How to mark forty days

Pray for the deceased, go to Church and set there on the eve (square table with a marble or metal top, on which stand the cells of the candles) candle for the repose, and the need to offer the Lord a prayer for someone that you want to remember.

Give alms to the poor with a request to pray for the deceased. The more people pray for the deceased, the better. Prayer is especially important in the days of commemoration: the third, ninth and fortieth.

Go to the service and submit a note with the name of the deceased "for the repose" to the priest remembered him. It is appropriate also in the fortieth day to offer sacrifice to the Church. It can be not only money, but also food and wine.

Place the victim on a memorial table (located near the eves), for example, Christmas pudding, bread, cereals, pancakes, fruit, wine. Put in brought a note with the name of the deceased in order to remember it separately. Remember that you should only bring the food that can be eaten for example during fasts it is impossible to sacrifice meat in lent.
Bring to the Church a memorial Christmas pudding, and sanctify it.

Order a memorial service for the deceased is very desirable. Also on the fortieth day is supposed to read a special memorial kathisma.

Organize a Wake. In commemoration on the fortieth day are invited not only relatives, but friends and distant relatives of the deceased. With the exception of the first, fourth and seventh week of lent – the weeks are particularly strict, and if a memorial has fallen on them, the relatives of the deceased do not invite anyone, and going to the table in a very narrow range: only the mother and father, wife or husband, children and grandchildren.

Put on the table the food that is allowed by the Church's Canon: if a meatless day, and the memorial meal should be lean. Have to be consecrated a memorial Christmas pudding. A large number of inappropriate alcohol: to drink drunk at the Wake – an insult to the deceased.

Put a plate in the name of the deceased, leave for him a part of the food is an ancient tradition, she should follow. Read just before eating the "our father" taste the pudding alternately, starting with the deceased loved ones of people – family and friends.

Remember about the proper atmosphere of commemoration: appropriate restraint, dignity, and positive attitude. A memorial meal is not going in order to eat or see each other, and to remember about the deceased.