Christian Burial Ground 1

A Christian burial is the burial of a deceased person with specifically Christian rites; typically, in consecrated ground. Until recent times Christians generally objected to cremation because it interfered with the concept of the resurrection of a corpse, and practiced inhumation almost exclusively. Today this opposition has all but vanished among Protestants and Catholics alike, and this is rapidly becoming more common, although Eastern Orthodox Churches still mostly forbid cremation.The Greeks and Romans practiced both burial and cremation, with Roman funerary practices distinctly favoring cremation by the time Christianity arose during the Principate. However, the Jews only ever buried their dead. Even God himself is depicted in the Torah as performing burial: "And [God] buried him (Moses) in the depression in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Peor. No man knows the place that he was buried, even to this day." (Deuteronomy 34:6). Similarly, early Christians used only burial, as can be demonstrated from the direct testimony of Tertullian[1] and from the stress laid upon the analogy between the resurrection of the body and the Resurrection of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:42).[2][3]

In the light of the dogma of the resurrection of the body as well as of Jewish tradition,[4] the burial of the mortal remains of the Christian dead has always been regarded as an act of religious import. It is surrounded at all times with some measure of religious ceremony.[3]

Little is known with regard to the burial of the dead in the early Christian centuries. Early Christians did practice the use of an ossuary to store the skeletal remains of those saints at rest in Christ. This practice likely came from the use of the same among Second Temple Jews. Other early Christians likely followed the national customs of the people among whom they lived, as long as they were not directly idolatrous. St. Jerome, in his account of the death of St. Paul the Hermit, speaks of the singing of hymns and psalms while the body is carried to the grave as an observance belonging to ancient Christian tradition.[3]

Several historical writings indicate that in the fourth and fifth centuries, the offering of the Eucharist was an essential feature in the last solemn rites. These writings include: St. Gregory of Nyssa’s detailed description of the funeral of St. Macrina, St. Augustine’s references to his mother St. Monica, the Apostolic Constitutions (Book VII), and the Celestial Hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite.[3]

Probably the earliest detailed account of funeral ceremonial which has been preserved to us is to be found in the Spanish Ordinals of the latter part of the seventh century. Recorded in the writing is a description of "the Order of what the clerics of any city ought to do when their bishop falls into a mortal sickness."[3] It details the steps of ringing church bells, reciting psalms, and cleaning and dressing the body.