Death candle
The death candle is part of the tradition of the Catholic Church . It burns in the bed of the dying, especially when the food is received . In addition to the baptismal candle , the communion candle and the bridal candle or their equivalents in the religious profession and the consecration of a virgin , it is one of the candles that accompany an important event in life.
Artistic depictions of the death candle are often associated with the death of Mary , the mother of God , for example on the St. Mary's altar by Conrad von Soest from 1420, where the apostle John hands the death candle to the mother of Jesus. In the vaulted ceiling of the church in Vrå , the soul of the man holding the death candle is initially hindered by a devil from an ascent to heaven, but the saving Archangel Michael - the central figure in the particular judgment with the weighing of souls - is already with his sword drawn to save her Job.
literature
- Leopold Kretzenbacher: death candle and palm branch ritual at the "Marientod". On the Apocrypha in words and pictures in the koimesis, dormitio, assumptio of the Mother of God between Byzantium and the medieval West. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences 1999 ISBN 978-3-7001-2846-5