Suicides used to be denied Christian burial, and often were buried in the land outside the bounds of the formal Churchyard. Particularly egregious examples were buried in more secular locales such as crossroads.
The justification seems that to kill yourself, entails rejection of God's will. They are thus apostates, and depending on your theology, having a mortal sin on their books.
However, this was relaxed for those who committed suicide in a fit of insanity. A good example is in Hamlet, where Ophelia is given a Christian burial regardless - with one of the gravediggers of the opinion that had she been a commoner, she would have been denied one.
Nowadays I have never heard of suicides being denied Church services or burial.
The Anglican Church seems to have only allowed it in 2014 though and to my knowledge, I don't think Reformed Churches have such a rule either.
Was Canon law on this point ever altered for Catholics or Orthodoxy? What of other Churches? Or is it just because of the growing belief of depression as a clinical entity, that suicides are nowadays universally treated as signs of mental illness?
The justification seems that to kill yourself, entails rejection of God's will. They are thus apostates, and depending on your theology, having a mortal sin on their books.
However, this was relaxed for those who committed suicide in a fit of insanity. A good example is in Hamlet, where Ophelia is given a Christian burial regardless - with one of the gravediggers of the opinion that had she been a commoner, she would have been denied one.
Nowadays I have never heard of suicides being denied Church services or burial.
The Anglican Church seems to have only allowed it in 2014 though and to my knowledge, I don't think Reformed Churches have such a rule either.
Was Canon law on this point ever altered for Catholics or Orthodoxy? What of other Churches? Or is it just because of the growing belief of depression as a clinical entity, that suicides are nowadays universally treated as signs of mental illness?