Like most traditions and practices in the Church, veiling the priest’s face in death is a solemn, ancient, mystical act deep-set with meaning; a meaning perhaps derived from a variety of mixed sources, but maintaining a unified theme.
As you may or may not know, in death a priests’ naked body is washed with sponges and rubbed all over with olive oil by his brother priests. The body is then clothed and vested in full priestly attire, using the normal vesting prayers – blessing and bringing each vestment to the lips of the deceased so that it may be “kissed” and venerated by the cleric just as he would have done during life.
Once the body is taken-up and positioned in the casket, a gospel book is placed in the left land of the priest and a blessing cross in his right. These two indispensable items of the Sacramental Priesthood are usually the exact same ones which were given to him by his bishop at ordination: symbols of the priestly calling to preach the Word of God without fail and to carry forth the message of salvation and hope found through the Cross of Christ.
The priest’s face is then covered with the aer – that large, rectangular, sacramental cloth which normally covers the chalice and the diskos as it rests upon the Holy Altar – so that the ornate brocade side is facing up.
One tradition claims this be done to recall how Moses’ face had to be veiled after his encounter with God on Mount Sinai; how his face shone so brightly after being in God’s presence that it needed to be shaded for others to even be near him (Exodus 34:29-35). Thus, it suggests the mystical grace afforded the priest through years of serving at God’s Holy Altar; being in His Divine presence.
Another tradition hypothesizes that this practice may have its origins in Jewish burial customs of the time, when bodies were anointed and wrapped in shrouds (in Greek: sindon), but faces would be covered with a separate cloth called a sudarion (Greek for “napkin”). This same veiling was apparently performed on Jesus after His death since the Gospel of John testifies to the fact that when Peter entered the tomb he saw “the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself” (John 20:6-7).
A more liturgical explanation correlates the parallel use of the aer between a priest’s ordination and his death. On the day of his ordination, the deacon who is to be elevated to the Holy Priesthood is made to walk in the procession during the Great Entrance with the aer draped over his head instead of upon his shoulder. In this way the candidate actually becomes one of the gifts offered during that particular Divine Liturgy. In death, therefore, the priests’ face is covered as he now offers his life in fulfillment to the service of those eternal Mysteries.
Along these same liturgical lines, Fr. Alexander Garklavs offered the following sage observation: “When the priest is serving alone, during the ‘little entrance’ he carries the Gospel at face level, so that the people see the Gospel Book instead of the priest’s face. Reading symbolism into this, it is as if the priest’s face/personality is inconsequential to the fact that his vocation is to proclaim and live the life of Christ. Seeing the priest’s face is not important, because he is to be the communicator and representation of Jesus Christ. Covering his face in the casket is thus to serve the same purpose, that is, his face/personality is not as important as what he did, which is preaching and teaching about Christ.”
Still yet another tradition offers this insightful, yet mystical theory: During liturgy, at the singing of the Creed, the priest “fans” the gifts with the aer, but does not look over the top of the veil. The connotation of this action symbolically attests that, here on earth, he has the faith to believe in those things which, after he dies, he will come to see as truth. Therefore, in death, the priest’s face is veiled so that the underside of the cloth (which before faced away from him) now touches his face, symbolizing that the priest is now able to see all that which previously he could only believe through faith. St. Paul perhaps even alludes to this when he writes, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully” (1st Cor. 13:12).
Although each explanation stems from slightly differing perspectives, which can be understood on multiple levels, they all seem to converge upon a point that attests to the veiling’s symbolic, metaphysical characteristic: sealing the deceased priest in his new reality as reward for fulfilling the high-calling to which he has been ordained by God.
