Someone you love died a few weeks ago, and now the family is planning the 40 days. Or a friend has invited you to a memorial, and you don’t know what it is.
On the 40th day after the emperor Theodosius died in AD 395, Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, preached in his memory. The emperor’s young son Honorius stood at the altar, paying his father what was due, Ambrose said, as Joseph had paid his father Jacob the duties of burial for 40 days. Some Christians kept the third day after a death and the 30th, he noted, and others the seventh and the 40th. Genesis gives Jacob 40 days of burial, and Deuteronomy says Israel mourned Moses for 30, so both customs were right, he concluded, since either way the dead were given what devotion owes them.
Why the 40th day?
The days are old. They already appear in a book of church rules from about AD 380, the Apostolic Constitutions. It asks Christians to keep the third day “with psalms, and lessons, and prayers, on account of Him Who arose within the space of three days,” and the 40th “according to the ancient pattern: for so did the people lament Moses.” It names the ninth day and the anniversary too.
So the oldest reason for the third day is Christ’s rising. The reason for the 40th is less clear-cut. The rule book ties it to Israel’s mourning for Moses, though the Bible gives that mourning as 30 days (Deuteronomy 34:8). The 40 days in the Bible are Jacob’s, the days of his embalming in Egypt (Genesis 50:3). So the 40th day isn’t commanded in Scripture. It’s a custom of the Church, and later writers found their own reasons for it. Symeon, archbishop of Thessalonica in the 1400s, and Romanian Orthodox writers tie the ninth day to the nine ranks of angels and the 40th to Christ’s Ascension, after He “appeared to them over a span of forty days” (Acts 1:3). A Russian Orthodox writer ties the 40 days to Christ’s fast in the desert instead, when He spent “forty days and forty nights” without food (Matthew 4:2).
The custom holds today. The Orthodox Church in America says a memorial service is generally held on the third, ninth and 40th days, and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America lists the same days.
What happens at a 40-day memorial?
The service goes by different names. Greeks call it the mnemosyno, which means “calling to mind,” Russians the panikhida, Serbs the parastos and Romanians the parastas. In a Greek parish it usually comes on the Sunday nearest the 40th day, at the end of the morning service or the Liturgy. The family brings a tray of boiled wheat, the koliva. Hymns are sung and the priest asks God to give the departed rest among the saints. In a Russian church the wheat stands on a small table with a lit candle set in it, and the hymns include one for the departed that begins, “O Thou Who, with wisdom profound, mercifully orderest all things.” Every Orthodox memorial ends with the choir singing “Memory eternal” three times.
A meal often follows. A Russian parish holds memorial meals on the third, ninth and 40th days and asks families to invite the poor and lonely as well as friends. The Apostolic Constitutions already speak of such meals, telling the priests and deacons who are invited to one to eat “with good order, and the fear of God, as disposed to intercede for those that are departed.”
What is koliva?
Koliva is boiled wheat mixed with honey, often with raisins or sugar added. Greeks spell it kollyva, Russians call it kutya, Serbs žito and Romanians colivă. The family prepares it and the priest blesses it, and everyone shares it after the service. The American translator Isabel Hapgood’s English service book of 1906 explains the Russian custom: “The koliva serves to remind us of the resurrection of the dead. As grain, in order that it may form ears and give fruit, must be buried in the earth, and moulder there; so, also, the body of the dead must be committed to the earth, in order that it may rise to life eternal.” The honey stands for the sweetness of the life to come. Jesus used the same picture of His own death: “unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a seed. But if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).
Why pray for the dead at all?
Christians have prayed for their dead from the start. In about AD 211 the North African writer Tertullian wrote that they offered the Eucharist for their dead every year on the anniversary of the death, which they kept as the person’s birthday into eternal life. As Augustine’s mother Monica lay dying, she asked her sons for one thing, to remember her at the Lord’s altar wherever they were. John Chrysostom urged his people, “Let us not then be weary in giving aid to the departed, both by offering on their behalf and obtaining prayers for them.”
You can do the same. Give the person’s name to your priest before the Liturgy, and he will pray for them by name as he prepares the bread for Communion. Many families also give to the poor in their loved one’s memory, and the prayers for the departed can be prayed at home on any day. The Orthodox Church in America keeps five Saturdays in the year for all the departed, the Saturdays of Souls, and a Greek parish urges families to remember their dead on the Saturdays of Souls of Lent and Pentecost.
How do I set the date?
Ask your priest, because the rules vary. In Romanian practice the days are counted from the day of death, and a memorial that can’t fall on the day itself is held before it rather than after. Some days are closed to memorials. One Greek parish holds none from the Saturday before Palm Sunday until the Sunday after Easter, or on great feasts such as Christmas. After the 40th day, Greek parishes often hold memorials at three, six and nine months and at a year, while a Serbian parish names six months and a year.
If the person who died wasn’t Orthodox, or was cremated, ask the priest about a memorial too. The prayers for the departed who weren’t Orthodox can be prayed at home, and what happens at an Orthodox funeral sets out what each Church says about cremation.
If grief hasn’t eased by the 40th day
The 40th day can feel like a deadline for grief, but it isn’t one. If you grow more and more depressed or anxious as the months pass, see a doctor. If it’s a friend who is grieving, what to say when someone dies may help.
