Jimmy Grant, 78, who may have died as long ago as January, was farewelled during a Sunday Mass at Wellington’s Catholic cathedral on March 13.
His body was found at his Mulgrave St apartment, near Parliament, on March 2.
When his body was found, police also found a newspaper, a Bible and Mr Grant’s cat’s ashes in an urn.
The cathedral parish offered to have the funeral service at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, as Mr Grant lived in their area, even though it is thought that he did not attend Mass.
Funeral director Simon Manning said “ . . . [T]he priest in charge, Father James Lyons, said why don’t we combine it with Sunday Mass and try and engage their parish community with a little bit of reality about how people live and how they die.”