Do I have to order prayers for the deceased in the seven temples

The best expression of love to the deceased one's neighbor is the memory of him, expressed in prayer for the repose of the soul. In the Orthodox tradition it is customary to order a special commemoration of the dead. One of those will include prayers for the dead.

In the Christian Orthodox tradition to pray not only privately (domestic or otherwise private), but also the Cathedral, raised in the temple. There are several types of remembrance in prayer, for example, prayers on prayers, requiems or masses. Thus the Orthodox believers pray not only for the living but of the dead.

After the man graduated from his earthly journey, believers not only commemorated the deceased a home, inviting a priest for the burial service, but served in the temple for the repose of the notes. One of the most common prayers for the dead is the order of prayers for the dead. Prayers for the dead is a prayers for the deceased, offer a priest in the altar when making the offertory (sometimes the same names are commemorated on the memorial litany at the Liturgy). The priest, reading the names of the dead, takes out the particles from the communion bread in memory of these people. Almost every Orthodox Christians who survived the death of a relative, tries to order prayers for the repose. Prayers can be ordered for forty days (or forty liturgies), six months, a year. In large monasteries are accepted prayers for eternal remembrance.

Sometimes you can hear the strong recommendation from the believers of the older generation about the obligatory necessity of the order of prayers for the deceased in the seven churches. In some cases, even suggest to travel to other cities for required order of prayers for the dead. Regarding this situation it is worth noting that the Church has no requirement that the prayers should be ordered in the seven churches.

Popular opinion about the order of prayers for the dead in the seven churches is based on a sacred, mystical understanding of the number seven. A logical question arises: why in the seven churches? Maybe the people who hold such a categorical opinion, there is an Association with the seven sacraments or the seven Ecumenical Councils. In the Orthodox Church, this approach to prayers for the dead inappropriate. You cannot say that prayer through the prayers in one, two, six or ten churches will be less effective and some wrong.

Orthodoxy alien to the concept of the "right" order of prayers for the dead in the seven churches. In many cities of Russia there are seven parishes, often in areas in some areas have only one Church in a number of communities. The man is just not able to go for dozens and sometimes hundreds of kilometers in other churches, to score seven. This practice should not be made mandatory.

In the prayer for the deceased please understand that it is important not the numbers. The more a person prays for himself, the more he (whenever possible) remember their relatives in the temples, the better. So, of course, well, when in the seven parishes commemorate the deceased, but even better when such prayers are made in ten, twenty parishes, and so on. While there is nothing wrong if a person is commemorated only in a few temples. You need to remember that prayer for the dead should be carried out not only through the order of prayers for the dead and subsequent abandonment of the person. Real people have to make a prayer of remembrance at home and in Church.

Often prayer and the prayers ordered in a single parish, more efficient and beneficial for the soul of the deceased than the design of such commemorations in seven or even ten temples (if in the first case the man himself does not forget the deceased and often praying about it, unlike the second situation when the order of prayers for the dead is a banal runaround, based on the mystical understanding of the number seven).

Thus, there is no mandatory order of prayers for the deceased in the seven churches.