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Summary
- Short prayers cover a dog’s last days: old age, pain, deciding about putting the dog to sleep, the last vet visit, dying at home and the vet’s staff.
- Prayers after the death cover the first night, burial, guilt, the empty places at home, children’s grief and thanks for a good dog.
- Orthodox priests writing in the magazine Foma say a prayer “for the repose” of an animal should not be said, because prayer for the departed asks forgiveness of sins, which does not apply to animals; the Orthodox service books do bless living animals.
- Basil the Great held that an animal’s soul does not survive the body; Irenaeus wrote that Isaiah’s wolf and lamb would apply to real animals “in the resurrection of the just”; Foma calls the question open.
- “A Dog’s Prayer” and “The Rainbow Bridge” are poems, not church prayers.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (Genesis 1:25; Psalm 34:18; 36:6; 50:10–11; 104:29; Proverbs 12:10; Ecclesiastes 3:1–2, 21; Isaiah 11:6; Matthew 5:4; Romans 8:21; 1 John 1:9). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10
- Ефанов, Андрей, протоиерей. “Грех ли молиться за упокой кошки?” Фома, 21 June 2023. https://foma.ru/greh-li-molitsja-za-upokoj-koshki.html
- “Есть ли у животных бессмертная душа и можно ли за них молиться?” Фома, 5 October 2021. https://foma.ru/est-li-u-zhivotnyh-bessmertnaja-dusha-i-mozhno-li-za-nih-molitsja.html
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997. Paragraph 2416. https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P8B.HTM
- Basil of Caesarea. Hexaemeron, Homily 8. Translated by Blomfield Jackson. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, vol. 8. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/32018.htm
- Irenaeus of Lyons. Against Heresies, Book 5, chapter 33. Translated by Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut. Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103533.htm
- 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. https://988lifeline.org/
- Samaritans. “Contact a Samaritan.” https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/
- Фонд поддержки детей, находящихся в трудной жизненной ситуации. “Детский телефон доверия.” https://fond-detyam.ru/detskiy-telefon-doveriya/
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