Monday, November 26, 2012

Priest Books Wedding and Funeral at Same Time; Apologizes for "Bride and Gloom" Ritual in Serbia

Serbian Orthodox priest Father Jefrem Ratkovic was forced to apologize, after he recently scheduled a wedding at the same time as a funeral in the central Serbian town of Ljig, the Austrian Times website reports exclusively today (November 26, 2012).

When bride Dragana Jovic, 23, arrived at the church dressed in white, she found dozens of mourners dressed in black together with a coffin containing the body of a local man, Nemanja Petrovic, 86.

Both the brightly-dressed wedding guests and the dark-clothed mourners had started to take their places in the church by the time the priest arrived.

After he realized that he had scheduled a wedding and a funeral at the same time, Father Ratkovic asked the mourners -- and their coffin -- to wait outside while he carried out the wedding, and then the funeral was allowed to go ahead. He told the local media, "Double bookings can happen in anything, the Church is no different. I have apologized though, and both sides were fine about it."

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