Tapers are kept burning in the house for forty days. On the last of these a list of the ancestors of the deceased is read, and prayers are offered for their souls. These ceremonies are repeated at intervals during the space of three years, at the expiration of which the tomb is opened, and if the body is sufficiently decomposed, the bones are collected in a cloth, placed in a basket, dressed in fine raiment, adorned with flowers, and taken to church, where they are left for nine days. Every evening the relatives go to say prayers, and take boiled wheat to the church. If the person had been of some standing, twelve priests and a bishop perform mass. The bones are then put in a box, surmounted by a cross, and replaced in the tomb.
Should the body not be sufficiently decomposed at the end of the three years, it is supposed to be possessed, and for three years longer the same prayers and ceremonies are repeated.
The funeral ceremonies of the Bulgarians differ from those of the Greeks only in their preliminary usages. The religious service is very similar. The sacrament is administered to the dying person, and his last hours are cheered by the presence of relatives and friends.
After death he is laid upon a double mattress between sheets, and completely dressed in his gala costume, with new shoes and stockings. A pillow of home-spun is filled with handfuls of earth by all the persons present, and placed under the head.
A curious idea prevails that messages can be conveyed by the departing soul to other lost friends by means of flowers and candles, which are deposited on a plate placed on the breast of the corpse.
An hour after death a priest comes to read prayers for the dead, tapers are lighted, and dirges chanted until the following morning, when the clergy again arrive to accompany the body to its last resting-place. Mass is performed in the church, and when the procession reaches the grave a barrel of wine is opened, and boiled wheat, with loaves, are distributed to all present, who say Bogda prosti (“God have mercy on his soul”). The gay costume is taken off, and libations of oil and wine poured on the body; the shroud is drawn over the face, the coffin nailed down and lowered into the grave.
Returning to the house of mourning, the company wash their hands over the fire, and three days afterwards everything in the house is washed. The objects that cannot be washed are sprinkled with water and exposed to the air for three days, given to the poor, or sold.
The ceremonies of the kolyva are the same as among the Greeks, and the bones are disinterred at the end of three years, with the same observances.