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You’re troubled because you don’t understand the meaning of the words you’ve heard so often and have said over the dead. You’ve done well to ask. The better we know our ancient and beautiful Orthodox faith, the more we love it. ‘Eternal memory’ means ‘May your memory be eternal for you’. I once heard a funeral address when someone said of the dead person: ‘May your memory be eternal on earth!’ I was taken aback by such an erroneous misinterpretation of our faith. How can anything be eternal on earth, when everyone’s hurrying on through, like guests at a wedding. Really, aren’t we wishing the dead absolutely nothing of value at all if we hope they’ll be remembered in this world which ...