Andrey Anro

The realms of miracle, death, pain and suffering were always appealing to my grandmother Helena, so as soon as Smarhon got its own Happy Death Society, grandma joined it with gladness. Moreover, my grandma Helena being a devout Catholic would eagerly embrace all that the church had to offer, having sung daily in the church choir for the living. Then, when somebody died, her voice would also sound for the deceased. This lasted until she decided to lie down in bed to await a happy death.

It's like our old man with a candle, held it himself, kissed a cross, got a communion from a priest, and died a quick death in full sanity, a happy death, grandma Helena would explain after grandpa Juzik, who had been faithfully turning her body on the bed and rubbing it with pure alcohol, died. They often argued who would die first. Grandpa went ahead, while grandma kept awaiting her happy death still in bed. Death doesn't show up, but a dream does: Helena is in front of the enormous Gates of Heaven amongst other folk in a line up, gazing contentedly at the gates as she's drawn by wondrous gardens, but the voice says, "It's not the time yet".

It has been seven years. The bed became a place of lamentation and prayer. Lena's bones are burning as if with hellfire, same as the tortures of the damned in the pictures my grandmother was showing to me in my childhood as part of my religious upbringing.

Happy Death Society is based upon the devotion to Sorrowful Mother of God. This worship, which later spread throughout the Christian world, originated in Florence after the monastery "The Servants of the Most Holy Virgin Mary", and then the order, the Servites for short, were founded in 1240.

In the late XV century worship of Sorrow - full Mother of God is growing and gets the name of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows, which depicts all the miseries that Mary had endured during her life.

The name Happy Death Society is a "household epithet" from my maternal grandmother, while the official title of the association is The Bona Mors Confraternity, or Association of Our Lady, Patron of a Happy Death. Confraternity in its modern state was approved by Pope Pius X on July 22nd, 1908 with the headquarters in Tinchebray (fr. Tinchebray - according to one theory the name comes from latin tenebrae - darkness, gloom), France. Pontiff granted the association numerous indulgences and assigned it universal character, which led to its activity sweeping throughout the Catholic church.In 2004 the French headquarters of the Association moved from Tenchenbray to La Chapelle - Montligeon. The sanctu - ary of Notre Dame de Montligeon is also the world center for prayer for souls in Purgatory.

Since the 1980s, the Missionaries of the Holy Family in Poland become custodians of the Association, and it's polish official center opens in Górka Klasztorna.

From Poland via Catholic church the con - fraternity got to the territory of Western Belarus, thus in the early 2000 members of the Church of the Archangel Michael started joining the happy death association, my grandmother Alyantsevich Helena Adamauna (born 1937) being one of them.

Starting 1999 in Poland the masses are held for the living and dead members of the Association. Additionally, all holy masses held daily in November are for the dead members of the Association.