The church explained the consequences of refusing to wash shoes after visiting a cemeterytranslated

The Orthodox Church does not require that you wash your shoes after visiting a cemetery, and the idea that you can bring illnesses and misfortunes home with the soil from the graveyard is associated with popular superstitions. The cleric of the Church of the Deposition of the Robe in Leonovo, Priest Stakhy Kolotvin, spoke about this in a conversation with aif.ru. According to him, such fears have nothing to do with Christian doctrine.

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After a funeral or visiting graves, some people try to thoroughly clean their shoes, using not only water and soap, but also salt. There is a belief that cemetery soil can bring misfortune to a home. The clergyman explained the origin of such ideas by ancient pagan traditions, in which burial places were associated with dark forces.

“However, this fear has no ecclesiastical basis,” Kolotvin emphasized. In Orthodoxy, a cemetery is perceived as a place of burial and preservation of the memory of the dead, and not as a source of danger. Therefore, touching a grave, a tombstone cross or the ground is not considered spiritual desecration.

The priest recalled that in the Christian tradition there is veneration of the relics of saints, and...