July 30, 2011
The Synod resolved:
1. Referring to the rule of Patriarch Timothy of Alexandria, to remind archpastors and pastors that with respect to persons who have taken their own lives in a state of psychological disturbance, a funeral can be served in absentia, if that person's mental illness can be verified by the appropriate medical witnesses.
2. To approve the "Rite of prayerful consolation for the relatives of those who have taken their own lives", and distribute it to the dioceses for use in parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church, instructing them that the rite can be read more than once—just as the pannikhida (requiem service) is served more than once—any time that a relative of a suicide might turn to the priest for consolation in his or her grief.
3. To determine that when a relative of a person who committed suicide asks a priest to commemorate that person, the priest can read the rite in his cell prayers (personal prayers at home, that is, not in church), using the words of St. Leo of Optina.
4. To publish in official media of the Russian Orthodox Church the "Rite of prayerful consolation for the relatives of those who have taken their own lives" along with the preface to it written by the Synodal liturgical commission.
The Russian version of this rite can be found on the official site of the Moscow Patriarchate. An English translation of the rite and attached preface has not yet been published.
