Prayer for the Departed
Question:
If a Christian dies in his sin, does he enter the Kingdom of Heaven? Of course not… So what is the benefit of praying for the dead, when we do not know whether he died in sin or died repentant?
Answer:
The one who dies in his sin, the Church is not permitted to pray for him, and prayer does not benefit him. Our teacher John the Apostle said: “There is a sin leading to death. I do not say that he should pray about that” (1 John 5:16).
If a thief climbs the pipes of a house to steal and falls and dies, the Church does not pray for him. If a man catches his wife in the very act and immediately kills her and the one committing adultery with her, the Church does not pray for them. If drug smugglers engage in a fight with police officers and some of them die in this fight, the Church does not pray for them. And if a person commits suicide while fully conscious and of his own will, the Church does not pray for him.
Therefore, if the Church is certain that the deceased died in a state of sin, it cannot pray for him.
But in other cases, it prays for him, at least so that he may depart from the world absolved by the Church, not bound by it in anything… then he is left to the mercy of God, who searches the hearts and knows the hidden things.
It is as if the Church says to God: this person is absolved from our side by the authority of binding and loosing that You granted us (Matthew 18:18; John 20:23). After that, we leave him to Your mercy and to Your knowledge which surpasses ours.
Also, the Church prays for the departed for the forgiveness of what he committed of sins that are not unto death, according to the commandment of the Apostle:
“In such a case, the Apostle said: ‘If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not unto death… All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not unto death’” (1 John 5:16–17).
So what is this sin that is not unto death?
It is the incomplete sin, such as sins of ignorance, or involuntary sins, or hidden sins, or errors.
We pray in the Trisagion and say: “Absolve, forgive, and remit, O God, our offenses which we have committed willingly and those which we have committed unwillingly, those which we have done knowingly and those which we have done unknowingly, the hidden and the manifest.”
Thus, even involuntary sins, sins of ignorance, and hidden sins are all sins (because they are a breaking of God’s commandments), and they need forgiveness, and they need prayer…
In the Old Testament, we see that sins of ignorance, which the one who committed them did not know, when he came to know, he would offer a sacrifice for their forgiveness (Leviticus 4; 5; 22).
For these sins of ignorance, errors, involuntary sins, and unknown sins, the Church prays that the Lord may forgive them for the departed.
The Psalmist says in Psalm 19: “Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults.” For these hidden sins, which a person does not perceive, the Church asks forgiveness.
Let us also suppose that a person died suddenly and had no opportunity to confess, or became ill in a way that prevented him from doing so due to weakness or loss of memory, or that there were sins he did not confess out of forgetfulness… and did not receive absolution for all that—the Church grants him absolution and asks forgiveness for him in the prayers for the departed.
Furthermore, the Church prays for the departed out of mercy, because there is no one without sin, even if his life on earth were only one day (and this phrase is part of the prayer for the departed).
David says in the Psalm: “If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You” (Psalm 130). And he also says: “Do not enter into judgment with Your servant, for in Your sight no one living is righteous” (Psalm 143).
If this is the case—if there is no servant without sin, and no Lord without forgiveness—then we pray for the departed “as humans who have worn the body and dwelt in this world”…
We pray for all, because goodness belongs to God alone. We ask for forgiveness and leave the matter to God, feeling that any person may have repented, even at the hour of his death.
As for those who died in their sin without repentance, we do not pray for them, because in this case our prayer would be against the goodness of God and against His justice.
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – in El-Keraza Magazine – Year Eight (Issue Forty-One) 14-10-1977
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