​Love Is Stronger Than Death

Irina Chernova asks:

Is there any connection between spouses after their death?

Archpriest Vasily Kucher answers:

​This question is asked quite often. And almost always there is a certain anxiety behind it. Because it seems to a person that death has simply cut something away from them, and everything that was has remained in the past.

But let us recall what the Church says during the Sacrament of Marriage. The Church asks God to keep the spouses «in peace and unity of mind» and remembers the righteous, «that they may rejoice and be glad, as Rachel rejoiced». That is, marriage from the very beginning is not regarded as a kind of contract for the duration of earthly life. Moreover, when we commemorate the departed, we ask that they be granted rest where there is neither sickness, nor sorrow, nor sighing.

​Notice, we do not say «forget about them», but rather ask that they be granted rest — that is, to be kept alive before God. ​And there lies the answer. For before God «all are alive» (Luke 20:38). If husband and wife are alive before God, then so too is that which united them. Indeed, the Apostle Paul says directly: «love never fails» (1 Cor. 13:8). And yet everything else, as he writes in the same passage, will cease — knowledge, prophecies, and so on. But love remains.

However, something else must also be said. The Lord answered the Sadducees that in the resurrection people «neither marry nor are given in marriage» (Matt. 22:30). But this refers to that aspect of marriage which is bound to earthly life — to the body, to daily living, to the bearing of children. And that aspect does indeed come to an end. But this does not mean that the people themselves come to an end, nor does it mean that what they became — one flesh through decades of life together — ceases to exist.

​It is no accident that the Church entrusts the widow or widower with the most important task of all — prayer. ​And this is not a consolatory ritual. It is that very bond, only now it operates not through conversations over dinner, but through commemoration. And here it is important to understand that in commemorating the departed, a person is not merely remembering the past — they are continuing to care for them. And care for the departed is expressed in what matters most: offering a commemoration at the Proskomedia, praying, giving alms in their memory, and perhaps even forgiving someone whom they did not manage to forgive.

So the bond not only remains. It grows stronger and purer, because everything that used to irritate and hurt us in daily life falls away from it.

And I will say one more thing that many people probably feel. The longing that remains is itself a testimony to eternity. Because if there were nothing beyond the grave, there would be nothing to grieve for.

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