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About
“The Order of Sin Eaters” is a religious and philosophical doctrine which appeared in I-II centuries AD after the unification of Christian ideas of divine incarnation of God’s son into a man with Judaic Monotheism, Buddhism, Hinduism and pantheistical buildings of pagan religions. The Order’s doctrine is based on the following formulae: “Faith of knowledge”. “The Order of Sin Eaters” is different from other gnostic beliefs which orthodox theologians declared heresy in that it was never persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church and up to this day it remains a Christian religious trend in non-canonical rite form.

History
First mentions of the Rite date back to the early-middle of the IV century BC in the territory of Sumerian civilization – a historical region of Southern Mesopotamia (situated in southern part of modern Iraq). Parallel to this, trails of the similar Rite can be found in the territory of Ancient Egypt (a historical region and culture of significant civilization of the Ancient world situated in the north-eastern part of Africa along the lower Nile’s flow). The most probable time of the Rite’s formation is a pre-historic period as evidenced by the similarity in time of the Rite’s first mentions in different cultures of the so-called “cradle of civilization”. The moment when biological species Homo sapiens became aware of finiteness of life and inevitability of death. The arrival of “proto-writing” (pictography) led to the first mentions of human’s attempts to study life after death and ways to prepare for it.

From ideological point of view the Rite is kind of a big religious and philosophic trend which now has a modern name “Culture of Death”. There is also a close spiritual connection with such works as “Pyramid Texts” (Ancient Kingdom), “Coffin Texts” (Middle Kingdom), later “Book of Coming Forth by Day”, Indian Book of the Dead (conventional name of the 18th book of Atharvaveda containing mantras accompanying funeral rituals), “Bardo Thodol” and others.

The Rite
Sin is suffering!

“A sin eater is a person who has the capacity to sence, draw out and consume the suffering of others. A sin eater takes suffering upon himself hoping that the freed soul can find its way back to God. Historically a sin was carried over from the dead to the living through food, often through bread, salt and cheese lying on the chest of the deceased and then consumed by the sin eater.” «Sin Eater» Isaac DeLuca.

“… the spirit of the deceased is offered a part of all food, both solid and liquid, of each meal. These food is placed in a bowl in front of the corpse; and then, after the spirit of the deceased has extracted from the food thus offered the subtle invisible essences, the food is thrown away." «Bardo Thodol» Foreword by Lāma Anagarika Govinda.

The Rite of “Sin Eating” is performed on a dead or dying man. In some cases, for instance, if a man committed suicide or death occurred under unclear circumstances, the rite may take place whenever possible regardless of the time passed after the moment of death. Sin eating is different form exoteric absolution during funeral service in that the sins of the dead are transferred to the priests of the Order who perform the rite.

In different cultures we record different features of the eating rite. For instance, Aztek Goddess of fertility Tlazolteotl purified souls of the dying by eating all the “filth”; that’s what her name literally means “consuming filth” (sins). Thus Tlazolteotl cleansed the dead of their sins.

In Russia
In Russia, for example, in many distant regions since ancient times till now there is a custom to lay a pancake on a dead man’s face and then on commemoration day, they propose a priest to eat it so as to purify the dead from sin. Knowing this, some priests refuse to eat at a wake, especially that very pancake, because they don’t want to take responsibility for sins of the deceased. Another example is a widely spread Russian tradition to bring eggs and cakes on relatives’ graves at Easter. This custom has nothing to do with Christianity and originates from the ancient times and from the Rite we described above. Apparently, the food is brought so that the poor and homeless could eat it and thus to consume sins of the dead. Currently, the Order is restored in Russia

External Sources
1. Website http://ordpg.ru/

2. Sin Eater: A Ministry of Suffering by Isaac Deluca on books.google.com

3. The Weird but True History of Sin Eaters

4. Tlazolteotl: The Goddess of Filth