Sunday, September 03, 2006

One wedding and a funeral

For the first time in my 36 years of living I attended a funeral and a wedding in the same day. I suppose it isn't such a bad thing - new hope for a young couple set against the solemn backdrop of death. It is the cycle of life, after all.

I have to say, though, that the funeral songs (or chants, or whatever you call them) in the Greek Orthodox Church are much more beautiful than those in the wedding ceremony, although the nuptials have a beauty of their own. Still, after attending four weddings (ok, so one of them was my own) and two funerals here in Greece, I do like the ethereal, gothic nature of the funeral better. I just don't like the sadness that goes with it.

(I couldn't find an example of the funeral chants online, but if you want to hear an example of a Greek Orthodox chant I like go here, under "Great and Holy Friday", and listen to 15th Antiphon, Plagal of the Second Tone, although it is in English and not as good as if it were in Greek)

2 comments:

Tim said...

Hmm . . . I don't think that's actually a common thing for most people, unless you have some sort of strange obsession or two jobs as a wedding coordinator by day and undertaker by night. :)

Anonymous said...

ZARDOZ SAYS :

"FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL,,

TIM THAT WAS HILARIOUS"

=Z=