Christian Pure

Prayers for the Recently Deceased: For Their Soul and for the Family

Christian Pure Team

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Summary

  • To pray for someone who has just died, say their name, thank God for their life and pray for everyone who mourns; if your church prays for the dead, commend the person to God’s mercy too.
  • Catholic and Orthodox Christians pray for the dead; many Protestants do not, and Christians of every church pray for the family.
  • The clearest passage is 2 Maccabees 12:43-46, which Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include and Protestant churches place among the Apocrypha; some also read Paul’s words for Onesiphorus in 2 Timothy 1:16-18 as a prayer for a man who had died, though he may have been alive.
  • In the Orthodox Church a memorial service, the panikhida, is generally held on the third, ninth and fortieth days after a death.
  • Martin Luther wrote that a short prayer for the dead, leaving the matter with God, is not a sin; the Westminster Larger Catechism teaches prayer for the living, “but not for the dead”.
  • Prayer does not move a soul by its own power: it asks God, in whose hands the dead are, and Christ is the light of the world.

To pray for someone who has just died, say their name and thank God for their life. Then pray for everyone who mourns them. Christians whose church prays for the dead also commend the person to God’s mercy and ask him to receive them. A few plain words are enough, alone or with the family. You do not need the right words first. When Lazarus died, Jesus spoke to his grieving sister Martha about himself: “I am the resurrection, and…

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Bibliography (Click to show)
  • The Bible, King James Version (public domain), read at BibleGateway: John 8:12; John 11:25-26; 2 Timothy 1:18; 2 Timothy 4:19. Douay-Rheims Bible, 1899 American Edition (public domain), read at BibleGateway: 2 Maccabees 12:43-46; Wisdom 3:1.
  • Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 1030-1032, on the final purification and prayer for the dead: vatican.va.
  • Orthodox Church in America, “Prayers for the Departed” (Questions and Answers): oca.org.
  • Orthodox Church in America, “Canon of Scripture” (Questions and Answers): oca.org.
  • Martin Luther, sermon for the First Sunday after Trinity (1522), on prayer for the dead, in the translation published by Concordia Publishing House: blog.cph.org.
  • Martin Luther, Vom Abendmahl Christi, Bekenntnis (1528), third part (Weimar edition, volume 26, pages 499-509), abridged German text: Stiftung Bruder Klaus.
  • Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article XXIV, Of the Mass, paragraph 94: Book of Concord.
  • The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), chapter 1, section 3, on the Apocrypha: Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
  • The Westminster Larger Catechism (1648), question 183, on whom to pray for: Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
  • John Rutherfurd, “Onesiphorus”, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915): bibletools.org.

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