Burial traditions

[kenmd]

I know that Christians are always buried with their feet facing east. I believe this is done so that they will rise at the resurrection when Gabriel appears in the eastern sunrise and sounds his trumpet. Is this the correct reason? Also, could someone provide the Scripture reference for this practice?
thanks

 

[bpbasilphx]

Also, could someone provide the Scripture reference for this practice?

Scripture itself says nothing about burial postures, but Jesus Himself said His return would be like lightning “that flashes from the east to the west.”

 

[Leopard]

I know that Christians are always buried with their feet facing east. I believe this is done so that they will rise at the resurrection when Gabriel appears in the eastern sunrise and sounds his trumpet. Is this the correct reason? Also, could someone provide the Scripture reference for this practice?
thanks

It’s not true. Not always anyway. In our parish cemetery, burial formation is usually arranged such that all graves in the same row face the same direction, but different rows may face different directions. I think this is done so that persons on any of the cemetery’s roads are never facing the backside of adjacent grave rows. There are also some large family plots with a large monument in the center and individual graves arranged around this facing outward.

 

[Todd_Easton]

In the Catholic Encyclopedia’s article on “Christian Burial” it says:
[T]he medieval liturgists apparently know no exception to their rule that both before the altar and in the grave the feet of all Christians should be pointed to the East. This custom we find alluded to by Bishop Hildebert at the beginning of the twelfth century (P.L., CLXXI, 896), and its symbolism is discussed by Durandus. “A man ought so to be buried”, he says, “that while his head lies to the West his feet are turned to the East, for thus he prays as it were by his very position and suggests that he is ready to hasten from the West to the East” (Ration. Div. Off., VII, 35).

 

[Joe_Kelley]

I think this is an old practice. I hear a dying priest on EWTN one night. He commented that the fathful are buried with their feet to the east, but priests with their feet to the west so they will rise facing their flock. He commented that he would be buried between his mother and his aunt. He is sure that on Judgement day his mother will be poking him to turn around and face the action.