Greece rebuffs Church over cremations

Wednesday, 1st October 2008.

12:40pmBy: George Conger.

Greece’s highest administrative court has turned back objections from the Orthodox Church and approved a 2006 law permitting cremation of the dead.

On Sept 26 the Council of State ratified the Greek parliament’s March 3, 2006, vote overturning the ban on cremation. The Church of Greece has historically objected to cremation, saying it violated Orthodox Christian beliefs.

Greek law had codified the Greek Orthodox ban into the nation’s civil law. Those who wished to be cremated had to be embalmed and their body shipped to neighbouring countries for cremation. Civil libertarians had argued the ban discriminated against the non-Orthodox minority, and also placed a burden on municipal cemeteries, which were running out of room to bury the dead.

Overcrowding has lead to laws requiring the mandatory exhumation of the dead three years after their burial to make room for new burials.

"The cremation of foreigners or Greeks, whose religious convictions allow the cremation after death, is allowed," the 2006 law said. Orthodox Christians may be cremated if the deceased had made a written declaration setting out his wishes. If the deceased’s intentions were not stated, the law allows his family to seek a permit from the government permitting cremation.

The Council of State also urged an amendment to the law, allowing for a civil prosecutor to arbitrate disputes within families over cremating the dead. Cremation rates vary significantly across Europe. Statistics compiled by the EU report that as of 2003, approximately 78 per cent of Swiss are cremated, while the rates for Bulgaria are 4 per cent, Ireland 7 per cent and Italy 8 per cent. The rate for the UK is 71 per cent.

After MPs passed the cremation bill in 2006, the Greek Orthodox Church said it “does not oppose and has no right to oppose the cremation of the dead for those of other religions or other Christian denominations," said spokesman Charis Konidaris.

"For the Orthodox people, though, it recommends burial as the only way for the decomposition of the deceased human body, according to its long traditions," he said.

The Greek Orthodox Church has traditionally advanced arguments of custom, Scripture and tradition in opposing cremation. In pre-Christian Greece the dead were burned upon funeral pyres and their ashes placed in bronze or clay urns. Christians should follow the example of Christ, the church argued, and not the pagan past and bury their dead.

Genesis 3:19 serves as a warrant to the Greek Church’s opposition to cremation: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." The New Testament speaks only of burial of the dead, the Old Testament takes a dim view of cremation and the Patristic Fathers reject cremation. Basil the Great’s rule 91 calls for burial of the dead.

In the last century, the Roman Catholic Church relaxed its opposition to cremation. The 1917 Code of Canon Law forbad cremation for Catholics (Rule 1203:2). However, in 1963 the Vatican relaxed this rule, saying it only applied in those circumstances where the act of cremation was done in opposition to Christian beliefs. The 1983 Code of Canon Law permits cremation (Rule 1176:3), but states the church’s preference for burial.

Parliament gave its formal sanction to cremation in 1902, with the backing of the Church of England, which argued there were no theological problems with cremation as no variation in the form of burial could affect the resurrection of the body. In 1910, however, the Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey insisted that Sir Joseph Hooker’s remains be cremated if he were to be interned there. All subsequent burials at the Abbey have been of cremated remains.

The opposition to cremation is not a matter of doctrine, but custom in the Greek Orthodox Church and has been waived on occasion. Following her death in 1977, opera star Maria Callas was cremated. Her funeral was held at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Paris and her ashes scattered in the Aegean, with church sanction.

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