Morphine was the final solution (and I don't use that term lightly, but very deliberately) to an aggressive cancer which had metastacized into his bones and was extremely painful. Adavan and similar anti-agitation meds were of ineffective.
At that time I had not known the Orthodox petition "A Christian ending to our life, painless, blameless, and a good defense before the judgement seat of Christ".
Now I fully understand its importance, nay, necessity.
At the time of impending death,the priest says this or another similar prayer. I remember when my mother, of blessed memory, was on her death bed, she told me to “Go to the priest; tell him to say the prayers. He’ll know what you mean.” I did and he did.
“O Lord our God, who in thine ineffable wisdom hast created man, fashioning him out of the dust, and adorning him with comeliness and goodness, as an honourable and heavenly acquisition, to the exaltation and magnificence of thy glory and kingdom, that thou mightest bring him into this image and likeness; but forasmuch as he sinned against the command of thy statute, havi ng accepted the image but preserved it not, and because, also, evil shall not be eternal: Thou hast ordained remission unto the same, through thy love toward mankind; and that this destructible bond, which as the God of our fathers thou hadst sanctified by thy divine will, should be dissolved, and that his body should be dissolved from the elements of which it was fashioned, but that his soul should be translated to that place where it shall take up its abode until the final Resurrection. Therefore we pray unto thee, the Father who is from everlasting, and immortal, and unto thine Only-begotten Son, and unto thine all-holy Spirit, that thou wilt deliver thy servant from the body onto repose, entreating, also, forgiveness of thine ineffable goodness if he in any wise, whether of knowledge or in ignorance, hath offended thy goodness, or is under the ban of a priest, or hath embittered his parents, or hath broken a vow, or hath fallen into devilish imaginations and shameful sorceries, through the malice of the crafty demon: Yea, O Master, Lord our God, hearken unto me a sinner and thine unworthy servant in this hour, and deliver thy servant from this intolerable sickness which holdeth him in bitter impotency, and give him rest where the souls of the righteous dwell. For thou art the repose of our souls and of our bodies, and unto thee do we ascribe glory, to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.”