page_title: Funeral
section_title: Burial service
hierarchical_section_title: Funeral / Western funerals / North American funerals / Burial service
context_page_description: A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect the dead, from interment, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor. Customs vary between cultures and religious groups. Common secular motivations for funerals include mourning the deceased, celebrating their life, and offering support and sympathy to the bereaved; additionally, funerals may have religious aspects that are intended to help the soul of the deceased reach the afterlife, resurrection or reincarnation.
  The funeral usually includes a ritual through which the corpse receives a final disposition. Depending on culture and religion, these can involve either the destruction of the body or its preservation. Differing beliefs about cleanliness and the relationship between body and soul are reflected in funerary practices. A memorial service is a funerary ceremony that is performed without the remains of the deceased person.
context_section_description: At a religious burial service, conducted at the side of the grave, tomb, mausoleum or cremation, the body of the decedent is buried or cremated at the conclusion.
  Sometimes, the burial service will immediately follow the funeral, in which case a funeral procession travels from the site of the funeral to the burial site. In some other cases, the burial service is the funeral, in which case the procession might travel from the cemetery office to the grave site. Other times, the burial service takes place at a later time, when the final resting place is ready, if the death occurred in the middle of winter.
  If the decedent served in a branch of the Armed forces, military rites are often accorded at the burial service.
  In many religious traditions, pallbearers, usually males who are relatives or friends of the decedent, will carry the casket from the chapel (of a funeral home or church) to the hearse, and from the hearse to the site of the burial service. The pallbearers often sit in a special reserved section during the funeral.
  Most religions expect coffins to be kept closed during the burial ceremony. In Eastern Orthodox funerals, the coffins are reopened just before burial to allow mourners to look at the deceased one last time and give their final farewells. Greek funerals are an exception as the coffin is open during the whole procedure unless the state of the body does not allow it.
  Morticians may ensure that all jewelry, including wristwatch, that were displayed at the wake are in the casket before it is buried or entombed. Custom requires that everything goes into the ground; however this is not true for Jewish services. Jewish tradition stipulates that nothing of value is buried with the deceased.
  In the case of cremation such items are usually removed before the body goes into the furnace. Pacemakers are removed prior to cremation – if left in they could explode.
caption: John Everett Millais – The Vale of Rest
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