A sin eater is a spiritual healer who absorbs the sins of the dying through a ritual, usually for a fee and a meal. The Roman Catholic Church excommunicated them as they violated priests’ territory. The sin eater saves the dying from hell and wandering as ghosts. The ritual involves consuming bread, salt, or beer, and sometimes special breads are baked. Similar customs exist in other cultures, such as Bavaria and the Balkan Peninsula. The custom is largely extinct today but is frequently mentioned in popular culture.
A sin eater is a traditional type of spiritual healer who uses a ritual to cleanse the dying of their sins. The sin eater absorbs the sins of the people he serves and usually works for a fee. Since sins are usually consumed through food and drink, the sin eater also gets a meal through the transaction. Sin eaters are often outcasts, as the job can be viewed as unpleasant and usually thought to lead to an afterlife in hell due to carrying the unabsolved sins of others. The Roman Catholic Church regularly excommunicated sin-eaters when they were more common, not only because of the excessive sins they carried, but also because they violated the territory of priests, who according to Church doctrine are supposed to administer the last rite to the dying. .
The sin eater saves the dying not only from hell, but also from wandering the earth as a ghost, thereby also performing a service for the living. In some traditions, sin eaters perform their work for the dying, while in others the ritual takes place at the funeral. The sin eater is usually associated with the British Isles, but there are similar customs in other cultures as well.
A sin eater typically consumes the bread as part of the ritual of taking on the dying person’s sins. He or she can also eat salt or drink water or beer. Sometimes special breads are baked for the sin-eating ritual, perhaps with initials or a picture of the deceased. The meal is sometimes passed over the dead or dying body or placed on his chest to symbolize his absorption of the person’s sins. The sin eater can also recite a special prayer.
Some cultures have similar customs to eating sin and may have evolved from more traditional forms of the ritual. Instead of an outcast, designated sin-eater serving a village, for example, the closest relatives of the deceased may perform the service, as was once the tradition in Bavaria and the Balkan Peninsula. In the Netherlands and parts of England, ritual baked goods were given to attendants or pallbearers at a funeral. The latter tradition survived for a while in New York. Today, the custom of the sin eater is largely extinct, although it is frequently mentioned in popular culture.
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