You will bring death upon your feet. " The priest answered, is it really necessary to wash shoes after the cemetery.
After a funeral or wake, some recommend washing your shoes with soap and rubbing them with salt, while others do not allow you to enter the door with shoes with cemetery soil. Pastor Stachy Kotlovin, speaking to AiF, explained that such superstitions have nothing to do with Christianity. These fears have pagan roots.
In Orthodox culture, a cemetery is not some scary territory. It is simply a place to bury bodies and remember the dead. And the tradition does not see touching the grave, the cemetery soil or the crosses of the deceased as something negative. On the contrary, Christians respect the relics of the saints, respect the icons and the cross, and this does not bring failure or misfortune.