Christian Funerary Tradition

Christian funeral rites carry out the burial or, increasingly in the present day, the cremation of a deceased person according to rites specific to a Christian denomination, historically favoring interment of the body in consecrated ground. Across the many branches of Christianity, from Catholic and Orthodox liturgical practice to Protestant and Latter-day Saint custom, funerary observance typically combines a formal liturgy or memorial service, prayers commending the deceased to God, and rites intended to prepare the dying or comfort mourners, such as final communion or blessing offered before death and a graveside or memorial service afterward. Historically Christians objected to cremation on doctrinal grounds and practiced burial almost exclusively; that opposition has substantially eased among Protestant and Catholic communities in recent generations even as burial remains normative in Orthodox and many other traditions, so the funeral rite a given community observes reflects both its shared Christian theology of death and resurrection and its own denominational particulars.