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A funeral oration or epitaphios logos (Ancient Greek: ἐπιτάφιος λόγος) is a formal speech delivered on the ceremonial occasion of a funeral. Funerary customs comprise the practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from the funeral itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honour.
A priest or priestess was not allowed to enter the house of the deceased or to take part in the funerary rites, as death was seen as a cause of spiritual impurity or pollution. [7] This is in line with the Greek idea that even the gods could be polluted by death, and hence anything related to the sacred had to be kept away from death and dead ...
However, funeral rites did vary both throughout the history of Ancient Greece as well as between the different city-states. For example, cremation was a common practice within the city-state of Athens. [17] A picture of the Telesterion and the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kora at Eleusis in modern day Greece
Heckman: A funeral can be as interesting and diverse as the deceased and their loved ones.
The service is composed of Psalms, ektenias (litanies), hymns and prayers. In its outline it follows the general order of Matins [note 2] and is, in effect, a truncated funeral service. Some of the most notable portions of the service are the Kontakion of the Departed [note 3] and the final singing of "Memory Eternal" (Slavonic: Vyechnaya Pamyat).
Several funeral orations from classical Athens are extant, which seem to corroborate Thucydides's assertion that this was a regular feature of Athenian funerary custom in wartime. [ a ] The Funeral Oration was recorded by Thucydides in book two of his famous History of the Peloponnesian War .
The ancient Athenians celebrated the festival, which commemorated the death of Heracles, on the second day of the month of Metageitnion (which would fall in late July or early August), at the Κυνοσαργες (Kynosarges) gymnasium at the demos Diomeia outside the walls of Athens, in a sanctuary dedicated to Heracles.
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