The priest told how to properly commemorate the dead on Radonitsa

The tradition of "feeding" the deceased on Radonitsa is a manifestation of paganism and has nothing to do with Christianity, moreover, it contradicts it. Vladislav Beregovoy, head of the missionary department of the Pesochenskaya diocese, told Izvestia about this. According to the priest, it is worth leaving food on the grave — eggs, cakes, sweets — only if homeless or needy people walk around the cemetery and collect them.

"Leaving food on graves is a form of charity for those who can take away some delicious, not expired, not spoiled food and pray for the repose of the person on whose grave he found these wonderful products," Beregovoy emphasized.

If a person knows that no one but dogs will take the food, it is "simply blasphemous" to leave the food, he stressed.

Radonitsa falls this year on April 21. According to the priest, the main thing a believer should do on this day is to visit the temple and pray, because from the point of view of the Orthodox faith, prayer is the only way to communicate with the deceased. You can also invite the priest to the cemetery to perform the liturgy. If this is not possible, it is allowed to read the Easter Hours, the Pascha Canon, or the same Litiya in the lay edition independently.

Read more about the holiday, its traditions and prohibitions in the Izvestia article:

Radonitsa is the day when souls hear the living: how to remember the dead at home and in the cemetery

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