PASTORAL ENCYCLICAL ON THE CREMATION OF THE DEAD
PAVLOS, BY THE GRACE OF GOD
METROPOLITAN OF THE MOST HOLY METROPOLIS OF SERVIA AND KOZANI
PAVLOS, BY THE GRACE OF GOD
METROPOLITAN OF THE MOST HOLY METROPOLIS OF SERVIA AND KOZANI
Sunday of Orthodoxy 2026
To the pious clergy and the devout and saint-loving people of our Sacred Metropolis.
My beloved spiritual children,
Taking the opportunity given to us by this Sunday, on which the Feast of Orthodoxy is celebrated, we will attempt, with unity of heart, to convey to your good hearts and Christ-centered minds a few theological, spiritual, and scriptural reflections concerning the issue of the cremation of the dead.
In order to approach this timely subject, we must first consider what man is. The Old Testament emphatically notes the importance and greatness of man in comparison with the rest of creation. God created everything through His word — “He spoke and it came to be” — in five days: first heaven, earth, and the billions of stars; then plants, animals, birds, reptiles, and the whole irrational creation. On the sixth day He created man, not merely by His word, but with the participation of His Son and Word and of the Holy Spirit. The entire Holy Trinity was Creator in the making of man, as is stated in the Book of Genesis:
“Let Us make man according to Our image and likeness. Let him rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and over everything that moves upon the earth” (Gen. 1:26–27).
Man is a psychosomatic being, both soul and body, and upon both is imprinted the image of God. How different things would be if man realized that he is the image of God and an extension of His all-wise purpose, destined to become holy! Man is “a god by command,” as Saint Gregory the Theologian notes. That is, he has been commanded to become godlike, according to the command given to us by God: “Be holy, for I am holy” (1 Pet. 1:16).
In reality, man is what he will be after the Second Coming, when his full glory will be revealed. For this reason he already boldly confesses that he “awaits the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come” in the Kingdom of God, where each person will behold his body glorified and deified.
In contrast, modern man and various associations and societies cry out and boast: “My body is my own,” “my body belongs to me.” They follow the sophist of the 6th century B.C., Protagoras of Abdera, who said, “Man is the measure of all things,” meaning that nothing exists higher than man and that he himself has created everything. Later the French followed him in the French Enlightenment.
My brethren, neither the body nor the soul belongs to us, for we did not create them. We are only stewards of body and soul. The Owner is God, and the Apostle Paul calls us to glorify “God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor. 6:19).
The body of every Christian, according to the Apostle Paul, is a “Temple of the Holy Spirit within us.” It has been baptized in the Holy Font, anointed with Holy Chrism, sealed with the oil of Holy Unction, sanctified by the Body and Blood of our Lord, with which it has been united. How then shall we despise, brethren, how shall we burn this body that once bore Christ within it, that once radiated with the grace of the Holy Spirit?
This too is a fashion of our age: no funerals, no kollyva, no graves, no candles. And we ask: when our Lord and Savior died on the Cross as man, was He not buried?
We have saints whose bodies remain whole and who work miracles and sanctify; we have holy relics that perform miracles and exude myrrh. With what right, then, do we humiliate, torment, and eliminate the body, since it is sacred and holy? Our body is sacred and holy because Christ assumed it, clothed Himself with it, sanctified it, and, deified, took it up into heaven. With what right, then, do we cast it into the fire and crush the bones with a mixer? A spectacle truly of insult and outrage against the human person.
In our national anthem, the bones of our national heroes are called “sacred.” From the “sacred bones of the Greeks” we gained our freedom as a nation.
Burial, brethren, is a sowing. Just as a seed is placed in the earth in order to die as a seed and be reborn as a plant, so the body of the departed is placed in the earth through burial with the hope of the future resurrection. The human body, says the Apostle Paul, “is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:42–44).
We burn what we wish to destroy and erase from memory and from reality. The word “funeral” (from the verb kēdomai, meaning “to care for”) reveals the care given to the dead body precisely because it is not merely a corpse but a sacred relic. We wash it, care for it, adorn it, clothing it in its finest garments, precisely because it awaits the Resurrection of the body and the meeting with the Ancient of Days in the Kingdom of God.
My brethren and my spiritual children, today, on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, when we celebrate the restoration of the holy icons — of Christ, the Panagia, and our saints — we also celebrate the restoration of the icon of God: the human being.
The centuries pass. The Church may be persecuted, insulted, blasphemed, and questioned, yet she goes forward, because “the Lord God lives.” Keep in your mind and heart the Truth: and the Truth is the God-man Jesus Christ, Who emphasizes to us that “I am the Lord God; before Me there was no other god, and after Me there shall be none,” and Who assures us that “I am the Truth and the Life,” as well as our sanctification and illumination. Amen.
With paternal blessings,
† Pavlos
Metropolitan of Servia and Kozani
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
My beloved spiritual children,
Taking the opportunity given to us by this Sunday, on which the Feast of Orthodoxy is celebrated, we will attempt, with unity of heart, to convey to your good hearts and Christ-centered minds a few theological, spiritual, and scriptural reflections concerning the issue of the cremation of the dead.
In order to approach this timely subject, we must first consider what man is. The Old Testament emphatically notes the importance and greatness of man in comparison with the rest of creation. God created everything through His word — “He spoke and it came to be” — in five days: first heaven, earth, and the billions of stars; then plants, animals, birds, reptiles, and the whole irrational creation. On the sixth day He created man, not merely by His word, but with the participation of His Son and Word and of the Holy Spirit. The entire Holy Trinity was Creator in the making of man, as is stated in the Book of Genesis:
“Let Us make man according to Our image and likeness. Let him rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and over everything that moves upon the earth” (Gen. 1:26–27).
Man is a psychosomatic being, both soul and body, and upon both is imprinted the image of God. How different things would be if man realized that he is the image of God and an extension of His all-wise purpose, destined to become holy! Man is “a god by command,” as Saint Gregory the Theologian notes. That is, he has been commanded to become godlike, according to the command given to us by God: “Be holy, for I am holy” (1 Pet. 1:16).
In reality, man is what he will be after the Second Coming, when his full glory will be revealed. For this reason he already boldly confesses that he “awaits the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come” in the Kingdom of God, where each person will behold his body glorified and deified.
In contrast, modern man and various associations and societies cry out and boast: “My body is my own,” “my body belongs to me.” They follow the sophist of the 6th century B.C., Protagoras of Abdera, who said, “Man is the measure of all things,” meaning that nothing exists higher than man and that he himself has created everything. Later the French followed him in the French Enlightenment.
My brethren, neither the body nor the soul belongs to us, for we did not create them. We are only stewards of body and soul. The Owner is God, and the Apostle Paul calls us to glorify “God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor. 6:19).
The body of every Christian, according to the Apostle Paul, is a “Temple of the Holy Spirit within us.” It has been baptized in the Holy Font, anointed with Holy Chrism, sealed with the oil of Holy Unction, sanctified by the Body and Blood of our Lord, with which it has been united. How then shall we despise, brethren, how shall we burn this body that once bore Christ within it, that once radiated with the grace of the Holy Spirit?
This too is a fashion of our age: no funerals, no kollyva, no graves, no candles. And we ask: when our Lord and Savior died on the Cross as man, was He not buried?
We have saints whose bodies remain whole and who work miracles and sanctify; we have holy relics that perform miracles and exude myrrh. With what right, then, do we humiliate, torment, and eliminate the body, since it is sacred and holy? Our body is sacred and holy because Christ assumed it, clothed Himself with it, sanctified it, and, deified, took it up into heaven. With what right, then, do we cast it into the fire and crush the bones with a mixer? A spectacle truly of insult and outrage against the human person.
In our national anthem, the bones of our national heroes are called “sacred.” From the “sacred bones of the Greeks” we gained our freedom as a nation.
Burial, brethren, is a sowing. Just as a seed is placed in the earth in order to die as a seed and be reborn as a plant, so the body of the departed is placed in the earth through burial with the hope of the future resurrection. The human body, says the Apostle Paul, “is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:42–44).
We burn what we wish to destroy and erase from memory and from reality. The word “funeral” (from the verb kēdomai, meaning “to care for”) reveals the care given to the dead body precisely because it is not merely a corpse but a sacred relic. We wash it, care for it, adorn it, clothing it in its finest garments, precisely because it awaits the Resurrection of the body and the meeting with the Ancient of Days in the Kingdom of God.
My brethren and my spiritual children, today, on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, when we celebrate the restoration of the holy icons — of Christ, the Panagia, and our saints — we also celebrate the restoration of the icon of God: the human being.
The centuries pass. The Church may be persecuted, insulted, blasphemed, and questioned, yet she goes forward, because “the Lord God lives.” Keep in your mind and heart the Truth: and the Truth is the God-man Jesus Christ, Who emphasizes to us that “I am the Lord God; before Me there was no other god, and after Me there shall be none,” and Who assures us that “I am the Truth and the Life,” as well as our sanctification and illumination. Amen.
With paternal blessings,
† Pavlos
Metropolitan of Servia and Kozani
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
