Bring Out Your Dead

Summary

The Lord of Spirits – "Bring Out Your Dead" (Jan 13, 2026)

Brief Overview

This episode, hosted by Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick and Fr. Stephen DeYoung, explores the profound and ancient human practices surrounding death and burial, tracing them from prehistoric times through pagan antiquity, and finally to the Orthodox Christian tradition. It highlights the continuities and evolving understandings of death, burial, and humanity’s hope for resurrection, challenging modern attitudes toward death and emphasizing the spiritual, communal, and theological significance of Christian burial.

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Key Themes & Purpose

• Ancient Burial Practices: Examination of prehistoric and ancient burial customs (Neanderthals, early Homo sapiens, Sumeria, Egypt, Greece, Rome)
• Ritual Meaning: Discussion of what these traditions reveal about how humans understand death, honor the dead, and cling to hope beyond the grave
• Christian Burial: Contrasted with earlier and other burial customs, showing the unique theological grounding and transformative practices of Orthodox Christianity
• Continuity of Humanity: The deep resonance across millennia of caring for the dead as a witness to love overcoming death, culminating in the resurrection of Christ
• Practical Takeaways: Importance of burial ministry, resisting sanitized or diminished modern practices (e.g., cremation), and living out the witness of resurrection in community

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Addressing the “Elephant in the Room”: Time Change and Lighthearted Banter

• New earlier broadcast time joked about as a concession to Fr. Andrew's “advanced age.”
  • [03:19] Fr. Andrew: “I just appreciate your ineffable condescension.”
  • [03:22] Fr. Stephen: “With you as the CCO, I feel like it’s Weekend at Bernie’s over at Ancient Faith headquarters.”

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2. What is a Human? – Early Man, DNA, and Burial

• Clarifies that all genus Homo (Neanderthal, Homo sapiens, Denisovans, etc.) are “humans” by modern anthropology.
• DNA evidence: These groups co-existed and interbred.
  • [07:22] Fr. Stephen: “Neanderthals and Homo sapiens and Denisovans... all intermarried and interbred.”
  • Implication: No need for listeners to feel triggered by “evolution talk”—focus is on burial practices, not origins.

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3. Prehistoric Burial Sites and Meaning

a) Neanderthal Burials

• Shanidar Cave (Iraq): Multiple burials, grave goods (reindeer/bison bones, flint tools).
• La Chapelle-aux-Saints (France): Elderly Neanderthal buried in a tooled-out limestone pit with grave goods, showing care for the elderly.
• Kabara Cave (Palestine): Headless skeleton, hyoid bone preserved (suggesting speech capability), arms folded—a deliberate burial.

b) Early Homo Sapiens Burials

• Kafzeh Cave (Palestine): 15 burials, elaborate grave goods (worked shells, pigment ochre).
• Panga ya Saidi (Kenya): Toddler wrapped in cloth, laid with pillow and blanket—profound human care.
  • [33:33] Fr. Stephen: “Losing a child and lovingly burying them with a blanket and a pillow is just profoundly human and kind of beautiful.”

c) Analysis

• Recurrent themes:
  • Rituals performed in different places (burials in caves/homes vs. outside).
  • Neanderthal: On their backs, in deep caves; Homo sapiens: Fetal position, near cave entrances.
  • Suggests widespread ritual continuity and possibly shared early beliefs in afterlife and sacredness of burial, indicative of “early monotheism” or pre-pagan humanity.
    • [37:00] Fr. Stephen: “These shared ritual practices, even at this early date, are pointers to what we’ve called early monotheism.”

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4. From Prehistory to Early History: Social Evolution of Burial

• Çatalhöyük (Turkey):
  • Burials under house floors, not necessarily blood relatives—indicates “household” as social rather than family unit.
  • Skulls often plastered and decorated.
• Kurgans (Eurasian Steppes):
  • Burial mounds for high-status individuals, widespread among Indo-Europeans.
  • Often contain single warriors, grave goods, ritual spaces.
    • [73:14] Fr. Andrew: “Not just a place to put the dead... it occupies this place within the landscape.”

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5. Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean Burial

a) Sumeria: Common burials under home floors; elites in brick-vaulted pits, with slaves and extensive grave goods; regular offerings (libations).

b) Egypt: Famous for mummification, pyramids (tombs), canopic jars for organs, elaborate grave goods as part of a “death cult.”

• [88:52] Fr. Stephen: “...these bogus archaeologists say pyramids aren’t tombs. There are literally sarcophagi inside the pyramids...”

c) Levant/Nomads: Generational tomb caves; burials with reed mats/jars; cave lamps suggest regular visitation.

• Genesis Reference: Cave of Machpelah (Abraham’s family).

d) Greece: Body displayed at home, then procession to burial with ritual sacrifice; grave goods, food/drink for afterlife; ongoing offerings; “obol” for Charon, the ferryman.

e) Rome: Cremation becomes the norm; burial and funerary rites mark shift from body-focused to spirit-focused afterlife; ancestors honored with masks, ashes interred outside city; shift back to burial after Constantine.

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6. Christian (Specifically Orthodox) Burial: Distinctives and Fulfillment

a) Preparation and Vigil

• Holding vigil with body; reading Psalms as spiritual warfare and grief ritual.
  • [116:41] Fr. Stephen: “During that vigil, traditionally, the Psalms are read.”
• Burial shroud, body lies facing altar (member of worshipping community).

b) Funeral Rites

• Body is venerated (kissed) prior to closing.
• Funeral service’s language is explicit, direct about reality of death and hope in resurrection.
• Procession (ideally from church directly to cemetery), singing and blessing grave; buried facing east.
• Emphasis: Fulfillment of ancient ritual with explicit hope in Christ’s resurrection.

c) Clergy Funeral Peculiarities

• Clergy vested by other clergy, veneration with prayers at vesting; priests and bishops have Gospel book, "aer" over face; deacons buried with censer; priest’s mother may have his stole laid with her.
• Bishops: Body faces congregation.

d) Memorial Services

• Traditionally 3rd, 9th, 40th days after death (and annual), reflecting theological anthropology and understanding of the soul’s journey.
• Koliva (boiled wheat) symbolizes resurrection.
• All rites oriented toward resurrection, not mere "celebration of life."
  • [147:30] Fr. Stephen: “All of our funeral and memorial services are deeply connected to the Resurrection.”

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7. Call-Ins: Questions on Death, Resurrection, and Ritual

• Listeners ask about the fate of the righteous before Christ, the meaning of “memory eternal,” spiritual time/eternity, ritual impurity, and baby Jesus’ ritual status.
• Key points:
  • Before Christ’s resurrection, even the righteous went to Hades/paradise, until Christ’s harrowing of Hades.
  • Orthodox teaching distinguishes between “blameless passions” (hunger, tiredness, dirtiness) and “sinful passions”—Jesus fully human, experienced blameless uncleanness but not sin.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [33:33] Fr. Stephen on Panga ya Saidi: “Someone losing a child and sort of lovingly burying them with a blanket and a pillow...is just profoundly human and kind of beautiful.”
• [53:06] Fr. Stephen (on complex time and the dead): “Your question is incoherent—you're asking me what someone outside of time is experiencing ‘now.’ See the problem?”
• [119:27] Fr. Andrew on the power of psalms at vigil: “There’s something about it that just really, just worked...there is temptation, especially for those of us who are living, and so there’s a sense that reading the psalms is spiritual warfare.”
• [147:43] Fr. Stephen: “Memory eternal is kind of an interesting inversion of the pagan Greek...we are talking about God remembering the person.”
• [158:08] Fr. Andrew: “...there’s a whole book in the Bible that’s based around the importance of burying people, and that’s Tobit.”
• [164:36] Fr. Stephen’s closing reflection: “Love is more powerful than death. And I don't know how they could have intellectually known how that was true, because it was only really revealed...when Christ’s love for us brought him to the most horrible death humans could devise and then out the other side in the resurrection.”
• [153:34] Fr. Stephen: “If you understand what we’ve been talking about tonight...you’ll understand much better why the Orthodox Church forbids cremation.”

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Timestamps of Major Segments

| Segment | Start | |:-------------------------------|:---------| | Opening & Banter; Episode Focus | 01:05 | | What is a Human? (Neanderthal, Sapiens, DNA) | 04:42 | | Neanderthal Burials | 12:01 | | Homo Sapiens Burials | 26:17 | | Common Themes, Early Monotheism | 34:40 | | Çatalhöyük & Kurgans | 62:41 | | Sumeria, Egypt, ANE, Ancient Greece & Rome | 76:04 | | Christian (Orthodox) Burial Customs | 116:12 | | Clergy Funerals | 129:12 | | Modern Practicalities & Burial Ministry | 140:10 | | Memorial Services & Significance | 143:39 | | Theological Reflection & Call to Ministry | 161:27 | | Profound Closing on Love Defeating Death | 164:36 |

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Useful for Listeners Who Missed the Episode

• Rich narrative: Moves from prehistory through modern Orthodox practice, never losing sight of theological or existential significance.
• Concrete details: Offers insight into rituals, both ancient and current, with clear distinctions and explanations.
• Spiritual depth: Unapologetically Orthodox voice; stresses the importance of caring for the dead, not as a cultural relic, but as an act of love and faith.
• Call to action: Encourages burial ministries, direct involvement, and a re-connection with embodied reality—practical AND evangelistic.

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Final Takeaways

• Christian burial is a luminous fulfillment of primordial human longing and ritual: love stronger than death, hope in the resurrection.
• Hands-on care for the dead is an irreplaceable act of charity, community, and witness.
• Orthodox tradition invites and equips us not to sanitize or escape death, but to confront, honor, and overcome it in hope.
• The thread of burial, hope, and communal love stretches from the caves of prehistory to the altars and cemeteries of today—a thread made radiant by Christ’s rising from the tomb.

Transcript

[Narrator]

He will be a staff for the righteous with which for them to stand and not to fall. And he will be the light of the nations and the hope of those whose hearts are troubled. All who dwell on the earth will fall down and worship him. And they will praise and bless and celebrate with song the lord of spirits. First Enoch, chapter 48, verses 4 through 5. The modern world doesn't acknowledge, but is nevertheless haunted by spirits and angels, demons and saints. In our time, many yearn to break free of the prison of a flat secular materialism, to see and to know reality as it truly is. What is this spiritual reality like? How do we engage with it? Well, how do we permeate everyday life with spiritual presence? Orthodox Christian priests Father Andrew Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung host this live call in show focused on enchantment in creation, the. The union of the seen and unseen as made by God and experienced by mankind throughout history. Welcome to the Lord of Spirits.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hey, Good evening and welcome to the new earlier time. All of you dragon slayers, giant killers and mortsafe mavens, you are listening to the 131st episode of Lord of Spirits podcast. I'm Father Andrew Stephen Damick in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, and with me is my fellow Neanderthal and proto human father Steven DeYoung in Lafayette, Louisiana. And we are both perched above the gateway to the underworld that is planet Earth. We will take your calls beginning in the second half. This is live, and the great gatekeeper Mike post apocalyptic Kurgan Degan will be listening to your dulcet tones. If you just give us the ring at 855-237-2346.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Before we go any further.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We have the elephant in the room to address. Oh, go ahead. For the people listening live, which is some set of the usual people, some subset of the usual people, you're already aware this is a different time than we normally begin. There's been a change in our live airtime and we've always been very transparent, Father Andrew and I, with you, the listener, over the course of this show. So I feel that we need to explain this right to the. To our listening audience. Why did. Why did we make this change? And so again, just to be transparent, Father Andrew, as he's continued to get gradually more and more old and infirm, requires certain accommodations. And so this is the first of what may end up being several things in the future. He still has a few good productive hours every day where he can do some work. And he's cogent. We're going to sort of schedule the airing of the show around that, and that way, you know, we can get the most out of him while we still have him with us. So I don't know if you wanted to make any further comment on that, Father Andrew, or.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I just appreciate your ineffable condescension.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. So, although, I mean, I have to admit this might not be a thing that I should joke about, but I have to admit, with you as the cco, I kind of feel like it's like Weekend at Bernie's over there at the Eggs of Faith headquarters.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, I'm not at headquarters.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, okay. Okay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes, there you go. Yeah, that's right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right. Mike Degan is at headquarters. Simon Nelson is at headquarters. Well, I think he's somewhere in the neighborhood of headquarters, but.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Well, I'm implying that they're the two guys who are kind of propping you up.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right. That's right. Well, I mean, definitely following on all that, we're talking about death, or more specifically, about burial. So what does one do with a dead body? It turns out that this has actually been a pretty important question throughout human history and even before. And we're going to begin by defining just what we mean by human.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

By dead. No.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, by dead, yes. What is this mortal coil that we shuffle off? So, yeah, why don't we talk about early man, as it were?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. So, yeah, and so we're going to be talking about here at the beginning. We're going to be talking about early Homo sapiens. We're going to be talking about nature, Neanderthals, AKA Homo neanderthal. And so we need to say a few words because I know there's. There's certain people in our audience who are already triggered.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's true.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Who are already running off to hide somewhere or just angrily typing. Right. I don't know if they're in the chat.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

There's some interesting things going on in the chat.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They may not be quick enough to be in the chat. They may just leave comments later in the YouTube comments, who are going to assume that as soon as we mention any of that, why are you teaching evolution? So we're not. We're not talking about that at all.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

What you have to understand, and this is not like us doing some weird Christian ledger domain, like, you can ask an atheist anthropologist this. They will tell you that everything or everyone, I should say that is in the genus Homo, whether it's Homo sapiens, Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, Denisovans, etc. Are all humans.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, it used to be. I think that some people had the idea that some of these other groups were, you know, earlier forms and then the later. And then there's other ones that, you know, evolve out of them or come out of them or whatever. Until we get to the pre.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

DNA.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, exactly. Before DNA was discovered, I mean. So each of these groups is kind of grouped based on skeletal structure.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, Certain elements of skeletal structure, bone density, all kinds of related things. We find these skeletons, they're put into one of these groups. And yes, the assumption was sort of the evolutionary assumption that these went in some kind of order, evolved from the other. But we now know now that we have DNA and we've been able to get samples with DNA from some of these remains that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens and Denisovans and even Homo erectus now all intermarried and interbred. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So which kind of violates the idea that these are separate species in the way that species is normally defined. And one of the proofs.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And they were around at the same time.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, they were around at the same time too.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Which is kind of fun.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. One of the proofs, ladies and gentlemen, of the interbreeding of Neanderthals with Homo sapiens is your two hosts. Because we happen to both be descended from the ME especially. Yes, yes, yes. Two of the ethnic groups on Earth at the highest percentage of dandel DNA in the world.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. Northern Europeans in general have the highest.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Generally.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, but yeah, yeah. So this has nothing to do with evolution. You can, you can. Everything we're going to say does not depend on you believing or not believing. Evolution is irrelevant to it. We're just talking about. And some interesting things you find right. At different burial sites for these different people groups. As is our want. We're starting back in like the Neolithic era. So we're just talking about the earliest human burials that we have and we're pointing out as both religious and non religious people would, both people who are into evolution and people who aren't wood, that we're talking about early humans. That includes Neanderthals for purposes of this. Even though there are still names as if these different types of early humans were different species. They are in fact not because of the. And the interbreeding proves that. So we're going to start with Neanderthal burials, since Father Andrew and I are both biased toward our own ancestors. And so there are three really famous sites of Neanderthal burials. The reason they're famous is that these are sites from which we learn particular things about Neanderthals and about. Specifically about their culture and even more specifically about their burial practices for the dead. And now all of these, and once again, are our usual proviso on this show. We are going to be using, in the early part of the show, the first half, and the first part of the second half, we're going to be using sort of the standard dating that you will find in textbooks. Yeah, But.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But if you. If you need to believe that the Earth is of a different age than this dating.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Go ahead. Again, it doesn't matter for this episode what you think about the age of the Earth.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We. Yes. We are not asserting.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That this is how old they are. We're just giving the standard thing from textbooks. You can readjust that accordingly. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

We don't know and kind of don't care.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And you're right. And the reason for giving it, though, is we want to give an idea of, you know, older, much older, less old, newer. Right. That's. That's the purpose of listing dates at all. Okay. Is comparative.

[Caller Adam]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So but you could adjust them however you want, however you see fit. All of these Neanderthal burials are, according to this standard, dating from somewhere around 50,000 BC. Somewhere in that ballpark.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I think that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Is that a Doug.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Doug McClure movie? 50,000 BC I don't know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Maybe there's a 10,000 BC. That's hysterical.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Maybe that was it. Maybe that was it. I used to watch all these Doug McClure movies when I was younger. Did you see those? Like, he was always in these dinosaur movies, you know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, yeah. No, this wasn't a dinosaur movie. This was a. This was a big. But the 10,000 BC was a big budget.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, okay. Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They had mammoths pulling stuff up, pyramids. It was wild. It was utterly fictional, but wild. Yeah. Yeah. And related to what we were just talking about. They. This is so. This is so sad. But they found. They found this woman, this older actress, who they thought kind of looked like a Neanderthal. And so they cast her as the main character's grandma.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Wow.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Because they were trying to have, like, his little tribal group be.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Wow.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Like, reflect the DNA integration. Yeah. It's like. That's awkward. Yeah. So anyway, so the first one of these to talk about. And this one's primarily famous because of how many burials are in it. And this is what's called Shanidar Cave, which is in northernmost Iraq, or Iraq, if you were alive in the 2000s.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Or even in the. Yeah, I'm saying the 80s. That's how they pronounce it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

As in Iraq.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Iran and Iraq, I.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Think they're up to 13 or 14 skeletons. So each. Each skeleton is numbered. So it's like Shanidar 1, Shanidar 2, Shanidar 3. And it's like Roman numerals. But. So there are. This is a cave that was used for a lot of burials, is the point.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So there are a number of individual grave sites that have been discovered in the cave, and those were discovered with grave goods. We're going to talk about what grave goods means here in just a second. So that site, other than just the number of skeletons, is not super remarkable. The second one. Are you going to do the French, since.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You don't think I wanted to hear you butcher it?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Superior French scholarship. I mean, I'll just pronounce it like Cajun man. Pronounce it like Cajun man on snl. Right. That's the.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's La Chapelle Auxin.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Le Chapel Auxin.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, something like that. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Everything just rhymes with croissant.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

A huge portion of my own community. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. That's how they pronounce it out there in the swamp.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I've dishonored my clan. So that, as you might guess from the name, is in France. Yes, but. So what's notable about this site? There's Neanderthal burials there, and there is a skeleton that was found there. Neanderthal skeleton. And it was in a. What's notable about it is that it was in a pit that was deliberately, like. There's tool marks and stuff dug out of limestone.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. So not just like, you know, digging in dirt, but they actually cut into this rocky pit and floor.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And not like, you know, we found a hole and we dropped the body in it. Right. Or Right. He fell there. Like, this is very clearly a very deliberate burial that they went to some significant effort. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

To.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Hollow out the space. The person who's buried there, and this is probably related to the amount of effort that they were willing to spend to bury him, was extremely elderly, you say? Well, how do you know that? Well, we have this plaque on his gravestone. Yeah. No, it didn't have years.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, sorry. This is prehistory, which means there's no writing. There's no writing.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There's no writing. So there's no inscriptions. But you could look at the skeleton, and there are clear signs of advanced rheumatoid arthritis and of osteoporosis. Right. Things Happen to your bones in old age. And so Father Andrew could probably tell us about some of those.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Absolutely everything hurts every time I wake up in the morning for no good reason.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So this figure, we see that in the skeleton. And so that likely is related to the amount of effort that was taken to bear this prisoner. This was likely an elder. Right. Within the family unit or tribal unit or clan, however it was, however that unit was organized, this likely would have been one of the oldest people and also found with grave goods. So now here we'll make the note about grave goods. So this gets argued about. Right. So the technical definition of the term grave goods, when you're talking about, like, burial rituals and stuff, the technical definition of grave goods is not just, oh, they're. They put stuff in the grave.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

With the person. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Not like, you know, often one sees at funerals these days where when the coffin is open, there's. There's stuff in the coffin.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Picture he's wearing like a football helmet.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Cheerios.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. So no, this is a. These are things put in the grave that are intended or aimed at being used in the afterlife. So that's. That makes it grave goods. And so again, because we have no inscriptions this early. Right. We're going to talk about in the second half. We're going to talk about some later stuff once we have writing. So like with ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, other ancient cultures. Right. We have more of an idea of what they thought the purpose of these things that are in the burial site were for. Right. Because they can tell us or show us in pictures.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

We have to sort of guess. Interpret. That's the word. You have to interpret the things that are found in these sites.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. And so in the case of this and the previous Neanderthal site, the stuff that's there is like flint tools and tooled reindeer and bison bones. So the debate is, did, did the. The people who did this burial. Because Neanderthals are people to remember the people who did this burial, were they putting these things there so he would have them in the afterlife, or were they burying these things with him just because it was like his stuff?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Like these were his personal possessions that they were burying him with. That's the, that's the debate because journal articles have to be written in anthropology as well, and. And dissertations have to be defended. So people go back and forth on. On which it was. Right. And it gets into nitty gritty stuff of like, how you interpret what the reindeer and bison bones were for. Right. Like, was this a crude Flute. Is he playing music or is he. You know, like I did have a ritual. Right. You know, it wasn't, I think, I.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Feel like the earliest flute was some kind of bison bone or something like that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, it was very common to make.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Things out of that. And.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, wisent. Yeah, that's everybody's word for the day is wisent.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And in, in Europe, like in Doggerland, especially Neanderthals mainly hunted reindeer for food.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And then they would repurpose the bones and the antlers. So like they made, they made their spear tips out of reindeer antlers because they figured out that reindeer antlers sort of splinter when they hit and lodge inside an animal. So it's sort of like a hollow point bullet and can actually do a lot of damage and then bring down a reindeer more easily. So you, you, hey, everybody, you learned something. Completely irrelevant today. But my ancestors over in Doggerland were using reindeer antler tipped spears. There you go.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I was gonna say probably a lot of this show is completely irrelevant for most people. No, no, it's true.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I'm just saying, keep you humble. I just don't know the reindeer antler thing so much as, you know, I mean, I suppose if you make a time machine, you go back to like ancient Doggerland and then like a mammoth stomps on it and so you're stranded there. At least now you'll know how to make a spear. So there you go. The third site, the third sort of well known Neanderthal burial site is the Kabara Cave, which is in Palestine. So you may have noticed we've been talking about these Neanderthal burial sites, France, northern Iraq and Palestine. So this is across a pretty big geographic span. Yeah. Especially when we're talking about the Stone Age where everyone is traveling on foot.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So this skeleton though, in the Kabara Cave is headless, meaning there's no skull.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And he doesn't seem to have been like decapitated, just the skull has been removed from the set.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. And so that also is the subject of all kinds of articles.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Because there is evidence in a lot of early civilizations much later that. Well later than this, of skulls being sort of removed from graves and decorated and different things being done with them. So that's one of the hypotheses is that something like that was already going on at that time. Then you get the counter articles that are like, we have no evidence of things like that going on at the time. And then the, the, the, the response to that is, well, maybe this is evidence of you see how academia becomes an endless loop with no resolution. Right. But so we know for sure this is a burial site because you might say, like, well, okay, if the head's missing, how do you know he didn't get his head bitten off by something or decapitated or, you know, through accident or on purpose? Well, because he's buried with his arms folded over his chest.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So that's a thing.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Which it would be really unlikely. Right. For someone to get decapitated accidentally or on purpose in the Stone Age in a way that would cause them to fall straight back into a hole, land flat on their back with their arms folded across their chest.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. This suggests being posed in that position.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Right. The other really interesting thing and evidence that he was not decapitated is that this skeleton actually has an intact hyoid bone.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

What's the hyoid bone, Uncle Steve?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The hyoid bone is the bone in your throat that is part of the system that allows you to talk.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Is it the case that they analyzed these Neanderthal hyoid bones and made this.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Is the first one we found ever? This is the one. Yeah. Because a hyoid bone is very weak. Like if someone dies by strangulation, their hyoid bone is almost always smashed.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And if you get decapitated, that thing is coming apart.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. So we know he wasn't decapitated because it would be gone. Right. But also because it's such a small, thin bone, a lot of times just time erosion.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Like, it's usually not one of the bones that's preserved. The bones usually find are like femurs.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Bigger ones.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So more massive ones. Yeah. But. So, yes, as you were alluding to, they have analyzed this hyoid bone and its shape and structure. And so even though Neanderthals were much shorter than most modern humans on average and stockier and had higher bone density, they apparently would have had very high pitched, even shrill voices.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Just imagine Michael Jackson in his later years.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. Someone who looks like Wolverine and sounds like Michael Jack.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And we're descended from that, you and I.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Probably ululating while running at you with a reindeer horn tipped spear.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Everybody's imagining that now in a high.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Pitched shriek with Doug McClure coming to see us. So Captain Caveman led you all wrong on this one. Not even close.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You gotta be a certain age to get the Doug McClure reference. I think probably a lot of the kids out there have no idea who that is.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No, no. They don't know who John Saxon was either. Who was that guy for like the entire 70s and most of the 80s. So, turning from you and I's Neanderthal ancestors to early Homo sapiens burials, our earliest Homo sapiens burials. Again, this is going to confound the way some people were taught this if you're old back in school. But our earliest Homo sapiens burials are way older than our earliest Neanderthal burials.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Wait, what?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Our Neanderthal burials? Yeah, I know. Cannot be. Yes, and by a lot in biology.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Class in middle school in the 1980s.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And so the, the earliest, as we said, the, the Neanderthal burials we have are all from roughly, give or take a couple millennia, standard dating from about 50,000 years ago. The standard dating on the two Homo sapiens burials we're about to go over. The first one is around 100,000 BC. The second one is around 84,000 BC. So in both cases, these are much older than the Neanderthal burial sites. Do with that. What you will adjust dates accordingly. But these are considerably older. And these once again, are in two fairly spread out parts of the world. The first one is the Kafza Cave, which is in Palestine. Now, if you're following, this means. Yes. That according to the traditional dating, there is a burial site of early Homo sapiens in Palestine that is 50,000 years older. Yeah, twice as old.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Palestine is a very small piece of.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Real estate, everybody twice as old as the Neanderthal burial site there, according to the standard dating. Do with that what you will, but the Kafsa cave, there are 15 burials there of early Homo sapiens, and there are grave goods there. And these are much more widely recognized as being grave goods. And this is the product of racism.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Wait, what?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Scholars have assumed for two centuries that Neanderthals were primitive and dumb.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And so that's why. So there was a belief that they had no concept of ritual and therefore no concept of the afterlife. So even when it had to be admitted that there were deliberate burial sites, people still are pushing back against. Right. Like, we also have the cave that has the Neanderthal handprints all over the walls, where Neanderthals put their hands in pigments and then made handprints all over the walls. Different colors, different color pigments. There are people out there writing articles that that is not art because Neanderthals were not capable of art. Right, right. So my ancestors are being oppressed by the academic establishment. That's what I'm trying to say to you. Whereas, you know, Homo sapiens, you find. You find some Stuff that. Oh, yeah, that's grave goods. They believed in an afterlife that. Yeah, I see how it is. But you find grave goods and their grave goods take more the form of. One of the reasons, in addition to, you know, racism that they. They want to see these were easily as grave goods is that the things that are found there are primarily shells and small animal bones that have often been work. And so pretty much everybody agrees that they were part of jewelry, slash, adornment of clothing. Right. That kind of thing.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They're not like tools. They're decorative. And therefore they're seen more readily as having some kind of ritual purpose. The other interesting thing about this and other early Homo sapiens burials is that early Homo sapiens burials have little.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Little pots, little tubs of ochre, which is a pigment.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Red ochre, which is a pigment.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And so the. The ochre is red. There's a tub of red ochre in the Kafsa cave. Again, lots of journal articles about why it's there and what it's for, which runs the gamut from it was an offering to. It was pigment they used on the body.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So if you think, like, a red pigment might make the person look more alive, that kind of thing. So there's theories about that, that it was being, again, the skull decoration thing. So there's all kinds of theories, but it's not always red. But these pigments are found with these early burials all over the place in different colors. And part of what the going theory on what accounts for the different colors is, of course, you have different stuff available to you in different geographic locales for making pigment.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And it's. I mean, ochre is earth pigment. I mean, it's basically a form of clay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. But you have. It's not red everywhere. Yeah. So that's. That's all debated, but there are 15 individuals. And then here's another place that I don't even think Father Andrew has a better guess than me on how to pronounce it. Because it's in Kenya.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So, like, we're kind of pronouncing it the way you'd pronounce it if it was Arabic. Right. Like panga. Yasaidi. But it might not be Saidi. It might be Sadi or Saidi or. I don't know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But Kenyans call in, let us know. Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

If you are a Kenyan and can help us out with how to pronounce the name of the place. The panga, I suppose, could be Panja, even, but I think I'm pretty sure it's panga, panga ya and then saidi, sadi, saidi. It's a very early burial site in Kenya. This is the one that traditional day, 84,000 years ago. And what's interesting about this is that it is a toddler. So this is someone's young child who passed away. And the, the body was buried with a pillow under its head and wrapped in some kind. And this is debated too, whether it was just a blanket or a shroud or it's wrapped in some kind of cloth. We've only got, you know, we've got scraps and remnants.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But was wrapped in some kind of cloth. And this one is one of the really interesting things to me that this is just seems profoundly human. Right. Like you have these images in your head of like cavemen and hunter gatherers and all this kind of stuff.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But someone losing a child and sort of lovingly burying them with a blanket and a pillow. Right. Like to sleep is just sort of profoundly human and kind of beautiful.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. There's something touching even about this super, super ancient burial.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah. We need to remember that human nature, as St. Paul wanted to teach us, is trans. Temporal. They were humans made in the image of God in the same sense we are. So why, why did we talk about these sites? Well, there's, there's some interesting things because there are certain things that all of the Neanderthal burial sites have in common, even though, as we said, they're spread out over a pretty huge geography from like France to northern Iraq to Palestine, right to the Levant. And even though we talked about examples in like, Kenya and Palestine, there are things that all of our earliest Homo sapiens burials have in common.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Just interesting. I mean, that's, that's pretty. They're not texting each other. Hey, hey, how do you do that burial thing again?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, they all have in common. And what's interesting is that some of the things that all the Neanderthal sites have in common are different than some of the things that all the Homo sapiens sites have in common.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So what are some, what are some examples? So Neanderthal burials, pretty much everybody is buried on their back. Right. Like laying on their back in that one case with his arms crossed across his chest. Right. But always, like laying down on their back. Whereas all of those early Homo sapiens burials, they're in the fetal position on their side. Whether they're adults or children, the Neanderthal burials are inside caves in these sort of dugout prepared spots inside the cave. Whereas the Earliest Homo sapiens burials are in or just outside the entryways to caves, not in the cave itself. So as we said, this is spread out.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

In both cases. But there are these commonalities.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And those are kind of specific things. Right. Like, it's hard to attribute that to random chance.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. This seems to be a shared culture across thousands and tens of thousands of miles.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Among on one hand, Neanderthals and on the other hand Homo sapiens. Yeah, right. That there is this sort of broad culture within these groups with these certain genetic characteristics of humans. Right. And so this. If you're a long time listener to the program and you've listened to like the episodes we did on continuity and we were talking about Stone Age stuff and everything, this is one of the pointers. Because of course, burying the dead is a ritual. Right. And we're talking about, in this case, part of what shows it's a ritual practice is that it's done in all of these cases by all these people the same way. Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That sort of by definition makes it a ritual practice. That this shared ritual practice, even at this very early date, is one of the pointers to what we've called in the past early monotheism. The idea that the earliest humans. This is part of the evidence for that. If you're talking about what is the evidence to support this, the earliest humans had one God that they worshiped.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So yeah, we could suggest that this indicates a kind of pre. Pagan human world.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. If you want to situate it within the biblical story, pre Tower of Babel maybe. Maybe even depending anti Diluvian prior to the Flood. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Depending on what you think is going on with the flood.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Because. Because if, you know, if the earliest groups of humans were all from different what we would call religions or at least worshiping numerous different gods, we would. We would expect to see a lot more variety when it comes to burial practices. And yet what we see is a lack of variety. Yes, again, it's, it's. This is all just kind of. This isn't. This is interpreting what we see because there's no scroll lying there saying this is what we meant by that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You know, this is a piece of evidence. We're not saying, hey, these common burial practices prove they worshiped one. Right, Right. A piece of evidence in that direction.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. It could be. That's. That's what we're saying. So.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right, well, that's prehistory and we're going to talk about history, meaning, you know, stuff with writing after we're done with our first break. We'll be right back.

[Narrator]

Father Andrew, Stephen Damick and father Stephen DeYoung will be back in a moment to take your calls on the next part of the Lord of Spirits. Give them a call at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.

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[Narrator]

We'Re back now with the Lord of Spirits with Father Andrew, Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung. If you have a question, call now at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hey, thanks, voice of Steve. So we're talking about burial practices here on this 131st episode of Lord of Spirits podcast. And happy New Year, everybody. By the way, it's 2026, not apparently.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

About the ball game.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Every time I hear that ad, I'm just like, I mean, it's not wrong. Ball, right? It's not wrong. It's just it makes all the puns in your chapter titles not.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah. So are you ready for a dramatic revelation?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I am. I am.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

This will show you the bizarre, bizarre.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Wheels within dropped off. So, yeah, give me the dramatic revelation.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

All the wheels within wheels that go on in my fevered brain when I write a book. Okay, here is the great secret that no one has figured out. The BAAL book is the Jungian shadow self of Eryizo God. I that's why they're roughly the same length. I can see that there's even a structural thing going on.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I could see that. That's interesting.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It is the mirror universe eryso God. It has a goatee.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And a little Sash. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You don't have to have read A Rise of God to understand.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No, no, no, you don't. As long as we're revealing things, though, I have to say, even though this is completely not on topic at all, I'm just excited about this. I was telling you about this earlier today, Father, that a lot of people know that there's a film coming out in just three weeks or so, a little over three weeks, called Moses the Black, which I have to admit, when I first saw the posters for it, I thought that it was a joke. And I don't mean that I thought, oh, that's a joke. Why would I need to do that? No, no, no. I thought. I really thought that someone was trying to be funny. But no, there's a film coming out called Moses the Black in a few weeks, and I'll be interested to hear everybody's responses to it because. And here's where I get to play my I'm still hoping to be cool card. Even here in my decrepit middle age, I have seen it. I have seen it. And it's actually. I think it's rather good. Shockingly, surprisingly, I can't believe it. Good. But it's.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Did you like the songs as much as K Pop Demon Hunters?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I did not go away humming the music the way that I did with K Pop Demon Hunters. So, yeah, you have to, because I.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Know how you feel about rap music.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I am not into rap music, and rap music is indeed what the soundtrack of that film is about. But. But I mean, it could be no other. You know that film. It's about gang violence.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Did you shake your walker at it when the rap music started?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I did. I did.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But no. Yeah, I encourage people to go out and see it in a few weeks. I've never seen a movie like this in my life, and I've not seen anywhere near as many movies as you have, but I've never seen a movie like this in my life. It's just. It is not what anyone thinks of as Christian entertainment, but it is a profoundly Christian film. So anyway, yeah, go check it out, everybody. Okay, well, we do have some callers calling in. All right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

To accuse us of being Darwinists.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right. We have one. It's funny. So we. We have one that the. According. That. That his phone apparently is from Palm Springs, California, but Adam is from Texas, so. Adam from Texas, welcome Laura Spears podcast.

[Caller Adam]

Hey, how's it going? Hey, Father. It's good to talk to you. I actually am from Indio, California, but I live in Texas now.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, wow. Indio.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Is that your hometown area, Father Stephen, or very roughly? Roughly. Okay, very roughly inland.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But when I heard pulp spriggs, I assumed you had grown up under the mayor dom of Sonny Bono. But I guess not.

[Caller Adam]

Not quite that old.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Now, I did just watch Groundhog Day, and Sonny Bono figures over and over again in that film.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Southern California has an Indio and a Chino, huh?

[Caller Adam]

Yeah, my dad was from Chino.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, there you go. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So what's on your mind, Adam?

[Caller Adam]

Hi. Yeah, so on the subject of, like, death and stuff, I was curious. So there's Adam and Eve and their kids. They died, right? Then you have after the flood, those people died. And then you have Jesus comes over post resurrection and then says in Matthew that, like, holy people left their tombs and entered the city. So what I'm wondering is, was that everybody who died before the flood, and if that's true, then how is it that, like, Moses is still around, like in the transfiguration? Like, like what? Is there different things that happen to different people at different stages of history when they die? Because I'm just kind of confusing to me.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You mean in terms of they go to different places, the disposition of their soul.

[Caller Adam]

Yes, exactly.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, so in terms of linear history, Right. If we're thinking about history as human beings experience it, that's where I'm stuck. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Before the harrowing of Hades that Christ accomplishes in his death and resurrection, all humanity goes to Hades. Now, there's strong suggestions that some parts of Hades are kind of better than others is the way that it's sort of depicted. The righteous are in kind of a nicer part, but then in the heroing of Hades, Christ brings the righteous up out of the underworld and they're led by, you know, traditionally by the archangel Michael to paradise. And then after that, then only the wicked, their souls go to Hades and the righteous, when they die, their lives are hid in Christ. So. So, yeah, so there is a difference before and after the harrowing of Hades. So all of the. But like, if you're thinking about the transfiguration, what are we looking at there?

[Caller Adam]

Well, because it. Well, Moses died, right? And I know there's something about Moses body. It's mentioned something really special special happened to him in Jude, but it seems like Moses came, like, was resurrected from the dead before everybody else. And also, you know, Jesus says Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive or at least kind of. It sounds like he's saying that. So I was Wondering like, how is it that they're alive but everyone else had to wait until Jesus, you know, resurrection, and then, you know, now there's people still waiting for the resurrection.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, I mean, it's wibbly, wobbly, timey wimey stuff on, on a certain level, like the, the, the resurrection of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is effective even before the harrowing of Hades, not because they weren't harrowed in the harrowing of Hades. It's that their harrowing from Hades becomes trans. Temporal in its effects. Does that make sense?

[Caller Adam]

Oh man. I don't know what trans temporal means.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It means, yeah, across time. So like the way I describe it to people even now is that from our point, from the point of view of the saints, the resurrection has happened, but from our point of view, it hasn't happened yet. But we see them as though they are resurrected because they are, even though it hasn't happened yet for us.

[Caller Adam]

Right. So, so people who are, who are right with God, they, when they die or have died, they're already in like a heavenly form. And then people who aren't right with God, they're just like dead. And then they come, they'll be resurrected when Jesus comes back to face judgment. Is that how it works?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, there's going to be. So there's two resurrections. There's the resurrection of the soul and the resurrection of the body. And the righteous are experiencing the resurrection of the soul immediately upon material death, physical death. The resurrection of the body is in the future. And the, the wicked do not experience the resurrection of the soul. They have dead souls. But we will all have the resurrection of the body in the future. And the, the saved will be resurrected in both soul and body. That, that's, that will be their final state. But the damned, only in the body.

[Caller Adam]

Gotcha. Okay. And then it's after the damned are resurrected with the body, they go to hell or whatever. I'm getting confused with the hell terminology too. Yeah, Gehenna or one of those.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, okay, so hell, Hades, seal the grave. I mean, all these things are just sort of names for the underworld. In the end, what happens is the underworld itself gets cast into what the scripture calls the lake of Fire. Yeah, yeah. And, and so, yeah, the problem is, is that in English we use the word hell to refer to a lot of different things and then we kind of squish them all together mostly.

[Caller Adam]

Yeah, exactly.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, right. I mean it is also, it is also the airport code for the capital of Finland. So I just wanted to put that out there. Like, they're literally. There's signs everywhere in the airport. They say, welcome to hell, which is awesome.

[Caller Adam]

Like Helsinki.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So great. Yes, so great. So amazing.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I met the devil in Helsinki. There's a reference. There's got.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Here we go. So I don't know. Hopefully that clears up some of the mud for you, Adam.

[Caller Adam]

It did a bit and I'll re. Listen again later to try to reclarify it. But if you don't mind really quick, the whole thing with time and how time works. I had a question. So in Daniel, Archangel Michael appears and he says, sorry, I'm late because of the Prince of Persia. You know, I'm talking about.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Caller Adam]

How does that. How could he be late if they don't have linear time? That's something I've always wanted.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Explain that one. Father Stephen.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Angels are still creatures, so they're still finite. So they don't experience time the way. Exactly the same way you and I do, but they still are finite, so they still experience time and space.

[Caller Adam]

Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And so they're created, whereas God is not created. Right. So God is like above all that.

[Caller Adam]

But anyway, angels experience time the same as like a saint, like, say, like the Theotokos. Would that be the same experience of time? Would they both have.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Actually, I. I think no.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

[Caller Adam]

All right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I think so. But that's because. That's because basically of theosis. That's because Christ didn't become incarnate as an angel.

[Caller Adam]

Right, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So angels remain angels. Right. Whereas humans are united to God himself.

[Caller Adam]

Makes sense. Okay, that does make sense.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And that's all made him a little lower than the angels, but then kind of exalted above the angels in Christ.

[Caller Adam]

Right, exactly right. I remember that. Okay, cool. Well, thanks very much for your answering my question, Paul. I really appreciate it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, thanks for calling, Adam. All right, we're going to take another caller. We've got Daniel calling from Florida. So, Daniel, it looks like your question is similar to Adam's. Is that. So do you feel like your question was just now answered?

[Caller Daniel]

It's similar, definitely similar through lines. So, I mean, my question is basically about last week's episode and how it ties into this one with Christ being incarnate and the ascension and so. And how the dead experience it. However, my roommate and soon to be godfather of my first kid, Eric, is incredibly shy and he had a question about the infant Jesus since it was close to Christmas time. And I told him how it would happen because our catechists couldn't figure this question out. Okay, so Come at me, basically. All right, I got this. So if a person buries their father, they're unclean, not sinful, haven't done anything wrong, they've done good, but just unclean. If you drop a big deuce, you know you're unclean until you get washed up. But when Christ touched the dead, he essentially ripped their soul out of Hades and brought them back to life. So when Jesus was everyone's favorite six pound, eight ounce baby Jesus and he dropped duties in the swaddling clothes and Mary had to wash him up, like, was he unclean? Was he ritually unclean?

[Caller Adam]

Like.

[Caller Daniel]

And we couldn't figure this one out, so I figured I should call in since it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So the question is, could. Could Christ have been ritually unclean?

[Caller Daniel]

Correct. Especially when he was like a little.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Baby, related to bodily functions.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Bodily functions. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Non sinful bodily functions.

[Caller Adam]

Correct. Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. So here is an interesting thing. I don't spend time arguing about this, but there are people who do.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Arguing about this. And I think the reason they spend time arguing about this is again, because they don't understand. It's not just that they don't understand the clean unclean distinction. Right. It's that they don't understand that the sacred profane distinction has to do with common. Right. They assume everything's like holy or evil. There's not this category of the common in the created world.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I mean, even the word profane, even though this is not the way we use it in English, at least in its origins, it means something that is outside of the temple. It's what's not appropriate for in the temple. It's profanum outside the temple.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. And we sort of use it like you think about profanity. What's another word for profanity? Vulgarity. What does that mean?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Common something that's common.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's the common. The question really is, you're asking, did our Lord ever get dirty?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

[Caller Daniel]

And was that a problem?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Did he sort of walk through the world pristinely clean? Right.

[Caller Daniel]

Because I was told women don't poop or fart. So maybe Jesus is the same.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I don't know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That is a lie. Wow, we've gone from, I thought you said you were having a child, which implies to me you should be married. So you should know better.

[Caller Daniel]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Is she listening? Is that why you said that?

[Caller Daniel]

No, she's not. So I can for a while.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Wow. Okay. But it could get better.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know, tens of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people listen to this show.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. So, Right. But there are related questions, like did Christ ever get sick? Did you ever get a cold during his earthly life, like pre death and resurrection. Right. And so I think here's how I approach this question. And to pray for a St. Paul, I have no word from the Lord on this. There is no dogma at stake here. But the way I approach this question is by way of Saint Maximus the Confessor, which gives me a little bit of confidence. Not that he ruled on this particular issue, but that when he talks about Christ having assumed the blameless passions. Right? Meaning the passions that aren't sinful. Right. So getting tired, getting hungry, getting thirsty. Right. So to me, I will not die on this hill, but to me, the way I would approach that question is to say that at points in time, being blamelessly, right. No issue of sin, Right. But blamelessly, ritually unclean, the way normal humans are in normal human life. Right. So it's in the blameless category. Allowing himself voluntarily to contract that and then go through the processes prescribed by the Torah to me. Makes sense, right? It makes sense in the context of blameless passions. It makes sense in terms of you either may have recently or be just about to celebrate the feast of Christ's circumcision. Read what it talks about in terms of him coming under the Torah. Right. It fits with that. Right. Because again, these aren't. I'm also not talking about ritual uncleanness in terms of ontology. Right. I'm not saying Christ was tainted by the sin that is in the world.

[Caller Adam]

Ah, got it.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. But he certainly experienced the effects of sin in the world, like receiving verbal abuse and all of that. Right. Like that's him voluntarily. Right. You see what I'm saying?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So it's not that Christ became ontologically unclean ever. Right. But it's in terms of the ritual structure. There were times when he would have been considered under the Torah ritually unclean. And that Christ voluntarily went through the processes to. To do that, as any other person living at that time would have in order to fulfill all righteousness.

[Caller Adam]

Got it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right. Does that clear things up for your. Your unseen, unheard from roommate Eric?

[Caller Daniel]

Yeah, well, he's in the car behind me. We're caravanning. Gotta move, doing stuff. I'm sure he'll listen to this later and thank me because he's shy. But I'll be brief with the question that I actually wanted to ask.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

1.

[Caller Daniel]

Like that was my real question.

[Caller Adam]

That was.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I was asking for a friend. Yeah.

[Caller Daniel]

So on the last episode you guys talked about how Christ took our humanity from Mary, that his humanity got elevated at the resurrection. He's outside of time. His humanity is outside of time. It's eternal. That's how he created man in his image and likeness. So for those of us, or not, sorry, for those who have died, have they already experienced, like, as the life of the age to come already happened for them, like, I know. We should still pray for our loved ones as though they're in a linear time. Right. Like, that's what the church teaches. Pray for your loved ones. We don't know what the ultimate outcome is.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We pray for them because we're in a linear time. Yeah.

[Caller Adam]

Right.

[Caller Daniel]

Well, that's the only thing we can experience. But I guess. Are they outside of that? But we should still. I guess for the sake of trying to understand it, we should still keep doing what we're doing. But I don't know what's going on as far as. Are they already experiencing that in the same way Christ's humanity is outside of time?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. So this is going to sound mean, but I'm not trying to be mean.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I don't have to.

[Caller Daniel]

You can say, I'm done. I understand. I get.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I just know this is not easy stuff to. Pardon.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I'm Dutch and blood, but. So your question is incoherent. Here's why you're asking me what someone outside of time is experiencing now.

[Caller Daniel]

Oh, that's a good point.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

See the problem.

[Caller Adam]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

What is now? Now is for us. We have now. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, the experience we're having is the one we're having, and so we function within that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. But they're not in another parallel timeline experiencing something now. Right. Our definition of now doesn't apply to them.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Does that help?

[Caller Daniel]

I think so. I'm going to continue to listen. Like I said, I know what I should be doing. I'm just trying to connect the through lines with eternity, trans, temporalness, and these last couple episodes. Thanks, padres.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep. All right. Thanks for calling. All right, well, fun, good questions from last time and connecting to this time as well, because all this stuff is kind of one big ball of wax.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

As we continue to maintain on this show that salvation was possible for those early Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And the salvation that was possible was salvation in Christ.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Because they shared the same humanity.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

One salvation, one humanity, one Christ.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So, yeah. So let's shift from through, away from prehistory, to Tord to history.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We're just doing tord right now.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Actually, toward history. Yeah, yeah. Well, let's talk about one of our favorite sites, which I don't know how many times this place has come up.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

On this show, but less than Gobekli Tepe, I think. But maybe we'll catch up a little because we're not going to talk much about Gobekli Tepe tonight. So. But czehoyk, good old Tetohoyuk in Turkish, which I'm probably pronouncing wrong too, because I don't speak Turkish.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Turks call in, let us know how.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

To pronounce this, but only if you're Christian.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

They exist.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

There's actually, I refuse to accept correction from Turkish Muslims just on principle solidarity for Constantinople. So again, adjust your dates accordingly. So we're not quite at written history yet with Chinnel Hoyek. We are at conventional dating. Don't at me. 9,000 years ago. Okay, so this is one of our very early human settlements. Right? Very old. Okay. But much more recent than what we were talking about in the first half because this is people are now settling in places. We've domesticated grains to allow people to feed themselves.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So there have been. Neolithic revolution has happened. Right. Stuff's gone on. And so this early settlement, we have a lot of buildings there, like actual, like constructed permanent buildings. And what we find is that the burials are primarily in the homes. So people were buried in the floors of homes, either under the hearth, just under the floor, in general, under a platform. That seems to have been the normal case for burials. There is one particular building in the settlement that is referred to as the House of the Dead. Not because it is an old shooter game and a horrible U Bowl movie, but it is called the House of the Dead. Because in this one building there are 20 burials, which is abnormal. So the general working theory, though, of course, you know, articles, right, dissertations, but the sort of working theory is that the people buried in the floors of what looked like homes were members of the family or social unit that lived in those homes, whereas the 20 who are buried in this one building are people who were unattached to those social units. Right, but again, we're pre written, we're pre writing, so we don't have any, you know, we're theorizing the burials are in the fetal position. So we're going Homo sapien style. That has prevailed. And there's clear evidence that these sites were repeatedly disturbed, meaning a person would be buried, it would be dug up again, and for example, another person would be buried next to them. Right. But also that during some of those digging up and reburials, skulls were taken and plaster and then paint was put on them and then they were reburied. We don't know exactly what they did because when we talk about like plastered and painted, that means we've got little flakes and shreds of plaster and paint on skulls. Right. So we don't know. We don't know if they were sort of try to recreate what the person looked like or they were just doing decorations or if they were making some kind of ritual thing being done to the skull. We don't know if this was done at a certain time, like after a year or two years or just when the next person died. Right. We don't have access to any of that. Right. We just know in general that it happened. We've got lots of grave goods, lots of jewelry on people who were buried. But the most interesting thing, the reason I kept saying family or social unit or whatever, is that again, we have DNA now. And so when the DNA is tested on the people who are like, buried in the homes where you've got multiple burials in one home, in most cases, they're not blood relatives.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. That's curious, right? I mean, from our point of view, like, yeah, from, from what we think of was normal, you know, life together in a home.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. So, yeah, we had generally assumed that, like, oh, well, this is like a family home and they're burying the dead generationally under the floor of the family home. Right. That had been our assumption, but that doesn't work. So it may be that we have, like, married couples. We don't know then what happened to the kids because they would be blood related to one of the parents. Right. So, like, it could be that these houses were reused by different families, that maybe a lot of these houses weren't used by settled members of the communities. Maybe there was some kind of transitory population that would come and stay there and then move on. There's theories that people from particular trades would form social units. Yeah. So that's why they're not blood relatives.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Dorms of some sort.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah. So there's all kinds of theories, but we don't know for sure at Chettle Hayek. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep. Well, I should tell everybody that when Father Stephen was putting together the research for this episode, there was a glaring, glaring, glaring omission. And I'm. I'm really ashamed to be working with you based on this, Father, but, I mean, might as well just keep going, I guess. But, yes. So something else that is Also really notable is there's a kind of burial called a kurgan. C C, no, not C K U, R, G A N. And see, I.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I told you guys we've only got a couple hours a day.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I know, I know that he forgets letters. I'm getting. It's already sundown over here. So a kurgan is a burial mound.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Now wait, wait, you're saying there's more than one?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, there's lots of them.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Because Kurgan told me there could be only one.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The only one, yeah. Thank you. See that one I get. Yeah. So the earliest known Kurgans seem to date from about 4000 BC, but they're being built up until the Middle Ages. And there's actually still quite widely. And there's actually a few places in southern Siberia and Central Asia that are still doing this. So this continues even to this day. They think that the origins of the kurgan is this the Pontic or Caspian steppe. So Pondus is what is now basically Turkey. So that, that region, you know, this is, this is an Indo European thing. So all of the Indo European peoples, and that's a lot of us mostly think of Indo European as a language, but it's also, you know, a historical genetic group too. You know, Indo European, that's, that's Europe, that's people in the Indus river valley, India now. And so that area, it's basically all over Europe. It's Central Asia, it's the Caucasus. This is where you find Kurgan. So it's hugely spread out, incredibly widely discovered all over the world. And there is this idea of the, what's called the Kurgan culture. It's a hypothesis and the idea is that the Kurgan culture was, had its origins in the Caucasus, kind of west of the Ural Mountains area. And that the, the, the reason why you find Kurgans all over these various places throughout the world is that it, they all have the origins in this one place. And it kind of semi, sort of roughly maps to the spread of Indo European language as well. Not perfectly, but kind of sort of. So what is. Okay, so it's a grave mound usually for a single burial. Sometimes there are one, there are ones that have multiple people in them, but it's usually just one. Seems to normally be kind of a high status person. Often they're dressed as a warrior. If you think about this, it makes sense there'll be a high status person because it's a lot of work to build a big mound over a single person who's died. And in the ancient World people die much more frequently than, you know, just, you know, mortality is much higher in the ancient world, pre, just pre modern world generally. So it's a lot of work. So probably not everybody gets one. There's typically, you know, more men in these things than women. But there are some regions actually where it's kind of 50, 50. There are various features in and around these things. Often they'll have a moat dug around them. There may be paths around them or to them. There might be stone fences. So it's not just a place to put the dead. Like it occupies this place within the, the, the landscape. Right. It's, it's a place where people are coming back to. And one of the ways we know this is because there's, there's typically like internal chambers and often there are altars, whether inside the, the structure or outside it. And there'd be roofs. So it's, you know, it's, it's a mound. But then they've got, you know, like a hobbit hole.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You've got to build a roof and stuff inside so it doesn't just collapse on you, you know, so there's fire pits that could be related to sacrificial activity inside and, or outside. And of course, there's typically grave goods as well. So yeah, you're talking about pre modern burial. Kurgans are a really prominent way that a lot of this is done. And certainly there are other kinds of burial mounds. I mean, in the New World there are burial mounds. And so the concept is very similar. But archaeologists have noticed there's a distinct continuity between all the Kurgans in Europe and Central Asia and so forth. So yet another instantiation of this. And it has a long, long stretch of history. We're talking over five, six thousand years that this is being practiced. Probably older than the oldest, you know, ones that we've, that we've found. But at least. Yeah, yeah, 4000 BC is the earliest known ones. So. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Kurgan. So two, two questions.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh boy, I'm not ready to answer questions.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Is this going to become a regular segment? Father Andrew's Kurgan Corner? Regular Kurgan updates?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And secondly, are you expressing your final wishes to us?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I would not be against the Kurgan getting back to my Indo European roots. Yeah, no, I mean, I understand.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Are there any suitable mounds on Guam?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, Guaminian mounds. You could, I mean, you could, you could put me inside Mount Lam Lam, which barely qualifies as a mountain. I don't know if that would be a good mound or Not.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I don't know. It'd be very expensive to ship my body to Guam. Unless you. Unless I go there to die. I guess that would be probably a little bit cheaper, maybe. Yeah. Yeah, There you go. Well, no, I mean, those are much easier questions to answer than I thought. I mean, I would be. I'd be excited to have further discussions of Kurgan's here in Laura Spirit's podcast. This is the first time it's been mentioned, you know, so I know that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I will in the future try to work it in whenever possible.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

All right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I'm gonna have to do some more work on this.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Clearly that is a promise to you, the listener. Yes. So.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, man. Someone in the chat referred to it as a TEU Period pyramid. How dare you, sir?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Wow.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

How dare you.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That is on point. Wow. That is kind of on point, man.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Someone asked, if you built too many Kurgans on Guam, will it tip over? Yes, thank you. That's the one thing we know about. Know about Guam is that could capsize.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is. It is the lazy man's pyramid, right? Like that's. Find a hill. Close enough, you know, but yes. So now back to the ancient near east. From our tranbles into Indo Europe. Indo Europe, whatever. Eurasia, I guess be more correct. We've always been at war with Eurasia is the thing. So specifically Sumeria. So now we're at writing. Now we've got writing. And so as we go forward here in the second half, we're going to have sort of more and more information that's solid, right? That's not based on sort of guesswork and figuring things out. In Sumeria, an ancient Sumer, there's regular folks and then there's rich guys. Ain't that just the way. And I don't know whether they were engaged in class struggle or not. That's a question for another time. But the. The regular folks, we're talking about how regular folks were buried. They were like Chtelhoyek, primarily buried in the floors of their homes. But this seems to be family homes. This we've got cross generation, right? If people were a little more, well, to do. Not like rich guy, like the king, right. Or major official or major priest or something, but a little more well to do. So this would have been like, say Abraham's family if he had stayed in urban, right. They would have multiple family dwellings within the city with kind of a courtyard around it. And the burials took place in that courtyard for the whole big family unit. And people Were generally wrapped in reed mats. Mats made of reeds. And before being buried. And often there are some sort of simple grave goods. Because we're talking about regular folks now. If you're a rich important guy, like a king, a priest, right. It's important. Like the ziggurat is not a tomb. Pyramids, tombs. Ziggurats, not tombs. Cigarettes are temples. But so your rich guys, like your kings, your major court officials, your major priests of the city, sort of the very wealthy people were buried in large pits and large pit. I know does not sound all that great.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, you do live in the land of mausoleums, so.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, but we were talking about the really well to do people. In the base of the pit there would be these bricks. Vaults. Vaults with walls made of brick. Right. So now we're showing off more of the wealth. And so there would be sort of a brick burial chamber for the poor person. And then all of that person's slaves would be poisoned when he died. And not only were they buried down there with him, but they were posed. They were posed and set up like doing whatever their duty was.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Wow, that's going out in style.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, so. And there were, of course, in those tombs, elaborate grave goods. Remember the definition of grave goods? We're talking about stuff that they believed was going with them. So they had to have themselves in the afterlife, their slaves in the afterlife, and the accoutrement that the slaves required so they could have the best afterlife possible. Even though the Sumerian view of the afterlife was kind of a horror movie. Yeah, if you're going to be in a horror movie, you want a lot of, I guess, slave slash cannon fodder around you to try and help out. And remember. It's very common that these grave sites, whether regular folks or quote unquote, important folks, were visited regularly and were the sites of drink offerings, libations, as it were, were poured out. So this whole liquor thing into the ground is not just a part of the Irish problem, but is goes stretches back into ancient history. It's often wine, honey. That kind of stuff would be poured into the. Into the graves at sort of regular intervals. Egypt, of course, is kind of famous for their burial practices. That's kind of their whole bit in terms of popular culture at least. And mummy movies. Let me just say as an aside, right, no one should read Anne Rice books, okay? In general, no problem. But especially nobody should read the mummy novel that she wrote.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, why now I want to know why.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I had to. It is terrible.

[Caller Adam]

Really.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It is terrible. So true. Story here. Right? So kids, back in the long ago time when you took a long plane flight, they didn't let you didn't have like a phone that you could watch movies and TV shows on and stuff?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You just had to either sit there or read something. There was a whole.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Or sometimes there was a movie screen at the front of your cabin.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, everybody was watching your fancy pants flights. But. So there was a whole. There was a whole industry at airports of these bookstores that just sold like cheap paper, graph novels, paperback novels. Right. That people would just grab one to take on the plane with them. Yeah, right. And we're not talking about like great works of literature here, right? We're talking about like, you know, a lot of pulpy stuff. Romance novels for women, mystery novels. Right. You know, the best stuff you would get would be like the new John Grisham or Michael Crichton novel. Like that would be the peak. Right. Of literary quality that they had there. And so I was, the first time I flew to London, I was like, I need to grab a book to read. Right. And at the time, I was 17 years old, was not in my goth phase. But you know, Rice novels were supposed to be so cool. I had never read an Anne Rice book. Huh.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You had a goth phase?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Like everyone respectable had a goth phase, my friend.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, well, wow. That was.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I too, in a compliment. I too once dyed my hair black and wrote bad poetry that didn't rhyme to go to hot topic. No, I didn't go to hot. Okay, once again, you do not understand the difference between like goth and emo and like vampire kids. But anyway, no, I don't.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I mean, are large German barbarians who sack Rome. That is what a goth is.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No, no, goth, this is like the goth category that would say burn down the hot topic. Right, okay, but anyway, so. But I never read an Anne Rice book. Right. Heard all these things. All of her other books were series. So they have this mummy book and I'm like, well, this is a one off, right? I'll find out. If I like Anne Rice novels, how bad could it be? It could be very bad. Basic, like literally the dude is a mummy for like the first 12 pages.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And that's it, it's over.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And no. Then he's restored to his youth.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Wow.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So he just turns into this like ancient Egyptian Fabio guy and like it's a romance novel for the rest of the thing.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Wow. Why?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. With just cringy and lame sex scenes all over the place, like poorly written, like, and it's Just like, why? Right, like, yeah, so there you go. Friends do not approach that book.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Alone are in groups. So yeah. Sumeria, Ed Rice books in general.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That one in particular? Heck no. Okay, Back to Egypt.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Back to Egypt. All right. Yes. Mummification, yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But because this kind of stuff is so well known and so easy to look up and research and learn about, we're not going to spend a ton of time. In fact, I probably just doubled the amount of time we're going to spend on Egypt with that mummy book story. But. But we're going to talk about burial practices here in brief, sort of mainly at their development. Okay. So when you go back to pre dynastic Egypt, meaning before the Old Kingdom even, you find burials that are a lot like what you find in the wrecks of the ancient near east in that period, in that people are basically buried in oval shaped pits. As you move through the pre dynastic period, burials start out being primarily in wicker baskets, then move to wooden coffins and then eventually move to sarcophagi. The difference between a sarcophagus and a coffin is that a sarcophagus is made of stone and a coffin is oftenly inserted inside of it, although sometimes just the body is inserted into it. But it is sort of a permanent fixture. And even in the pre dynastic period, there are extensive grave goods in Egypt. And so a lot of people, and there's a lot of evidence for this, that the earliest phase of Egyptian paganism was primarily a death cult. Not in the sense of going around taking people out, but it's the sense of being primarily concerned with funerary rights. And the, the rest of their ritual practice developed out of that. Mummification as such. Right. Began in 3600 BC, roughly. And obviously they developed the process and the practice over time, but all the way through. The purpose of mummification is to preserve the body. And essentially the way it worked though, again, they got better at it, is you remove all the soft tissues, like the organs and that kind of thing. You wrap the body with spices so that in the super hot, super dry Egyptian climate, the body sort of desiccates and the skin gets tanned like leather around the bones, essentially. And then later on they develop canopic jars where the organs and stuff were contained. And those are relatively more or less elaborate pyramids as tombs, because pyramids were tombs. Let me also say there's a bunch of bogus phony archaeologists out there who, now I found, who say that pyramids aren't tombs. And there's no evidence that pyramids were tombs because they're trying to say they're like Atlantean technology or something.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I mean, there's literally afterlife stuff painted on the walls. I mean.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, stuff like stargates. There's literally sarcophagi inside the pyramids. What are you talking about?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes, right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Like, that's not like, it's not even ambiguous they're tombs. But pyramid concern. The pyramids are much older than people think of them as being. So pyramid building with the early step pyramids starts in the Old Kingdom. And the last significant pyramid was built in the 16th century BC, like around 1550 BC. So that's like the Bronze Age. So they were done with the whole pyramid thing by the time you reach the Bronze Age. And so. Yes, that means Hebrew slaves are not building any pyramids, guys.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, they would have been pretty old probably by the time.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. They built no pyramids. Pyramids were already ancient by the time that Joseph would have showed up. Yeah. And so the pyramids then were for pharaohs. Surrounding them were Mastaba tombs for sort of their ranking officials. There were, as at Sumer, human sacrifices at the burials. Well, and it's not clear, it's not totally clear whether like in Sumer these were slaves owned by the people being buried, who were being killed and buried with them. That was the general assumption for a long time. But some people now argue that they were other people, like potentially like people captured in war and that kind of thing, who were killed at the burial to make them slaves in the afterlife to the king who had conquered them kind of idea. And both may be true in different cases. Right. Or even in the same case. So yay, fun with human sacrifices. Yeah. But so that was done. And so when we talk about like the New Kingdom, the New Kingdom burials are most of the ones that you've heard about and seen stuff from, because like the Valley of Kings where King Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered, and other major Egyptian tombs that were discovered intact and unrobbed, that's all from the New Kingdom. And during. So during the New Kingdom, those are essentially man made caves. They're sort of hollowed out of the rock in the valley. And then during that period, commoners were basically getting coffin burials, but pretty much everybody was getting embalmed. Pretty much everybody was getting mummified to some extent. Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I mean, Joseph was embalmed.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

How much. Yeah. How much procedure went into that. Right. Depended on who we're talking about.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That was happening to pretty Much to pretty much everybody. So panning out a little bit, talking about that ancient near east in general, and what we're really getting at here is, right, we talked about Mesopotamia, we talked about Egypt, so we're talking about the stuff in between the Levant, Syria, right up into Asia Minor. Among Semitic peoples, primarily burials throughout this period. So. Right. The Bronze Age and into the early Iron Age were primarily done under the floors of homes still. Right. For people living in cities, under the floors of homes, they're primarily burials done where the person was wrapped in a reed mat or in some cases, placed in a jar, a large clay jar. Both of those had the same purpose. It held the remains together right in one place. And people were buried with grave goods. If we're talking about nomadic groups, right, so groups that weren't in cities and so didn't have like a family home to bury somebody in the floor of. Right, right. Nomadic groups primarily used generational cave tombs. So they would have a cave where multiple generations of that extended family or nomadic people group would be buried. They would go to that place to bury their dead in that cave or cave system. We have an example of that in the Bible in Genesis. And that's the cave at Machpelah that Abraham buys to bury Sarah. And then Abraham is buried there. The other patriarchs are buried there. They're living nomadically right in the region. And so the patriarchs are buried there. And what's interesting about these caves, which would include Machvilla, but also others by nomadic groups, is that discovered in these have. Have been lamps, oil lamps. Right. So these are burials where it wasn't sort of sealed off permanently. The lamps imply that people were again coming back again and again and again. Right. That there was sort of a pilgrimage site element of it. The first hint we get of cremation in the ancient near east is actually in Assyria in the Assyrian Empire. While the majority of the Assyrian Empire was still doing burials, a few of the ethnic groups, the small ethnic minority groups under Assyrian rule, practice cremation. That's the first kind of organized cremation we get. Next, turning to the last ancient Near Eastern civilization, which is ancient Greece, we have, again, a lot more info about the burial process. So the basic pattern was in ancient Greece that there would be what we would call a viewing. So the body would be washed and then laid out in the home of the person who died. And then people would come to visit to see the body. And again, they would offer drink offerings, they'd offer libations. They would pour one out again, not Irish. And then. So then there would be a funeral procession from the home with the body to the place of burial, with mourners, like people singing dirges, lamentations. Right. That kind of thing. There would also. And the funeral procession in ancient, common ancient Greek practice was also a sacrificial procession. So if you go back to the episode where we talked about what Greek and Roman sacrifices looked like, we talked about how there was a procession to the place of sacrifice with the animals that were being sacrificed, where there'd be incense carried. Right. And the other things necessary for the sacrifice, because once they got to the burial site, sacrifices were going to be offered. And so those elements were also part of the funeral procession once they got to the usually burial site. We also see in certain regions of the Greek world a minority of them, but in a few, there's evidence of this procession going to a pyre for a cremation rather than to a burial site. And it's not clear in the. In the Greek case, some of those are in places where they would usually bury. So there's lots of theories about that. Right. Like whether they buried at one point and then cremated and then went back to burying or some other pattern like that, or if maybe the cremations were tied to particular time periods. So think about, like, oh, there's an outbreak of plague in the city, so we're going to burn all the bodies.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We don't know for sure. Right. But we know that there's this minority of cases in which everything else was the same. But instead of going to a burial place, they go to a pyre. Right. And burn the body. Not only would these burials in ancient Greece be with grave goods, but food and drink from the sacrificial feast that was happening at the burial site would be buried with the person. So this was sort of their last participation in the sacrificial ritual life of the community. There would then be, after the burial, ongoing offerings that we know from written texts were seen to. And we've talked about this before on the show, keep the person a lot, keep their shade sort of quote, unquote, alive in its shadowy existence in Hades.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Pouring out blood at the base of the grave. And that kind of.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, with these, with these, with your regular person, this was more drink offerings like wine.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That kind of stuff, which we're talking about heroes access to.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. If it's a hero, then they get blood.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Where the founder of a city, one of these major figures, then their burial site was literally attached to a temple, and the blood from the sacrificial offerings at the temple were poured into the grave to keep their memory alive in the underworld. But you can see by those offerings that here we have a pretty clear case by the time you're in ancient Greece that departed ancestors are being seen as semi divine spirits. There is an ongoing sacrificial interaction. They are the recipients of sacrifice. Right. So this isn't you. You're. You're transitioning here in ancient Greece, right, In. In this respect that. So previous grave goods and things, this is stuff you're sort of sending with the person into the afterlife, so they'll be successful or better off in the afterlife in some sense. But there's much less of a sense of an ongoing kind of relationship, Right. Which, particularly the case of heroes, you see here emerging in Greece. Right. So you get something that could be called more like ancestor worship. You also have, somewhat famously, in the case of ancient Greece, a particular grave. Good, right. Which is putting an obol, a coin, an obol under the tongue of the deceased person to pay Karen the ferryman to get them across the River Styx without them forgetting who they were and ceasing to exist. Right. So you see this memory and forgetting idea. The other thing you see here because of that is the other transition you start to see in ancient Greece, especially as you get into more philosophical paganism, is you start to see the beginning of a disconnect between the person and their quote, unquote, soul. Right. Their identity, them as it were, and the body, that the body itself is not the important thing, other than that site maybe being a point at which you can carry on this ongoing relationship. So then finally, in our brief pre Christian tour of the ancient Aries, we get to Rome. And as with most things, Roman culture, as it emerges in the republican period, has absorbed a lot of ancient Greek culture, but has its own peculiarities. So they kept the coin under the tongue. They still had the basic pattern of the body being displayed for mourners in the home, then a procession, Right. And then disposal of the body, shall we say. But we get some changes. So, for example, in the procession, in Roman funeral processions, the mourners who were part of the procession would wear masks of the ancestors of the family to which the person being buried belonged. So they were sort of embodying the spirits of the departed ancestors who were now welcoming the deceased person into their midst. And then, of course, the big thing is that with the Romans, cremation was the norm.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

From very early.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Why, like why do we know why there's this big shift that the Romans just really embrace? Lighting them, lighting everybody on fire.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, I think they have fully. They have fully metabolized the shift that was that we see going on over time in Greece. So you have to remember we're talking about the very early days of the Roman Republic. We're talking about around 500 BC.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

When we're talking about the early days of ancient Greece, we're talking about, you know, four, 500 years before that. Right. The Archaic Greek period. And so I think Rome had more metabolized that. So in Rome there's sort of this disconnect now between the body and the person's spirit. Right. The departed ancestors could be sort of re embodied by those in the procession. Right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You get kind of the full demonization of the dead. Right. With more of its original meaning.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And so the body is just disposed of essentially, and the ashes and whatever charred bone fragments remained were put into urns, often glass urns, in the case of row, see through maybe, which were then put into mausoleum niches. And also, interestingly. But it makes sense when you think about it a little because we've been talking about all these other previous cultures burying people like in the home or close to the home or in the cave at the door of the cave. Right. You're keeping the departed close. Rome. In Rome, the burials always took place outside the city or the interns of the urns were always outside the city.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So there's this.

[Caller Adam]

And.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Disposal.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, there's a little more of the disposal. And also you might be thinking you might be biased by the Old Testament. Right. And you're thinking like, oh, well, was it because the remains were unclean? No, it's actually the opposite. It's the opposite. Once the ashes were interred there, the mausoleum. Right. Because it was considered to have sort of the spirits of the ancestors swirling about it. Right. Was considered a sacred place. Remember, sacred and profane is holy and common. So the city is the place. Is the common place. Right. The home even is a common place, not a sacred space. And so to be sacred, they put it outside the city so that you would have to go out there. And that's where the processions headed. Right. The processions would head out of the city to the pyre and the place of internment. And then there is this massive wholesale shift. Guess what? It happens. Saint Constantine.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Wait, I was told that Saint Constantine ruined everything.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I know. And all of a sudden the Romans all start burying everyone.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. How about that? It's almost like it's a Christian culture or something.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Who knew? Who knew? I mean, everyone should know since he is literally the best documented Roman emperor in history. But that's the one we choose to make up the conspiracy theories about.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right. It's not like you could go read all that stuff or anything.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. It's not like you could literally read the text of every edict he ever gave.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, well, but see our St.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Constantine episode for more of that rant.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

On that true bombshell. We're gonna take our second break and we'll be right back on this episode of the Lord of Spirits podcast.

[Narrator]

Father Andrew Stephen Damick and father Stephen DeYoung will be back in a moment to take your calls on the next part of the Lord of Spirits. Give them a call at 855-237-2346. That's 855 AF radio.

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[Narrator]

We'Re back now with the Lord of Spirits with Father Andrew Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung. If you have a question, call now at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hey, welcome back, everybody. We're talking about burial on this episode of the Lord of Spirits podcast. And we've just taken you on a short trip through pre history and history. And now we're going to get to talk about actual, actual Christian burial here at the very final half of this episode.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We don't have any wonder. Why did we talk about all this Neanderthal and Homo sapiens stuff and all these things are cultures. Well, we got to fill episodes, people. I mean, Father Andrew doesn't want the show to end, but also we do. There is a point. But as usual, we'll get there at the very end of the episode.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Make you wait until then. Which I'm gonna try and put off as long as possible. I'm gonna try and foil Father Andrew's whole plan and just turn this into a four hour show. Now, since we're starting, you know, it's.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Gonna be really hard for us to break the. We used to hold the record multiple times over for ancient faith radio podcast length. And then Michael Haldis did as a guest on the Aman Sul podcast with Father Anthony Cook. They did. I swear, it's like a five and a half hour episode. That's not a challenge, Father. Not really.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Challenge accepted.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But it's crazy.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I still want to do our 24 hour thing, man.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

We need to do that. Stop you.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Where is where? If I have to do it alone, I'll be like Fonzie in the dance marathon. I'll just be doing the Cossack dance by the end of the 24 hours.

[Caller Adam]

Wow.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We could have a cycle of guest.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hosts post Jump the Shark.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Like you and I could start out and do like three hours and then we could just sub people in.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's a great idea. People in the chat sound off. Who do you think should show up.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

On a 24 hour. We could do this for some kind of charity thing, some kind of special thing.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

See if we can raise like, you know, ten tens of thousands of dollars in a day or something like that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. Do like 24 hours.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Wait till after I move.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Like I said, you can sub out, you can. You can tag out.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I was gonna say Simon and Mike are sitting there going, please.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No, they can tag out too. They can tag out too. I'll just wait till they fall asleep at the switch, you know, and then just say whatever I want. Right? Yeah, that'll be the real thing. Like 20 hours in, when I start getting punchy, imagine what I'll say then.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, someone says we need a Jerry Lewis style marathon. There we go.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, like the old telethon I used to watch.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I mean, well, my grandmother watched those.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And you were at her house sometimes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

What is going on? Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, yeah. They'd have the celebrities answering the phones, you know?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Oh, someone thinks that we should bring on Pastor Mike Landsman to co host this with you.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You'd be up for that?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No, each, each. Each of the person who subsid, they're also all gonna get roasted like the second.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, I mean, that's a foregone conclusion.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They come on the air. Yes, that's right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Which could be awkward depending, like, you know, all of a sudden, you throw Melinda at me in the morning or something, and I just start, oh, she.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Can hold her own, buddy.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You know my boss.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

She really can. Yes, she is. In fact, you know why she drinks no coffee? It is because she is naturally caffeinated. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. She is tough as nails. Yep, yep. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So challenge. Accept it.

[Caller Adam]

Oh.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, yeah. So true story.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

True story. The first time I met her husband, I just instinctively roasted him.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, he's a great guy, too. Father Martin. Yeah, he's the man.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I think he took it very well. It was literally like the first thing I ever said to him.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

He didn't know me at all, but. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, he's. Yeah. No, he's just a great, great guy. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Do you want to hear that story, by the way?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Sure, why not? We got a little extra time, obviously, since you want to stretch this episode to be five hours.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

We're. We're at the. We're at the Antiochian village, he and I, a bunch of other clergy, as one does. And one of our. One of our compeers was serving aric, which at the time he had not had before.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And so I came and got some. He's just learning about it, Right. I came and got some, and I always get mine straight up. Like, I don't add water. I don't add ice. Right. And so we had never met. I walk up next to him, just give it to me straight up. He's like, oh, why don't you add water? And I said, for the same reason I don't wear a dress. And that was how we met. Wow.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All right. Christian burial.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

He took it very well.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Like I said, oh, yeah, he's just a good dude. Yeah. Out there. And he's got St. Anthony's Church out there in Butler, Pennsylvania, Western Pennsylvania area.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Don't dox the man. Come on.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I mean, you know, you can look this up on the interwebs. I'm not telling you where he lives.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

See to it you don't.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Sir. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That might cost you your job.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes. Don't dox the boss's husband. That's always.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

A good basis.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You're kind of doxing the boss when you do that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, again, presumably. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So any calls?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No. People are either satisfied or they just have no idea, you know? Or they're.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It's just they're in such confusion from having just tuned in and being like, what's going. When did this show start?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

All those people over, like. Like right now, you know, In Chicago, it's 7pm and so some people are just now finally getting home when they left the office at five. So.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So that. So to the listeners who are feeling that that sense of disorientation you have right now is what Father Andrew is dealing with. That's why we're starting early. So, yes, here in the third half, we come to Christian practice. And as usual, by Christian, we mean Orthodox Christian. Yeah, sorry. Not sorry. Everything we're going to talk about in this section in terms of how these things are done goes back to the ancient church. This isn't like, none of this is loopy stuff.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Like, none of this is like something we came up with last week. Not that there's any of that in the Orthodox Church, but that's what justifies us saying that. So in Christian practice, one of the things that we inherited from Second Temple Jewish practice is holding vigil with the body of the deceased person.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And during that vigil, traditionally, the psalms are ready.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Unfortunately, a lot of. A lot of funerals these days, you don't see that. But I think especially with clergy funerals, there is a big effort to have people come and read psalms. I know some communities are really, really serious about this. So if you're in one of those parishes where they're really doing like a vigil over the body of people who die in your church with psalms and stuff, good for you. I mean, this is how it should be done.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. Yeah. And I did it. I did it for my dad, and I actually did it for a few people. I don't know if they even know where their families know. I did it for some of the folks in West Virginia, it's a powerful thing when I was up there. It is. Yeah, it is. Not only is it something to do as a community, but if you're a family member, it's a very powerful thing to do. Yeah. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And I mean, I remember it's not quite the same thing, but it's very similar. I remember when my mother was dying and she was in her last days where she was in hospice for a while, and then she came home, you know, and I had. I had already talked to her privately, kind of, you know, asked for forgiveness for every stupid thing I did when I was younger. And at one point, you know, there's not much more to be said. And honestly, also, like her, you know, she died of brain cancer. And so it was affecting her Ability to talk, thank God. You know, brain cancer doesn't hurt, doesn't physically hurt, but it does. You know, it limited her ability to express herself, but we still were able to communicate well. But it got to the point where it was starting to get less and less. And even though she wasn't gone yet, eventually I just went and sat with her and I read, like, I read the Gospel of John in particular when I was with her. And I don't know, there was just something about it that just really, just worked. Just really, really worked. And I know also, like, there's. There's, like. I know at the beginning of the funeral service, right. The psalm that is. There is actually like an exorcism psalm. And so I think, isn't it. Is this, you know, reading the Psalms or the body and the vigil before the actual funeral service property is. Is something like that going on here as well? There's a sense of, like, okay, here at the. This transition between this world and the next, dark powers kind of attack, you know, or are present or whatever. And there's certainly temptation, especially for those of us who are living. And so there's a sense that reading the psalms is.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Spiritual warfare.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Is that. What do you think? Is that. I know that. That psalm, certainly. That's at the beginning of the funeral service.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, no, yeah, that's another. That's an exorcism song. Y. Yeah, so. Yeah, yeah, there is that. There's a whole bunch of them. Because if you read the whole Psalter, you have psalms, several psalms like that. You have psalms that are expressing grief and despair that people are feeling right at that time and expressing it to God in a holy way.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I mean, the psalms got everything. I mean, you know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. It runs the gamut. Right. And so, yeah, and, you know, the Rabbinic Judaism has held onto a form of this tradition from Second Temple Judaism, too, and they call it sitting Shiva with the body. So. Yeah, but that. That comes from the common Second Temple tradition. So it is a good thing to do, and places will let you do it. Right. Even if it's not something that, like, your church regularly does, or if it's happening at a funeral home, like, if you ask, they will let you do it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, and the ideal is that. That, you know, when the time comes that the body is brought to the church and simply left there, and then you. So, you know, what better place to stand there and read the psalms and. Or sit there and read the psalms then in the church next to the body.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And so then traditionally, there's a traditional Orthodox burial shroud. Sometimes that's not used, but there is one. You can order one, right? You can get one. They're not super expensive.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No, they're not, actually. I mean, like, they're often just printed now. So, like. Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Traditionally, the body is facing the altar.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Because the person is still part of the worshiping community and is open. And a big part of the purpose of it being open is that traditionally, before the coffin or casket is closed, the body is venerated.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know, one of the things that I've seen which I thought was kind of cool and I was a little bit envious of, because it's not in our tradition. I was at a Ukrainian funeral and towards the end of the service, I was just thinking about this, because the shroud, toward the end of the service, the priest will take out this little sort of headband that gets put on the body. And as I recall, he said something like, receive your crown of glory. And I was like, oh, man, that's cool. And I've not seen it in India. I don't know if it exists in other traditions, other Orthodox traditions, but. Yeah, and it was printed like, it was printed with. I don't know, I think there was crosses and maybe. I don't know, there was probably writing on it as well. I didn't get a close, close look at it. But yeah, I mean, the way that you dress the body is really important, traditionally.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. And. Yeah, and the body is venerated because we are, of course, made in the image of God. So every person is an icon of Christ. And then, of course, we have the funeral service proper. We're not going to go through the whole Orthodox funeral service right now. I mean, we could, because we've got this extra hour.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Maybe we should do that at some point is actually go through all the parts of the funeral service. I think that would be a really interesting episode all on its own.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Like, I could do a whole episode just on St. John of Damascus's cannon.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

In the funeral service, like.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Easily. Oh, yeah, yeah. There is traditionally then a procession to the cemetery. Now in a lot of modern practice, that takes. Ends up taking on a different form. And then it gets kind of interrupted. There's like a procession out of the church to the car.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Then there's a car, everybody drives to the cemetery, and then there's a procession from the hearse to the grave site.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. The best is when you've got, you know, the cemetery is near the church, and you can simply go right there.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That's nice. You could do it the traditional way. But that doesn't happen a lot in modern life in a lot of the countries where people are listening to this right now. But if you have that advantage, great. Right. But there is singing of hymns, and which hymns differs a little bit depending on your tradition. But there is singing during that procession, and then the grave site is blessed. The burial happens.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And the person is buried facing east, I remember.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know, at our alma mater, of course, St. Tikon's has a grand Orthodox cemetery. And it's interesting that across the street from St. Tikon Cemetery. Is it East Canaan Bible Cemetery or something like that? It's really striking how at St. Tikon Cemetery, all the graves are, boom, facing east, and then right across the street, there's a whole bunch of different orientations.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. You know, was that pun intended?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No, it wasn't, actually.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Okay. No, it was not okay.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

This is why I need to go to bed earlier.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Father Stephen is. You know, my etymology is leaving me. Yes. You should be oriented toward the Orient. That's all I'm saying.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right. Yes. Decay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The east of the highest. Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

So.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And part of the blessing of the grave is that it would remain secure until the time of the bodily resurrection. Yeah. The. Now, there's exceptions to that. So, for example, Greek burial practice, people are exhumed, and then the bones are washed by the family with wine and put into ossuaries that are then put into mausoleums.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. It's. Because the space for burials is just not nowhere near much.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And I wish I knew the name of the show, but there was a. There was an NPR podcast a few years ago that's really interesting because they did a story. It's a woman telling her story, and she was this sort of mostly secular Greek woman who was technically Orthodox, but did spend a lot of time in church. But she got invited back to Greece to do that with her mother, with her mother's remains, and did it. Then she sort of talks about all the feelings and stuff involved and, like, the horror as an American at the idea of, you know, touching a mostly decomposed loved one. Right. Like, yeah. But then how that experience changed her view of herself and her family and her culture and her faith and all of that stuff. It's really good. Another story that I wish I remember the details of is one that my wife was telling me just this morning after she heard us talking about this episode. I don't think it was around here, but it's this sort of folktale, it might have been up in Minnesota of this Roman Catholic guy who died in this Lutheran area. And he had insisted in his last wish that he be buried in consecrated ground, but the Lutherans just buried him in a cemetery. And so apparently his vengeful ghost has come back to haunt the Lutherans.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Hey.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Like, ever since. In that area.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Take that.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. But anyway.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So then. Then after the. After the burial, there's a shared meal.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

With the community called the mercy meal, or maqueria. If you're in a Greek church, they call it the makaria.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I know how to do the Macarena. Oh, wait, no.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Wow. Could do the Macarena at the Macarena.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

It would be very out of place. But so. Oh, you know, there was a period of time where that was happening.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

I hope not. I would die instantly of cringe.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I just can't.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And something that's. That's an interesting variation is a clergy funeral. So Orthodox clergy funerals are a bit different.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, so part of this is. I will let you go, but. Yeah, part of this is. Is that a lot of the traditions that have fallen into a little bit of disuse in regular funerals are still done every single time with clergy.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, sure. Yes, yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So part of this is. This is a more antique form of the.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, that's true. But some is still particularly clergy, no matter what. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you for that. I'm gonna let you finish. Yeah. So clergy are buried in their vestments. And one of the things that's done, and this is actually something that most people never. We'll see. But I have done this a few times. So who vests the clergy? Well, it's not the funeral director. It's other clergy. So now funeral director may be there to help, because, frankly, a funeral director knows how to deal with a dead body in a way that your average priest probably not as experienced with. But. Yeah. So I've participated a number of times in the vesting of a deceased clergyman. And it is actually a really powerful, beautiful, amazing thing. Often one of the clergy will be there reading the Psalms. Another may be sensing the body. If there's enough clergy to do this with a sensor, and then the rest of us will, you know, vest him. And as you vest him, you read. Have you ever done this, Father? Have you ever done this for another clergyman?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I have not. I have not participated.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, yeah, well, of course, you're, like, out in the middle of the. You know, far fewer. Yeah, yeah. I'm in Pennsylvania. You know, we've got 250 Orthodox churches. So, yeah, I've done it three or four times, as I recall. And as each item of the vestments are put on him, then the prayer is said. That is said when, you know, normally, because as we put our vestments on, each piece has a prayer that goes with it. People, again, may not know that because most people are not around with us in the altar and we're putting our vestments on, but he's being vested. The prayers are being said on his behalf. And there is a custom. I don't. It's not always followed because sometimes it's just not practical. But there is a custom of getting buried in the vestments that you were ordained in. So kind of back to the beginning, and actually, I. When I saw that my ordination vestments were getting a little bit worn, I folded them up and put them away. And I'll bring them out once a while, maybe once or twice a year to wear them. But the idea basically is that I'm saving them, you know, for the end. Yeah, yeah. And then it's. There's some other interesting peculiarities depending on what rank the clergyman is. So obviously they're vested in their vestments, but if it's a deacon, then he has a censor put in his right hand and traditionally is buried with him in the coffin. And so, you know, practically speaking, what might be done is to take, like, an old censer, you know, one that's ready to be retired anyway, and, you know, and then send that off with him. But he may well have gotten a censer for his burial. That. That's definitely a possibility. Priests and bishops, the aer. So the. The cloth that is placed over the chalice and the discos, the big one, during the Divine Liturgy, traditionally that is placed on his face throughout the whole funeral service. Now, in many cases, they'll take it off. People like, oh, I want to see his face, whatever, But. But traditionally it is placed on his face and covered. And it's not because they're trying to hide his face. It's like, well, what. What other one thing is this cloth used for? It is to veil the bread and the wine that are about to become the body and blood of Christ. And so it is. It is veiling the face of the clergyman to show him honor, show him respect, to connect him to the Divine Liturgy in one final way. Right. But then also, priests and bishops will be given a gospel book to hold in their coffin. And again, sometimes it's an old gospel book that's ready to be retired, but many clergy will also buy one specifically for this purpose. And sometimes they're smaller, you know, than the big, the full size gospel that you'd see on an altar. But sometimes it's the same size. So again, it's to connect that. And then there's. There is a custom, and I think you were saying it's. It might be peculiarly Antiochian. I don't know. I don't know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah. I don't know if anybody else has it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. There is a custom that when the mother of a priest is buried, that one of his epitrakilia. So his, his priestly stole, like the, the kind of. The core investment that marks him out as a priest.

[Narrator]

That.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That is folded up and placed under her hands in the coffin with her as an indication that this is the mother of a priest. I. I've. I've. Yeah, I've. I've heard of it being done. I don't think I've actually seen it. Yes.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

This caused a brief fracas between myself and my mother.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, well, your mother is still living, of course.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah, she is, yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah. Mine is not. I didn't do it. I had heard of it, you know, I didn't do it with her. She, you know, she was not buried at an Orthodox church. So, yeah, I didn't do it with her. But I thought about it, you know, the thought definitely came to me when I was at our family.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No, my mother said she wanted this. And I, of course, being Dutch and stingy, was like, well, I'll. I said, I'll get one for you. And she's like, no, I want one you've used. And I said, that would break up one of my vestment sets. And those aren't cheap, you know, like being cheap. But this was resolved because my very first set of vestments when I was first ordained, a priest has gotten kind of old and worn and has been retired.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So the compromise is we'll use the stole from that set, say, because it's been used, but I don't have to worry about breaking up the set.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. One thing that's peculiar about bishops and priests is they actually kind of have two funeral services. So there's the funeral service that is done for sort of everybody, but then usually the night before, although sometimes I've heard of it being done the same day, same morning, whatever. There is a service called the funeral service of a priest, but it's not the end. But I don't know why in the books it says the funeral of a priest or whatever, but yeah, it's this other service that's done typically the night before. So yeah, marrying a priest or bishop is a multi day affair typically. And I know that like, particularly in the Slavic tradition, that I think the canon of Pascha is sung. I don't, we don't do that. But the canon of Pascha is sung as part of the funeral of a priest. And then one thing that's peculiar to bishops only, so everybody else, when their body is in the church, during the funeral service, the feet are facing to the altar. And so it's like they're in church, you know, attending church. Right. So that their face, if they sort of set up, they would be facing the altar. With a bishop, it's the other way he faces the people. And that's because of his place as the celebrant of the liturgy and the one that is bringing Christ to us, you know, as, as the, you know, par excellence, so to speak. So that's an interesting element in a bishop's funeral. So, yeah, it's, I don't know, I, I, it might sound weird to say this, but I love our funerals. They're very, very powerful experiences. And I've known people that their first experience with the Orthodox church was an Orthodox funeral. And seeing that, they're like, whoa, these people take death in the resurrection really seriously. I need to check this out. I need to see what's going on here because, I mean, we haven't gone over the actual text in the funeral. I think we should do an episode about this, but it's so explicit. It talks about death. I mean, it talks about worms, you know, eating the body and this kind of thing. So it really faces it head on. There's no celebration of life, you know, kind of thing going on there. No, no, no. It's about death.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, I'm going to add that in between when I go, there's going to be an extra service, right?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Like, oh, a celebration of life.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

No, at the local tavern, everybody's going to get drunk and tell funny stories about me and eat ham and cheese on a roll.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Well, wouldn't want it to be too expensive.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

After all, that's a Dutch funeral thing.

[Caller Adam]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

I'm telling you, anybody out there has been to a Dutch funeral, right? Ham and cheese on a roll.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Ham and cheese on a roll.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

When I was doing the Dutch Reformed pastor thing, right, I wasn't married and I was doing funerals and my fridge was just full of freezer bags full of ham and cheese on a roll because I got all the leftovers.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Wow. Wow.

[Caller Adam]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

But yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So when I kick off, Father Andrew. There you go. Okay, Julie got a couple of stories.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Julie noted. I mean, despite your claims about my descent into the underworld, you're probably going to go before me as we all.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You could malinger for who knows how long.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's true. That's true. There is someone who asked a question in the chat which I think is very, is quite salient. So someone asked, do you have to be embalmed for all of this? In other words, all of everything we just described to go on? And she says it feels like it would take a while. I don't want to be embalmed. I have a strange aversion to it. So the answer very briefly is no, it is not required to be embalmed. The only reason why embalming takes place is typically because there's days between death and the funeral these days. But even then, even then, frankly, there's refrigerators that most, you know, undertakers have. So it's not really necessary. And embalming, frankly, is cause a bunch of money. It's one of the reasons that people think that that burial is so much more expensive than cremation. That's not actually always true. Yeah, embalming is not required. I mean, different states have different requirements about all this kind of stuff, but I think most of them permit, you know, refrigeration, frankly, if there needs to be some time between death and the actual funeral, you know.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

But here's the, here's the thing. If you get embalmed, you can be very sure that you won't be buried alive.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That is true. Because you will not survive being embalmed. Yes, that's for sure.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You will not survive the embalming process.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right. Yeah, yeah, yes, absolutely. So, yeah, good question there in the chat. That comes from Brianne. So, Brianne, great, great question. That's, that's a good one to ask.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Oh, and by the way, update from my courier if you want to know more about the Roman Catholic guy haunting the Lutherans in Middle Way, West Virginia, that's where it is. Look up the legend of Wizard Clip.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's a great name.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, the legend of Wizard Clip.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's great. You know, the other thing I'll say about all of these funeral practices is there are now many Orthodox churches in the United States. I can't speak for other places, but there are many in the United States that have a burial Ministry. So people within the church have learned all of this, and they basically, in most respects, almost everything that could be done by a funeral home can actually be handled by a ministry of the church. And I have seen this done and wow. Is it so much better. Nothing against, you know, undertakers. I'm friends with one here. He's very, very good. In fact, he's orthodox, he's very good. But parishes that take this over, it's a really, a beautiful, wonderful, excellent, powerful, powerful thing to do. So, I mean, there is a book called. I think it's called A Christian Ending by Perdadick and Mark Barna. Is that right? Is that the one that kind of describes all of this, how to do it? I think that's what it's called. And yeah, people have used that as a kind of manual to learn how to do this ministry. So, I mean, if you're in your church and you're. And this, you know, you find this moving. You find like that you. You feel a desire to do this kind of ministry, look this up, you know, have a conversation with your priest about it, see what could be done. Obviously, local laws can sometimes govern what exactly is permitted to be done, you know, without being an actual funeral home. Yes, you're going to need somebody to dig the grave. You might need a backhoe for that or whatever. But, yes, there's so much that can be done. And honestly, also. Honestly, you can save people a bunch of money. And, you know, maybe some people in your parish, they have insurance policies that can cover big expenses for funerals, maybe. But there are also people in your parish that do not have that. And why would you be doing them? A beautiful, beautiful ministry, a beautiful blessing to take this up. So I just. I just. I just want to throw that out there and recommend that to people. I think it's a powerful thing to do. So, I mean, what did people do before there were funeral homes? You know, it turns out that actually this was. This was a community thing. So. Yep.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. So. Yeah. And in terms of Christian practice, that sort of doesn't end with the funeral.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The. In that we have memorial services, and traditionally those are done at the. On the third day, the ninth day, the 40th day, and then yearly. Right. Like annually honor around the date of the person's departure. And in particular Those on the 3rd, 9th and 40th day are related to Christian traditions regarding the entrance of the person into, well, life after death, not life after. Life after death.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yes, that's later.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

From our point of view, the connection of the soul to the body. Right. Of the person's life to the body. Chiefly that for 40 days. Well, first of all, traditionally Christians have believed that belief is based on experience, that the soul of the departed person remains connected to the world in a certain way, remains near in a certain way during that 40 day period. And that the third and ninth days relate to significant points on that journey that the soul is undertaking during that 40 days. We believe there is purification happening during those 40 days. No, we're not about to talk about toll houses.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Some people are getting really excited there.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, people are revving up, revving their engines. But needless to say, a very literal understanding of the toll houses and. Or something like purgatory and or probably other things is trying to literalize and systematize things, like way too much in terms of what Christianity is traditionally taught, but that is still a thing. And of course, at those memorials, probably the most prominent memorable hymn is when we sing Memory Eternal. And this is kind of an interesting inversion of the pagan Greek belief, cultural belief, where it was about the memory of the person being kept alive amongst humans to sort of keep them alive in the afterlife. Whereas we are talking about God remembering the person.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. That's what Memory Eternal is about.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Christ remembering the person when he comes into his kingdom. Yeah. Divine memory, which is much more stable and lasting than human memory. And then that is also celebrated with Koleva, which is a kind of boiled wheat, which is connected to our belief in the resurrection. And that's an important thing. And Father Andrew didn't, you know, specifically jump up and down on this, but he mentioned it throughout the discussion he just did. Of clergy funerals. Is that all of our funeral and memorial services are all deeply connected to the resurrection.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Oh, yeah, big time. Like, there's.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. The scripture readings, the hymns, which is why it's not like, very blunt, even about death, the reality of death, but also then always pointing to the resurrection.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Which is why, frankly, this whole celebration of life nonsense kind of suggests you don't really believe in the Resurrection. You know, it kind of does.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That's it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right. So, like, let's not dwell on this.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Let's, you know, like, say goodbye to so and so. It was nice knowing you.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Well. And, you know, the truth is, like, our whole kind of the funeral industry that we have is all designed to try to. I shouldn't say all designed. There's a lot about it, about the way that we deal with death and dying and stuff that's about, like. Well, let's Just keep it nice and clean and neat and out of the, you know, out of sight, out of mind, you know?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And I honestly, I think that's a lot of what. Why people do cremation is. It seems neat. Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, yeah, but it's. Yeah. I mean, our American version is very distorted. Right. People rarely even see or contact the person's body.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Sort of whisked away after they. They pass away.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yep.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

You know, the funeral's done. It's put the ground a lot of times. Closed casket the whole time. That's it, know. Yep. And that actually doesn't help people grieve.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No. No, it doesn't.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That enhances people's sense that that person is just gone.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

No. And. And some people, like, well, you know, they'll even have a sense. And I can always tell when people think this way because they're like, they don't want to bring kids to funerals, you know? Oh, well, they're. They're just kids. I'm like, yeah, they're kids. This is. We're all going to be there someday, you know, that's going to be every single one of us. I brought my kids to a bunch of funerals. Even people they didn't know, I should say. I. I brought them. My wife is the one who always made a point of bringing them. You know, while I was up doing the priesting, she made sure she got the kids to the funerals. And. And, you know, they're not these morbid, traumatized people. They understand what death is.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Well, this is. We have such a goofy view, right? I mean, let's be honest. For most of human history, okay, kids saw the bodies while they were still kids of not only their grandparents, if they got to know them at all, but their parents. We look at life expectancies. They were involved in it. They saw dead bodies.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

They saw dead bodies in their villages. They saw dead. I'm talking about human history now, right. Most of human history. Kids saw it all the time.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Okay.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Every generation was not traumatized until the current one. As an aside, no one needed the birds and bees talk because they lived on farms that had animals.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That did scar any kid's psyche. Right. They figured out how things work. Right. Like, there is this weird, right? I mean, certainly you want to protect children from being victimized, right. From having crimes committed against them. Right? Definitely. For sure. Obviously. Right. But I think sometimes there's this idea that they need to be protected from reality, like this sort of fantasy land needs to be created for them. To live in for some period of time and then have that all crushed. You know.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

The day that I told Santa Claus does not exist.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. Tooth fairy doesn't exist.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

And that's.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So basically, they reach a certain age and realize that their parents have been lying to them about all kinds of things. And what do you think that does with handing on your religious beliefs to your children? Right. How many kids decide that all that religion stuff was in the same bucket? There's all the other things you told them about the world that weren't true. Anyway, I'm a big reality fan. Not reality television because it's not real, but actual reality. Yeah. So now, since we're coming to the end of the episode, Father Andrew probably has paper clips or toothpicks or something holding his eyelids open right now, but the end of the episode. So now why. Why all this? Well, for one thing, think for a minute about the continuities that you see running through everything we just talked about. There's certainly discontinuities, Right. And you certainly see in Christian burial practices and memorial practices a fulfillment, a correction, a fullness. Right. Of the reality of life and death that is not as clear, is not as unambiguous in. In the other things. Right. In fact, there's some error and some idolatry and things that have snuck into a lot of those earlier things. Right. But still, look at the continuity. Look at throughout human history and way back into prehistory, as far back as we could go in prehistory. Right. Is that family in Kenya, potentially, possibly, supposedly, 84,000 years ago. Is what they were experiencing when they buried their child that different from a couple that has to bury a child today?

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And even the way that's reflected in the burial, there is. There is something about the truth which we see in its fullness, revealed in Christianity. There is something about that, that, lo and behold, is essential to human nature because we were made in the image of Christ. Right. This kind of basic understanding. Right. This basic understanding. Relatedly, as a corollary, I think if you. If you understand that continuity, you understand what we've been talking about tonight, and you can see that you will understand much better why the Orthodox Church forbids cremation.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

That practices of cremation are a rejection of that part of our humanity. That, that sort of human through line, of course, has its. Its basis in Christ.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Right.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And in the resurrection. Right. Now, those early Homo sapiens, those early Neanderthals, didn't know who Jesus of Nazareth was. They didn't know what a Nazareth was. They didn't know what a messiah was per se. Right. You know, and that he was going to rise from the dead. Right. Nonetheless, aren't those practices that they practiced with their departed loved ones grounded in a shadowy, vague, maybe even in places, erroneous understanding of Christ's resurrection? Yeah.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

You know, why. Why go to all that effort? Right. And obviously some, in some of these cases, some of these burial practices require way more effort than others. Like, building a Kurgan is a lot of effort, but it's still a lot of effort to like, dig out a hole in the limestone cave, you know. But either way, it's. It's not just, oh, this person's dead, you know, get rid of that body. There's a bunch of effort that's put into this. It's clearly. There's clearly ritual practices, there's focus on that person. And yeah, it's. It's one of the most deeply human things to do to bury someone, you know, And I mean, like cremation. I think a lot of people do not realize what cremation actually entails. You know, it's, you know, the human body is put basically inside a big oven and the bones get ground up, smashed into pieces. It's very violent to the human body. If there's any metal, you know, like, there's any prosthetic bits or whatever, they get tossed in like a big pile and then like recycled or something like that. It's very. Yeah, it's, it's. You know, some people have asked sometimes, like, well, you know, what about saints who are burned alive or whatever as part of their martyr? And I'm like, yeah, obviously the people who did that should not have done that, you know, and. And we don't. We don't. We. We still venerate those.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Burning people alive is bad, everyone.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Ye. Right. We still venerate those relics. But then to think that that's the right thing to do, you know, and again, I know that a lot of people do it because they've been told it's the cheapest option. Number one, that is not always true. And number two, I'm just going to repeat what I said earlier. I think parishes need to start these burial ministries. We've accepted that this is something we hire out for way too long. You know, if your parish does not have a burial ministry, think about starting one. You know, it can be done. And you'd be surprised at how many people would join you when you start to have conversations about it, how important it will be to Other people, like, okay, this is the thing that we do when one of our people dies. You know, I mean, there's a whole book in the Bible that's based around the importance of burying people, and that's Tobit.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. The reason for this is that. Yes, that was considered. Right. This is again, part of Second Temple Jewish tradition that we've received in the church. Caring for the dead is considered one of the greatest acts of love that you can do for a person.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. Especially because they can't do anything for you back.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes, yes. This is what, why Tobit is such a righteous man is that he goes and finds these people who have died or been killed. Right. Whose bodies have just been left, have just been abandoned, and he goes and he gives them a proper burial and in the process, as a Jewish man, makes himself unclean, but accepts that and goes through the process. Right. He's willing to give that up in order to help this person who could do nothing in return.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah. And this is the context for understanding. There's a point where when Christ calls someone to follow him and he says, I have to go bury my father, and he says, let the dead bury their dead. By no means is Jesus saying, don't bury the dead. It's. You're making excuse not to do what you've been called to do, buddy. That's what that's about. He's not upending the whole tradition, the whole commandments from God.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

The proof of that. The proof of that is the end of every gospel. Because who ends up getting praised at the end of every gospel? Yeah. Joseph of Arabathea and the myrrh bearing women.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Who did what? Who buried Christ.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And we're told repeatedly, we're told repeatedly by those gospels that they didn't know he was going to rise from the dead.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

That's right. So that it was just an act of love and even an act of risk on their part.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Yes. They risked their lives to bury this person. And how many people, including a bunch of the disciples, said, well, we thought he was going to be the Messiah, but I guess not, and went back to fishing.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It's these more marginal people.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. But they didn't. They risked their lives to, to go and bury Christ. That's why they're considered such great saints.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Right. So this is, this is a whole thing. And so these burial societies aren't just, oh, this is a nice thing for your church to do to help people. Because of our current economic realities, with the price of funerals in the United States or whatever. This is one of the most powerful ministries in terms of the path of salvation, the path that leads to sainthood. This is one of the most powerful ministries a layperson can get involved in.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Yeah, yeah, I. So I think, to summarize, like, to me, the takeaway from a lot of this I already mentioned. Yeah, I just want to double and triple down on that. But what is it?

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So it.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

It. It does something for the people doing it. Right. It's not only for the person who's dead. It's not even only for their family who. I mean, think about what that would be like. It comes time to bury your father, your mother, your husband, your wife, your child. And instead of. And. And God bless them, I honor what they do. But instead of bringing in a professional, it's your community that you pray with that comes together and picks them up and lays them out and clothes them and prays over them and digs their grave and lowers them into it. Think about that. Think about how powerful that would be for you. Now think about if you're one of the people doing that, you are having direct contact with the body of a Christian, of a dead. A dead Christian, departed Christian, and the reality of what the resurrection means becomes very tangible for you. Very tangible. And not only are you going to a funeral, but you are connected with it. You know, it's funny, a lot of times people say, well, when I come to church, you know, what, are we just supposed to stand there? Or whatever? Like, look, here's an opportunity. If you want to, you know, get your hands involved in something, here's an opportunity to do that. Like, really for real. And the last thing I'll say about how powerful this is, is as our 21st century continues on and life becomes more and more dematerialized, excarnated, virtualized, and people think that words on a screen are more real than anything else. This provides a haven for the souls that have been ground down by that reality. It provides a haven. It says, here is a place where we take you and all of your 3D nests very seriously. And this is what we do. So it's good for the departed, it's good for their family, it's good for those engaged in the ministry. And it is an evangelistic act. An evangelistic act. If our funerals are so evangelistic all on their own, think of how powerful it'll be. Someone sees, oh, this is the way that we're cared for in this community. I want that. I want that. Yeah, this is not a marginal thing. This is very, very powerful in so many ways. So many ways. So I'm grateful we did this episode.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

So, yeah, just briefly, because I can hear Father Andrew nodding off. I sort of can't get past our. Well, our. Frankly, our ancestor, because we're. If it's anything even remotely similar to 84,000 years ago, even if it's a tenth of that, even if it's less than a tenth of that, we're all biologically related to these folks, this couple who had to bury their toddler and put them in a grave with a pillow under their head and a blanket wrapped around them. And when they did that, when they treated the body of their child that way, they testified to the fact that love is more powerful than death. And I don't know how they could have intellectually known how that was true, because it was only really revealed how that was true millennia later, when Christ's love for us brought him to the most horrible death humans could devise and then out the other side in the resurrection. But that truth was, in a shadowy way, real to them nonetheless. And I think we as Christians need to take that truth seriously. And that's reflected in what Father Andrew's been talking about with the burial ministry. But that's also reflected in how we think about the people we've known and the people we've loved who have departed this life before us. Everything in our culture is aimed at, well, we need to quote, unquote, help you to quote, unquote, move on, to leave them behind. But if it's true that our love for them is more powerful than death, then not only is there no reason to leave them behind, why would you. One of the gifts of being a priest is that I have a sort of very real way to do this and that as I'm preparing for liturgy each time on the paten, I can remember those people before God by name. A subset of those people I get to do to celebrate memorial services for. But there are some of those people who I sort of carry with me all the time. I'm not talking about their memory, talking about them in Christ. They're still alive. Yes, I know. There's a bunch of these people who haven't been glorified as saints. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about. I'm writing triparia for them. And we're going to celebrate a liturgy for my dad. Right. That's not what I'm talking about. Right. But that also doesn't mean he has somehow ceased to exist or somehow gone from me in my life or any of the other people who are in that category. And I'm, you know, as I'm getting older, there's more and more people falling into that category, and that's just going to continue until I join them. A lot of that is realized in prayer, praying for the departed, praying with the departed, continuing that bond. But so I hope what people will walk away from this episode with is that fundamental truth that we see so clearly in Christ, that love is more powerful than death. And then actually put that into action in your life, in your awareness of the fact that the departed in Christ are not separated from us. They are not gone. We are not moving on from them, that they're continuing to accompany us through life in a different way. And that's a different way that in the Christian hope is going to lead to reunion. So that's what I have to say about that.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Amen. Amen. Well, that's our show for tonight, everyone. Thank you very much for listening. If you didn't happen to get through to us live to call on the phone, we'd still like to hear from you. You can email [e-mail] you can also send us a message at our Facebook page. You can leave a [e-mail] Lord of Spirits and if you have basic questions about Orthodox Christianity or you need help to find a parish to live this 3D life, go to OrthodoxIntro.org and join.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

Us for our live broadcasts on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month at 6pm Eastern, 3pm Pacific. Weird times. Shame is a prison as cruel as a grave Shame is a robber that he's come to take my name.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

If you're on Facebook, you can follow our page. You can also join our discussion group, leave ratings and reviews in all the places and share this show with a friend.

[Father Stephen DeYoung]

And finally, be sure to go to ancientfaith.com support and help make sure we, and like lots of other AFR podcasters, stay on the air. Ophir is a liar with a smooth and velvet tongue Ophir is a tyrant he's always telling me to run.

[Father Andrew Stephen Damick]

Thank you, good night and God bless you all.

[Narrator]

You've been listening to the Lord of Spirits with Orthodox Christian priests, Father Andrew, Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung, a listener supported presentation of Ancient Faith Radio. And I beheld and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders and the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and Blessing. Revelation, chapter 5, verses 11 through 12.