Even though Russian grammar rules are taught in school, many people still make mistakes. However, as you know, a person studies all his life, and there is nothing wrong with refreshing his knowledge of the Russian language from time to time. When it comes to special words - neologisms or, conversely, archaisms, not everyone knows their correct spelling and pronunciation. Today we will analyze a religious expression, the roots and meaning of which go deep into ancient sacred texts and which has two spellings and is used in different contexts. How to say and write this phrase correctly?
Soul after death
According to Orthodox doctrine, in addition to the physical body, a person also has a spiritual, invisible essence - the soul.
It is given by God at the birth of a person in the womb and continues to exist independently after the death of the body. The posthumous fate of the soul is determined by its spiritual state. That is why the question of how to correctly wish for the Kingdom of Heaven is relevant. Life “beyond the grave” is determined by the way a person lives on earth. Did he strive for salvation, did he try to keep God’s commandments, did he repent of his sins. A pure, righteous soul carries within itself the Divine image. She is with God, to whom she longed. A soul polluted by sins is likened to demons who have fallen away from God. She cannot be close to the Lord, because she has always resisted Him. Dark forces take such a soul to themselves. After all, she was in their power even in earthly life.
A person has freedom of choice between God and the devil only in earthly life. After death, the soul can no longer repent and change. Therefore, the main goal of earthly life in Christianity is the salvation of the soul. That is, repentance, cleansing from sin and acquiring Divine grace. Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) called death a great sacrament, the birth of a person “from earthly, temporary life into eternity” (“The Word on Death”). Saints in Christianity are commemorated on the day of their death. For them, death was a great and solemn event, a long-awaited union with God. Each of us should strive for this.
Where is the Kingdom of God?
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From the words of the Savior it is clear that the Kingdom of Heaven is near, you just need to repent, and now, it is already achievable. Thus, people had to understand that nothing had changed in their lives at that moment, all the rulers and powerful people of that world remained in place. Nothing has changed except that from now on Jesus Christ is next to them. This means that He is the Kingdom of Heaven. But no one was given the opportunity to understand this; even the apostles could not fully understand this truth, because “their hearts were petrified.”
It is necessary to understand that the disciples of Christ were raised in their environment, on the commandments of the Old Testament. The Jews considered themselves God's chosen people, and therefore lived in the belief that the Kingdom of God belonged only to them. And Jesus said that everyone who believes in Him, who renounces sin and repents, will achieve the Kingdom. People will come to it from all over the world.
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How could one immediately accept such a teaching? For the Jews, this was akin to being brought down from heaven to earth. That’s why the Lord preached, that’s why he showed miracles of healing, resurrection, turning water into wine and others, in order to attract people’s attention, to make them understand that a different reality, a different time had come. He showed his mercy, kindness and foresight so that his disciples - not only among those close to him, but also among all the people - would understand how to walk along the road leading to the Kingdom of God.
And Christ, in parables, images and examples, spoke about the Kingdom of God as about Himself. It is He who is this Kingdom. Life with Him next to Him, according to His commandments, this is the reality that the contemporaries of His coming to Earth had the opportunity to experience. That is why, if they had the opportunity to listen to sermons, drink, eat, sail on a boat, accompanied by the Kingdom, they achieved it so quickly and easily. It itself chose them, overshadowed them with the grace of the Holy Spirit.
How to properly wish for the Kingdom of Heaven
So, after death, the soul cannot change anything on its own. But the relatives and friends of a deceased person can help his soul. To do this, you need to pray, ask God for the forgiveness of her sins.
“In life, the king’s earthly friend may intercede with him to help some condemned person. Likewise, if a person is a “friend” of God, then he can intercede with his prayer before God” (Rev. Paisius the Svyatogorets, “Words.” Volume 4).
After death, only a private, preliminary judgment of the soul occurs. It shows how deeply rooted passions are in a person’s soul and how close he was to God during his lifetime. A private court determines the soul to the “place” that most corresponds to its condition. Heaven is the afterlife with God. Hell is the absence of God. Being close to God for an unrepentant sinner would be even more unbearable than being in hell. There is no intermediate, neutral state of soul in Orthodoxy. Unlike Catholicism, which has the concept of purgatory.
However, just as in heaven there are different degrees of closeness to God, so in hell souls suffer in different ways. The final Last Judgment will occur at the end of time after the Second Coming of Christ. The prayerful care of living people can not only ease the preliminary fate of the soul. She is capable of serving as her justification at the coming terrible Judgment. Therefore, to the question of how to correctly wish the soul the Kingdom of Heaven, the answer is through church and home commemoration.
“Just as when we visit prisoners, we bring them soft drinks and the like and thereby alleviate their suffering, so we alleviate the suffering of the deceased with prayers and alms that we perform for the repose of their souls” (Reverend Paisius the Svyatogorets, “Words.” Vol. 4)
Why does the Church of Christ still exist?
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It was precisely because the Lord, in His coming, approached the apostles and introduced them into the Kingdom of God, that is, into Himself, that these, essentially simple people, founded our Church.
They themselves became subjects of the Kingdom of God, and therefore, through persecution, torment, persecution, and opposition from the authorities, they were able to found a Church that exists to this day. It is impossible to explain its existence by other reasons.
They became imitators of Christ, lived and were inspired by intimacy with Him, and acted as He acted. The apostles and other followers of Christ began to think the way he thought and wanted the same thing that He was striving for - closeness to the Heavenly Father.
How to pray for the deceased
In Orthodoxy, in the first days after death, the Psalter (or the Gospel, if the deceased was a priest) is read over the body of the deceased. On the third day, the deceased is remembered with a funeral service and buried. The reading of the Psalter continues after the funeral until the 40th day. The church service for the deceased is called a memorial service. It is performed on the day of the funeral, on the third, ninth, fortieth day of death. A memorial service is also served on the anniversary of the death or birth of the deceased. The relatives of a deceased person can order his forty-day commemoration at the Divine Liturgy, which is called forty-day. During each liturgy, the remembrance of the dead is performed at the proskomedia. You can pray for the repose of your soul at home. The prayers necessary for this are in every prayer book.
The days of special remembrance of the dead in the Orthodox Church are:
- Meat Saturday (Ecumenical Parental Saturday),
- Saturdays of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th week of Great Lent,
- Radonitsa,
- May 9 (day of remembrance of slain soldiers),
- Trinity and Demetrius Saturdays,
- in Russia it is customary to commemorate the deceased on the Day of the Beheading of John the Baptist (September 11),
- and on Intercession Saturday.
“May he rest in peace” is not a remembrance
Why can’t you say “may the earth rest in peace” as a wish for the deceased? Such a wish has nothing to do with Christian commemoration. The phrase itself takes roots from paganism and implies a wish for a dead body, and not for the immortal soul of a person. But it is the fate of the soul that is most important. Therefore, Orthodox Christians should remember the deceased with home and church prayer and say: “The Kingdom of Heaven to him/her.” You can also help the deceased by giving alms for the salvation of his soul.
Christians should not accompany burials and wakes with superstitious customs. These include, for example, lowering candles, money, and various objects into the grave with the coffin. This is a pagan tradition based on the belief that material benefits can be useful to a person in the afterlife. By putting foreign objects in the coffin, people try to please the deceased. However, they forget that the soul only needs prayerful consolation. Everything material loses its meaning for her.
Funerals cannot be turned into feasts with alcohol and drunkenness. Archpriest Viktor Guzenko answers the question about alcohol at funerals:
“What good can a soul do when they drink vodka for it? A funeral dinner is a type of alms offered for the repose of the soul. And besides, from a purely human perspective, there can be an extremely unsightly picture when some of the guests are so “reminded” that they sing songs, tell jokes, and laugh when close relatives of the deceased are in grief. Both from a Christian point of view and from a human point of view, alcohol is inappropriate at a funeral.”
At a wake, there is also no need to place separate cutlery “for the deceased” or a glass of vodka in front of his portrait. And instead of wishing “rest in peace,” it is better to cross yourself and sincerely pray for the repose of the soul of the deceased.
As the Creator intended
Nevertheless, our Teacher and Savior Christ constantly spoke to the people about the Kingdom of God, which had come in power, in a variety of contexts, in fact, this message formed the basis of his preaching, performed both in word and in deeds. So this is important for us too. And here we must remember that in the Old Testament Jewish tradition there is an important concept related to the Kingdom of God: “gmar tikkun,” “final correction.” This is the final state of the universe, when all the wrongs, sins and distortions are corrected, the lowest point comes to the same place as the highest, that is, to God.
That is, the “Kingdom of God” is not a local country of light in a sea of darkness and evil, not some kind of reserve for the chosen few. Yes, the Kingdom begins with the elect - with God's chosen people of Israel, then - with the closest disciples of Christ, with the Church, but it must spread to the whole world.
This is a complete restoration in the entire universe: for humans, animals, the organic and inorganic world, spiritual and carnal - those laws according to which the loving Creator created the world and which were distorted and corrupted by the Fall.
About the Kingdom, in which these laws will be the natural foundations of life for everyone, and accepted by us, the citizens of the Kingdom, they will be consciously and freely, non-violently, says the Christian Creed in the words about the aspirations of the life of the future century. This restoration will be accompanied by a complete transformation of the created world, as the Church teaches about this through the mouth of the Apostle Peter: ... the heavens will pass away with a noise, the elements, having flared up, will be destroyed, the earth and all the works on it will be burned up (2 Pet 3:10 ), or, based on the meaning of the Aramaic word is “tishtakah”, and in Hebrew - “imtseun”, “they will be revealed, found” - “they will become what they should be in reality,” as intended by the loving Creator.
How catastrophic and painful this destruction of the old world and the appearance of the new after the second coming of Christ will be for you and me is a separate question...
Prayer for peace
You can wish the Kingdom of Heaven to the deceased with the following words:
“Rest, O Lord, the soul of Your newly departed servant (name), and forgive him all his sins, voluntary and involuntary, and grant him the Kingdom of Heaven.”
You should pray for the deceased like this:
“Rest, O Lord, the soul of Your newly departed servant (name), and forgive her all her sins, voluntary and involuntary, and grant her the Kingdom of Heaven.”
This prayer is accompanied by the sign of the cross. It must be said before eating the funeral meal. A brief commemoration of the deceased with the words “Kingdom of Heaven” with the sign of the cross is also allowed. You can also pray for the repose of the soul by reading from the prayer book “Following the departure of the soul from the body” or “Canon of prayer for the separation of the soul from the body.”
Source of the article: https://pravoslavium.ru/kak-pravilno-pozhelat-carstviya-nebesnogo/
Did you know that you cannot wish the deceased “May the earth rest in peace”?
According to one version, this phrase was part of an ancient Roman curse
I came across information on Facebook from an Armenian priest: “Do you know that when he said his last words to a deceased person, “May the earth rest in peace to you.” “Are you cursing him?” – Catholic nun Virginia Chocian writes on her page.
She said that in fact these words are an ancient Roman curse on the deceased. This is how these words sound in full: “May the earth rest in peace and softly cover the sand so that dogs can dig up your bones. “Such epitaphs were written on the tombstones of those who were hated and cursed.
We have verified this information. Indeed, “Sit tibi terra levis,” a Latin expression translated as “May the earth rest in peace,” originates from ancient Rome. It was the ancient Roman poet Marcus Valerius Martial who wrote the following verses: “May the earth rest in peace to you, And softly cover the sand so that dogs can dig up your bones.”
Many philologists believe that this expression was a funeral curse addressed to the deceased. However, there are no indisputable reasons to say so. After all, the ancient Romans were pagans and believed that the soul does not disappear from the body after the death of a person, and therefore, if desired, the deceased can turn around, sit down, stand up, or even go somewhere. It was precisely in order for the deceased to lie comfortably in the grave or, if necessary, to get out of it, they wished him “rest in peace.”
In any case, the phrase “May the earth rest in peace to you...” is pagan, but according to Christian teaching, the soul does not remain in a dead body - it leaves it, rushing to the judgment of God. And then - to the Kingdom of Heaven for eternal joy or to hell for eternal torment. Therefore, when saying goodbye to a deceased person, Christians pray for him: “The Kingdom of Heaven!” or “Rest in peace!” This expression also comes from Latin, but it is already Christian and has the well-known abbreviation RIP
– Remember that you need to have reasoning and a sense of spiritual tact. If you heard a grief-stricken person say at a wake, “May the world rest in peace,” then this probably would not be the best moment to reason with him or have a discussion. Wait for the time and, when the opportunity presents itself, very carefully tell the person that Orthodox Christians do not use such an expression. Instead of the pagan expression “May the earth rest in peace to him,” you can pray briefly: “Rest, O Lord, the soul of (name), and forgive him all his sins, accept him into Your Kingdom.
Source of the article: https://zen.yandex.ru/media/katolik/a-vy-znali-chto-nelzia-jelat-umershemu-pust-zemlia-budet-puhom-5d6eb8c65eb26800ad89a158
“May the earth rest in peace” or “The Kingdom of Heaven to you”: what to wish for the Orthodox deceased
“May you rest in peace” - this phrase is often said when addressing the deceased. However, people sometimes don’t even think about what these words mean and how they appeared in our speech. [С-BLOCK]
The sentence “May the earth rest in peace” has quite ancient roots, dating back to the times when paganism dominated the earth. According to most historians, it came to us from Ancient Rome, where these words sounded in Latin as Sit tibi terra levis. The wish for a “land made of fluff” was used by some Roman poets and philosophers in their works. Thus, in the poems of a certain Mark Valery Martial there are the following lines: “Sit tibi terra levis, molliquetegaris harena, Ne tua non possint eruere ossa canes,” in other words, “May the earth rest in peace and softly cover you with sand, so that dogs can dig your bones." What did this phrase mean for the Romans: a wish for good or, on the contrary, it served as a curse? [С-BLOCK]
Undoubtedly, from the point of view of a modern person, Martial’s continuation of the common Latin expression Sit tibi terra levis sounds like a wish for evil and torment even after death. Nevertheless, we should not forget that we are still talking about a pagan period, therefore it is not worth interpreting the poet’s words in the light of today’s culture, civilization or religion.
Archaeologists find the abbreviation of the wish Sit tibi terra levis - STTL - on many gravestones of those times. By the way, there were different interpretations of this phrase: TLS - Terra levis sit (May the earth rest in peace), or SETL - Sit ei terra levis (May the earth rest in peace). The fact is that pagans often believed that the soul does not disappear from the body after the death of a person, and therefore, if desired, the deceased can turn around, sit down, stand up, or even go somewhere. It was precisely in order for the deceased to lie comfortably in the grave or, if necessary, to get out of it, they wished him “rest in peace.” [С-BLOCK]
Some people mistakenly believe that the expression “May you rest in peace” is absolutely identical to the wish for the “Kingdom of Heaven.” However, Orthodox priests argue that this is far from the case. In their opinion, Sit tibi terra levis is a pagan phrase, and it has nothing to do with Christianity. After all, according to Christian teaching, the soul does not remain in a dead body, but leaves it, rushing to the judgment of God. This means that this phrase should not be uttered by a believer.
Source of the article: https://zen.yandex.ru/media/russian7/pust-zemlia-budet-puhom-ili-carstviia-tebe-nebesnogo-chto-jelat-pravoslavnomu-pokoinomu-5dcc5fa168e68b2090788a4d
What's the rule
“The Kingdom of Heaven” is a phraseological unit whose roots go back to the Bible. “The Kingdom of Heaven” is the form of this expression that was used in the Old Russian language. You can still hear it now. Dictionaries define the word “kingdom” as a church-bookish, outdated lexeme. The modern equivalent of the obsolete word “kingdom” is “kingdom.” Hence the modern phrase, where the first word ends in “o”.
Meaning
This is a Semitic phrase synonymous with the concept of “Kingdom of God.” In it, the word “heaven” replaces the name of God. This expression is mentioned thirty-two times in the Gospel of Matthew. In the rest of the biblical New Testament books, the word “heavenly” is replaced by the words “God’s” and “Christ’s”. Probably the latest versions were aimed at pagan peoples. Because they could not decipher the meaning of the Semitic word “heaven”, it was not clear to them, the expression was changed for missionary purposes.
“The Kingdom of Heaven” is a Christian theological concept. It means the second coming of Jesus to earth and the order that will be established on it after that.
In the Orthodox tradition, this phrase is often used when referring to a deceased person. According to Christianity, there is heaven and hell, and this phrase means wishing for a deceased person to go to heaven.
A fairly common expression in relation to the deceased is “rest in peace.” Christian priests note that this phrase takes its roots from pagan times and it has nothing to do with the Christian religion.
Synonyms
Synonyms for this expression, if we keep in mind its theological meaning: “Kingdom of God”, “Kingdom of Christ”, “Kingdom of Salvation”. If used in relation to a deceased person, the expression “eternal memory” can be used as a synonym.
