints, through spiritual struggles of good deeds returned their very bodies to the original goodness, and as a result the Lord gives their remains (termed Holy Relics) incorruption and miraculous grace-filled powers. The cremation of departed Christians would deprive us of such a saving and consoling manifestation of God's mercy to us and to those righteous souls who reside in the Kingdom of Heaven.

—Sobor of Bishops of The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad of 1932

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The Church does not condemn cremation outright, provided that there is a valid reason for it.

In Japan, for example, the state requires cremation, and this extends to Orthodox Christians. There have also been exceptions made in cases of epidemics or fear of disease, for various reasons. There can also be reasonable cause for permitting cremation, but in general the image of the body being buried as it awaits the resurrection is more in keeping with the image given to us by Christ, Who likens burial with the planting of seed which later blossoms into a living plant.

—Orthodox Church in America

For an answer to this question in your specific circumstances, seek the counsel of your Spiritual Father.

There are two opposing theological viewpoints within the Orthodox Church regarding the donation of one’s body organs upon death.

First there is the view which maintains that since we are all created in the image of God, the harvesting of organs should be considered a form of mutilation and be thereby prohibited by the Church.

The other perspective is that there is no greater gift that a dying person can give than to donate a vital organ(s) so that someone’s life may be improved and/or prolonged. In fact, it might even be said that we are morally obligated to provide these organs, which we will no longer need, as a gift of unconditional brotherly or sisterly love for our neighbor.

Some express the fear that the bodies of humans will be viewed as simply a source of ‘spare parts’. This is hardly the situation, at least in this country, whereby Hospital and Medical Centers go to great lengths to insure informed consent; that is to say, a person’s organs upon death are not be taken without the expressed written consent of the patient. If an Orthodox Christian has died without leaving written consent to remove his/her organs, they should not be removed.

—”Medical Bioethics: An Orthodox Christian Perspective for Orthodox Christians” by Protodeacon Basil Andruchow

Contact the Myrrhbearer ministry to discuss how we might be able to help best serve you in these circumstances.

As the St. Joanna Myrrhbearers ministry was established to provide these traditional preparation and burial services to our fellow parishioners, most of our team’s efforts are limited to members of St. John. However, our Psalm Reading Team offers a formal reading of the Psalter upon the death of a newly departed family member:

—Spouse

—Children / step-children / children-in-law

—Siblings/ step-siblings / siblings-in-law

—Parents / step-parents / parents-in-law

—Grandparents / step-grandparents / grandparents-in-law

There is a separate page on the website for a parishioner to request this service. For friends or relatives that fall outside of this list, there are other opportunities for our church to pray for your loved one. The Psalter is read daily in our church services, and you can attend those. You can offer a bottle of wine which is used for the Eucharist or a bottle of olive oil which is used for the oil lamps, and attach a note on them with your loved one’s name and he/she will be prayed for.

The Church also offers four Saturdays of Souls Divine Liturgies throughout the year, which are designated specifically to pray for the departed. Your loved one’s name can be added to any or all of the lists for those days, and will be prayed for by name aloud during the service. These are all beautiful opportunities to have a non-church member remembered in the prayers of the Church. And of course, you and family members and friends can organize your own Psalter reading as you are able.

Reading the Book of Psalms over the departed is an ancient tradition of the Church; a result of the care she has for her children, ordering their salvation from birth to death, and not leaving them after death. It serves as a prayer to the Lord for the deceased, and provides consolation and instruction for the living. Through the psalms' sacred poetry, the human heart is shown in triumph, desolation, repentance, and even the mundane affairs of ordinary life. They contain prayers that teach piety, strengthen faith, and help Christians to trust God in any circumstance. The continuous reading also serves to protect the body’s newly separated soul. One elder, when told by his novice that he was struggling to understand the Psalter, told him, “Do not worry, and continue reading it. You may not understand, but the demons do and they tremble.”

The St. Joanna Myrrhbearers has a group dedicated to reading the psalms during this period after death until the funeral. In addition, all St. John parishioners are invited to participate in the reading, as a way of honoring, in special prayer, their brother/sister in Christ. Family members and friends are also welcome to be a part of this moving and meaningful vigil. There is a simple pattern of prayer for reading the Psalter for this occasion, instructions of which can be made available to all who sign up online to read whatever day(s)/hour(s) they would like.

Ideally, and as is possible, in the presence of the body. This can also take place in the home, funeral home, or at the church.

Although the St. Joanna Myrrhbearers ministry was established to provide these traditional preparation and burial services to our fellow parishioners and brothers and sisters in Christ, the Psalter can be read for specific non-Orthodox family members. Please see "Request a Psalter Reading" on our webpage for details. If your family member does not fall into one of these categories, you and your family/friends have other opportunities for our church to pray for your loved one. The Psalter is read daily in our church services, and you can attend those. You can offer a bottle of wine which is used for the Eucharist or a bottle of olive oil which is used for the oil lamps, and attach a note on them with your loved one’s name and he/she will be prayed for. The Church also offers four Saturdays of Souls Divine Liturgies throughout the year, which are designated specifically to pray for the departed. Your loved one’s name can be added to any or all of the lists for those days, and will be prayed for by name aloud during the service. These are all beautiful opportunities to have a non-church member remembered in the prayers of the Church. And of course, you and family members and friends can organize your own Psalter reading as you are able.

…when we pray for the living, the very heart of our prayer is for the forgiveness of their sins. Not because we’re aware of some rules which they have broken, but because the forgiveness of sin, the restoration of communion with God, is the source of every good thing, without which nothing can be good or well.

When we pray for those who have died and the forgiveness of their sins, we are asking the same thing, for their communion with God, whether broken or impaired, to be made whole. Of course, we enter mysterious ground in all of this. The Orthodox Church has very little to say in a definitive manner about prayers for the departed. The doctrine of purgatory is a development with Western Catholicism and plays no part in Orthodoxy. Officially, the Church says that our prayers for the departed are “of benefit.” They help.

Some teachers in the Tradition hold that once we die, there is nothing that we can do for ourselves. But these same teachers hold that the prayers of the living do wonderful things for us. Others hold that we can indeed do things for ourselves after death, but also acknowledge the benefit of the prayers of the living.

—Glory to God blog by Fr Stephen Freeman

Will You Remember Me?

Lately I was listening to Jann Arden’s poignant song Will You Remember Me? and it occurred to me that in one hundred years from now, no one would. In this I am, of course, hardly unique: in one hundred years from now, no one will remember you either, nor will they remember anyone currently reading this blog. My children will remember me, and my grandchildren after them (though for them grandpa will live more on the edges of their memory), but after my grandchildren die, it will be as if I had never existed. This is not a morbid complaint, but a simple observation.

There are, of course, certain people who will be remembered down through the generations—usually rulers and celebrities. This is not always a good thing. One hundred years from now people will still remember the names of Hitler and Stalin, but this will hardly redound to their praise. Some rulers, though, will be remembered fondly. People generations from now will still recall the name of Winston Churchill, though it will be remembered without the emotional resonance that it had for Londoners who endured the Blitz. And celebrities will be remembered. The names Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe will lose little of their potency.

But this last observation about celebrities merely confirms the assertion with which this piece began, for no one alive one hundred years from now (as few people alive now) will know the real Humphrey Bogart or the real Marilyn Monroe. All that will remain will be their film legacies and (in the case of Marilyn) a pile of photos. The real flesh and blood persons behind the names will have vanished. Even now few people know that Marilyn’s real name was not Marilyn Monroe, but Norma Jeane Mortensen.

The fact that human existence is ephemeral and fleeting is hardly new. The old hymn O God Our Help in Ages Past reminded us that “time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away”, and previous generations could hardly have forgotten the fact of their mortality if they wanted to. In past ages, people died at home, and were prepared for burial by their immediate families. Child mortality was much higher then (alas) so that every family was intimately acquainted with the sight of corpses.

But this is no longer the case. Now our culture has chosen to deny death as fact of normal existence. Most people do not die at home, but in hospitals, where they are promptly whisked to the morgue, and then (increasingly) to the crematorium. Our funerals often no longer gather around the body of the deceased, and are sometimes no longer even called “funerals”, but “celebrations of life”. The mourners (no one calls them “celebrants” for all the talk of celebration) do not assemble around the casket, but stare at a photo of the deceased. In our culture we contrive to deny that death exists, and we quickly go back to watching the football game or Netflix. Think about it: when was the last time you heard anyone described as “being in mourning” after a funeral? It is as if the ever-flowing stream of time now no longer bears anyone away.

In this environment it is therefore salutary to be reminded of death. Perhaps that is why every time we gather at the Liturgy the deacon bids us pray for a Christian ending our life, painless, blameless, and peaceful. It is salutary to be reminded that death awaits us all, so that we can prepare for it and for the judgment that will follow.

So, it is no bad thing to be reminded that one hundred years from now no one will remember us. No one, that is, except One. God will remember us after we are gone. That is why we sing Memory Eternal” when we pray for the dead. For the “memory” referred to in the prayer “May his memory be eternal” is not our memory, but God’s. He will remember us, when all have forgotten that we had ever lived. It is just here that we see the true horror of hell, for hell is the black sty where the wicked will dwell, forgotten even by the omniscient God. We see this terrible possibility foreshadowed in the Lord’s words at the Last Judgment, when the One who knows everything and everyone will say to some, “I never knew you” (Matthew 7:23). This will be the worst horror hell will contain. We want God to remember us.

And His memory is not like ours; His memory is with power. In Hebrew thought, to remember is to take action. When God remembered Rachel, He granted to her the promised conception (Genesis 30:22). The prophetic mandate in Isaiah 62:6-7 to remind the Lord about Jerusalem was not a prayer that God would fondly recall the city, but that He would take action to save it. When God remembers, He acts.

Ultimately, therefore, God will remember us. Even now He holds us in the palm of His hand, and will receive our souls when time’s ever-rolling stream bears us away. And on the Last Day, when this age finally fades like a dream and the whole world dissolves in the fire of divine judgment, God will remember us. He will take action, and raise us up to new life, and that life, like His memory, will be eternal.

“Will You Remember Me?”, Fr. Lawrence Farley, Orthodox church of America