Why does God allow children to die? Why does God allow children to suffer, war, and die? Mankind is a single organism
When someone close to you leaves, you need to make a lot of important decisions, organize a farewell. But if the deceased was a baptized person, you must definitely take care of his soul, order a funeral service and a memorial service for the dead. These are very important farewell rites in Orthodoxy, in which all loved ones should participate.
Why do we need a church farewell?
The Christian faith lies in the fact that after bodily death, the soul of a person moves to another world, the spiritual one, which is invisible to us on this earth. In the early days, it is especially difficult for her, because she has to go through ordeals - evil spirits prevent her from entering paradise. Therefore, church prayer for dead Christians is obligatory. It is also necessary to invite a priest before death, so that he reads all the prayers for the departure of the soul from the body, confesses and takes communion. This is the best death for a believer!
A memorial service for the dead is served before the funeral, for this the priest can be called home. Usually a car is required to pick it up from the temple and bring it back, the amount of the donation must be negotiated individually (the singers usually come only for payment, but the priest may not take the money if the deceased often went to the temple). All those present must pray, according to tradition, lighted candles are held in their hands. The ceremony takes about half an hour.
- If you follow the traditions, the body should spend the night in the temple, psalms should be read over it. Or, if possible, the memorial service for the deceased is served in the church, and not in the cemetery or at home. Of course, this is additional trouble, but everything possible must be done, because we are talking about eternal fate.
It is impossible to cry strongly over the body, so as not to hold the soul of the deceased. Better to spend more time in prayer. One of the relatives can read the psalter at home if it is not possible to spend the whole night near the body.
To order a memorial service for the dead, you need to come to the temple. It is much easier if the whole family is churched, or you can turn to someone who often attends church. If there are no such acquaintances, go to the church shop, as a rule, all the trebs are ordered there. Everything will be handed over to the priest, or they will be given a number by which to contact him.
During Lent, memorial services for the departed are served by prior arrangement. In general, special days are provided for commemoration there, but usually they always meet halfway in such matters.
holy duty
Although a person ends his earthly path, his soul abides in eternity. Therefore, it is imperative to pray for the departed, preferably daily. It is very good to read kathismas - these are several psalms, they are accompanied by special prayers, where the name of the deceased (deceased) is called. In the prayer books you can also find a short version, it will also be useful.
The text of the memorial service for the dead contains the usual initial prayers, the 90th psalm. Next come the troparia, and a special canon is also sung. A special litany (petition) is read. There is an option for the laity, which can be read independently in the cemetery or at home if it was not possible to invite a priest.
It is customary to commemorate the dead:
- Day 3 - the tradition is established in memory of the fact that Jesus was resurrected on the third day. It is believed that the first 2 days the soul visits places dear to the heart. It is on the 3rd day that the ascension to heaven begins.
- Day 9 - according to the number of angelic ranks. Until this day, the deceased travels to heavenly abodes. If he has sinned much, he will lament that he spent little time in the service of God.
- The 40th day - this number is often found in the Bible, the necessary time for the proper purification of a person. It is believed that on this day the place of the soul is determined, where it will be until the Last Judgment.
It is also customary to celebrate an anniversary, it must be done with prayer, good deeds, avoiding alcohol (as in any Christian commemoration). It is good to give alms for the deceased. It is also customary to distribute part of the memorial meal to the poor, or bring it to the temple. It is left on a special table near the eve (a low square-shaped candlestick, near which memorial services are performed) - only meat products cannot be left.
There are other forms of prayer, they can be resorted to constantly, not only on certain dates. It is best to order a commemoration at the Liturgy - for the dead, particles are taken out of the prosphora, which are then washed in the Chalice with sacramental wine, which is the Blood of Christ.
It is believed that the souls of sinners who repented, but did not have time to do good deeds, will endure torment, which can be relieved through the prayers of loved ones. Just do not think that it is enough just to submit a note. You must attend worship and pray. Worthy remembrance is necessary for any Christian. Prayer - church and personal - is the best thing that the living can do for the soul of the deceased.
Memorial Service for the Dead Text
When, during a memorial service in the church, a candle is placed for the repose on the eve (a funeral marble table on which cells for candles and the Cross are located), a prayer is offered to the Lord:
“Remember, Lord, the souls of your departed servants (names), and all my relatives, and forgive them all sins, voluntary and involuntary, grant them the Kingdom and communion of your eternal blessings, and create eternal memory for them.”
The text is repeated three times.
Listen to the memorial service for the dead online
Memorial service for the dead (text) - how to order in church or during fasting was last modified: July 8th, 2017 by Bogolub
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- If a person has never tried ice cream, it will be difficult for him to describe its taste. The same is true of life in God. You can talk about it a hundred times, but all the words will be empty.
So, very often people who poorly understand the ways of life in God, who do not know the sweetness of life with God, try to explain to other people the will of God. If a child dies, they say to the unfortunate mother: "The Lord wanted to take an angel for himself ...". If people die in a terrorist act, they explain to their relatives: “The best died ...”. That is, they make such a fascist out of God. But who is this God who takes away my most beloved?
This is not true, the Lord does not want anyone to perish. And He proved it, He himself went to his death. God mourns every murdered child, every victim of the catastrophe. He created us and took responsibility for everything that happens to man, including our fall.
When blaming God for any catastrophe, act of terrorism, one must remember that God Himself gives His life for the salvation of man.
Therefore, we, as Christians, must understand that for all the pain and absurdity of death in the world, no one can be blamed, but everyone needs to try to fight death in himself.
The world will always test us as the image of God for strength - how beautiful this image is or how desecrated it is. Remembering the words of Christ “the dead bury their dead”, we can die without living. Because a person's life is real only when his death is not meaningless, when he can devote it to something.
We should not talk about the taste of ice cream without having tasted it, but we should try to taste it. To be with God means to have the experience of prayer, the experience of an inner conversation with Him. And only then, already on the basis of this real experience, a person will be able to console other people.
And it is very important to remember that in the face of death and misfortune, we all stand at the judgment of God. The person I loved died - whether his death caught him in old age or an accident happened - I, as a Christian, understand that this person is now responsible before God for his whole life, including for me. And that means I am also on this court. That is why we pray for the dead.
Why does God allow wars? Why does God allow children to die? Why does God allow terrorist attacks?
The toughest question people ask is: Why does God allow children to die? Why is there pain and suffering in the world? In order to speak like a Christian about such issues, we need to know the foundations of our faith well. And the first, most important question in such a serious conversation is the question of the origin of evil. Where did evil come from in the world, who is responsible for it?
We observe the presence of evil in the world from the first days of human life: small children fight for their toys, not being able to speak, show jealousy, defend their primacy, and so on. The biblical answer to the question of the origin of evil lies in that catastrophe, in that fall, which we call original sin.
It's not that the first people sinned by eating the forbidden fruit. The term “forbidden fruit” is incorrect. The man was told that it is impossible to eat from the tree, and it was explained why: because it is not yet time, because the person is not yet ready, not ripe to taste this fruit. There was no direct prohibition, because God does not indulge. If He did something impossible for a person, it would simply be impossible for a person. But it was the education of freedom.
And this is the only true answer, because the Savior came into our world in order to share with us all this horror and all this sorrow, to transform it from the inside, and not to switch the buttons and reconfigure the program...
arch. Maxim Kozlov
How to talk about what happened? We can only cry and pray. All the time blaming and reproaching God - Where have you been, where have you been? - impossible. We live in a world where our every word, every deed is reflected in this world.
Any big war begins with a quarrel in a communal apartment. But we don't think about it, we don't notice it.
By and large, we arrange all wars and all terrorist attacks against each other ourselves - albeit small, microscopic, but terrible. When we take revenge on each other, we fight against each other, we hate, we do not forgive each other. These attacks are in our lives, but we do not notice them, because they are homeopathic in size.
And we arrange such attacks every day - insulting, cursing, wishing another to die. They happen in our world all the time, happen to us every day, and we pay attention to them and perceive them as a tragedy only when they grow to catastrophic proportions.
Archpriest Alexy Uminsky
“Crimes and misfortunes have haunted us at all times. Unfortunately, terrorist attacks and other deliberate killings of people have already become commonplace and commonplace. All this is sinful and terrible, but murders are committed every day in multitudes all over the world. If we talk about massacres, then we can recall Nazi Germany, the beginning of the last century in our country, and in other places around the planet.
But God is Love, and that is unchangeable. The apostle Peter clearly answered the question “how does God allow evil?”. The Lord does not hesitate, He is long-suffering, gives us time to repent and improve, calls us to unity with Himself. The moment will come when God will intervene and destroy all evil, and this will be the end of the world. The Grace of God, Divine Love will fulfill by Himself everything and everything. People who accept this with joy will find eternal bliss. People for whom life with God is undesirable, this unwillingness will doom themselves to eternal torment.
The Last Judgment awaits each of us, not just terrorists. Are we ready? I’ll say about myself: I’m not ready, and therefore I don’t rush the second coming of Christ, but let each one decide for himself. God gives us time to repent and prepare for the end of the world, which will come for everyone personally with the end of his earthly life, and then - the resurrection and the Last Judgment.
Returning to the death of people in Brussels, I will say: misfortunes happen, but we should accept the will of God with humility and patience.
You should not create psychoses for yourself in a quiet apartment, endlessly reading the news.
Yes, such events remind us that we are mortal, we can die unexpectedly on the way to or from work. Therefore, we should prepare for a meeting with God and make good use of the time allotted to us.
And the last. Do we pray for murderers who bodily destroy other people, but spiritually destroy themselves?
Archpriest Konstantin Ostrovsky
I don't want to talk nonsense. A lot has been said. Everything is obvious and very scary. It's scary, because it does not leave the feeling that we are still approaching some kind of difficult denouement. However, this feeling is not new and is no longer experienced by us as keenly as by those who saw and heard the Savior during the days of His earthly sojourn with us. From the moment of His Ascension, those who followed Him looked forward to his glorious and great return, perhaps even more than tomorrow. So the most mysterious and terrible book of the New Testament ends with an appeal to the One Who will come to this world for the Judgment: “Yes, come, Lord Jesus…” ( .).
Apparently, there is no place left on this earth where there is no pain and suffering. Death in this world is a process, alas, irreversible. Even in the circle of loved ones, with a glass of water, with prayer and blessing, but the person will die. He will die in poverty and in sorrow, lonely and embittered. And it's even scarier. And it can also happen on board an airliner, in a residential building, at an airport and in the subway. And the most terrible thing in all this is that a person, no matter how collected he is, no matter how faith and steadfastness he possesses, will still not be completely ready for this. It will not, because death for a mortal person, paradoxically as it may seem, is still unnatural. It was not created for death and sorrow. But what happened does not have a reverse motion, it is impossible to turn on the reverse at the moment “before meeting with the snake”, and it is not necessary. Because the price for this nonchalant consent has already been paid. She is immeasurably tall. And this is the price of blood. His Blood.
This means that in all this madness and horror, it's time to remember that every tear will be wiped away and sorrow will be consoled. But this will not happen through joint statements or all sorts of actions and operations. And even more so, no compensation in the world can make up for the loss of a loved one.
I believe that if a person, having seen, even on the screen, in the news, someone's terrible misfortune, sighs at least with a drop of compassion for the one who is in distress, or died, was deprived of shelter and despaired, then evil sure to stumble.
At least in his heart. There are already too many of these places, where horror and death have almost merged into the color of the eyes, in this world. And we must sympathize without thinking about whether they sympathize with us? What is the use of loving only those whom we know for sure that they love us too. There have been a lot of such opinions on the Internet in recent days: “so what about explosions, so what about Brussels, and which of them was worried about our liners, for attacks on our cities and schools, and who imposed sanctions? ...... etc. etc." With such logic, it is not far from the joy "that the neighbor's cow died." With the same logic, children's slides are filled with tar and they are also offered to be soaked with sarin.
Such non-randomness and obviously inhuman calculation on them must also be taken into account. To take into account in order to know who and why truly rejoices in pain and death, suffering and chaos. Take into account to be horrified by this and not pass by. To understand that indifference, especially conscious indifference, is the most fertile ground for a terrible and deadly emptiness in the soul, which those who do not need flesh and blood strive to occupy.
The time of Lent is given in order to learn to love. We ask for this in the prayer of Ephraim the Syrian every day together with chastity and humility. It doesn't say who or what for. If there is no love, then there is no prayer, and if there is no prayer, then we are not looking for an opportunity to be with Him, to breathe with what His Kingdom is filled with. As it will be done to "one of these little ones," so it will be done to Him. Moreover, the words "Yes, I'm coming soon" were uttered a very long time ago. And God forbid that this soon does not become painful and unexpected for someone.
Priest Andrei Mizyuk
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Why does God take away innocent little children? For whose sins do children die, why does God allow children to die?
Here is a series of questions I heard at the funeral of our little parishioner, baby Verochka.
Yes, it happens like this, and the baby was not two years old, you can say she didn’t see life, but the Lord took it to himself. Yes, when an innocent baby dies, even a believing person has questions: is there a God in the world? Where was He at that moment, where did He look and why did He allow it? First of all, this is a test of faith for the believer.
When an adult person dies, due to some serious and long-term illness, or when we lose our old people, we realize that the person himself is the cause of a serious illness, and even when, you understand that there are no guilty parties, it’s just the turn to move to another world . It is hard for us to lose loved ones, both young and old, but when a person dies who has lived his life, understood what life is, for some reason it is easier for us to find the answer - why the Lord ordered it this way, or why a person died before reaching a ripe old age. 
Notice, when a person dies in extreme old age, by his own death, we do not look for the guilty, we do not ask any questions, everything seems to be as it should be. And if a person dies in middle age, we also understand everything logically, although we are looking for the guilty - it can be ecology, bad habits, doctors' mistakes, and so on, the list will be long.
For some reason, it's always like this when someone dies, we look for the guilty, we look for the cause, and since, realizing that there is a God above us, and he is omnipotent, we ask the question - why did God not save the baby? Why didn’t he save, because the child didn’t sin in anything? Some, in despair that a misfortune happened in the family, see in this will of God not justice, saying this - it would be better if you took away a drug addict, or a murderer, a lawless one! Yes, this is how we see from our side, we have lost a little man who did not even have time to sin, to see the fullness of the world.
True believers will not blame the Almighty, of course they have a number of questions, for whose fault, for what sin did the Lord allow such grief? Heartbroken parents are looking for answers to questions, but we do not know the answer. Let's remember one moment from the Gospel about the man born blind: And as he passed, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked Him: Rabbi! who sinned, he or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered: neither he nor his parents sinned, but it was so that the works of God might appear on him. . (from John 9:1-4)
Yes, there are many questions, but we will not receive answers in the near future. 
There will be a lot "maybe that's why..."
« maybe because...
And if we look for answers for what grief is - the death of a child, then it will not become easier for us. We do not know the deeds and plans of God, we cannot foresee our future even half an hour ahead, we cannot know anything for sure, especially the future of our children. We do not know the providence of God.
When such grief has come to the family, you need to realize that we live in this world temporarily, and we have real eternal life precisely when the soul is separated from the body, because our body is only the clothes of our soul. After the separation of soul and body, the human soul remains alive.
It is clear that while we live earthly life, we measure everything with earthly yardstick, we think everything with earthly thought, we guess with earthly primitive conjectures, we feel according to the earthly - bodily. Naturally, it is so sad for us to part with the bodies of our loved ones, yes, yes, it is with the bodies that we part, and our loved ones, their souls are alive and forever in our hearts, in our memory.
And if we take into account the fact that the soul of the baby is pure, the baby did not have time to sin in his short life, then the soul of the baby abides with God. Parents need to remember that when a baby dies, they have a prayer book in Paradise.
It is very difficult and even useless to console heartbroken parents, no matter what words of consolation are spoken, they will not help, the main thing is support from relatives and friends.
It must be remembered that everything that does not happen in our life, everything is only by the will of God, a good example from the Old Testament about Job the long-suffering (book of Job) as words of consolation, and answers to questions can be found in this book.
And finally I will write: The most important thing is to see all the works of God, and to see in God, first of all, a merciful father, and not a formidable judge.