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From Metropolitan Isaiah of Denver:


Do you not know that you are
the temple of God and that
the Spirit of God dwells in you?
If anyone defiles the temple
of God, God will destroy him.
For the temple of God is holy,
which temple you are.
1 Corinthians 3:16, 17


Beloved in the Lord,

Lately I have been hearing of an increasing number of Orthodox Christians who
wish to be cremated after they die. Actually a few have already been cremated.
This is totally unchristian.

The Church has always taught that everything which God created is good. This
includes the material world, especially the human body.
It was the pre-Christian, pagan world which taught that the body is inferior to
the soul. The pagans looked upon the body as the prison of the soul, and once the
body died the sooner the soul was freed from its confinement. There are also
people whose religion teaches of the reincarnation of the body, considering the
body inferior to the soul.

If, in fact, the body were inferior to the soul then our Lord Jesus Christ would
never have come into the world as a human person. He would never have taken on
flesh in order to guide our lives to Him and to His coming Kingdom.
Unfortunately the perverse error that our bodies belong to us, and that we can
do whatever we want with them, has become a prevalent falsehood in our society.
This is reflected in the accepted policy of abortion, which says that a woman has
the right to do whatever she wishes with her body.
This concept is totally against the Christian faith. If this were true, then the
Apostle Paul would never have written:

... do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit Who is in
you, Whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were
bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which
are God's.
2 Corinthians 6:19, 20

If we are Baptized and Chrismated members of the Church, then we understand
that we do not belong to ourselves and we have no right to violate that which
belongs to God.

When a human body is cremated, it is radically violated. For after the process
of cremation, only the skull and the bones are left. These bones are then crushed
and pulverized in a machine to be given to the family. This is certainly the
violation of the body in a horrible manner. Consequently what the urn contains,
euphemistically called "cremains," are the pulverized bones.
I have recently been told that by a special process these bone remains are being
made into necklaces which women are beginning to wear. Is this not diabolic in
that Satan delights in seeing the human body truly obliterated as the temple of
God?

Because this growing practice is anti-Christian, Orthodox funerals are forbidden
in this Metropolis for those who are to be, or have been, cremated. As members of
the Greek Orthodox Church, we have the holy responsibility of honoring the
human body, and after death of burying it, so as to preserve the truth of the bodily
resurrection of the dead when our Lord Jesus Christ returns to establish the fullness
of His Kingdom.

With Paternal Blessings,
Metropolitan Isaiah of Denver
TO BE PRINTED IN ALL PARISH BULLETINS AND NEWS LETTERS

This is fine Alice - and I agree in principle with this - but add a caveat - where there is insufficient ground available for Cemeteries then there has to be an alternative.

I like my husband and my father, have a hatred of neglected graves - my father's is unmarked - in a cemetary away from where he lived , and is completely uncared for, since his second wife died and was buried elswhere.

As for ashes [ and cremains ] being used as Metr. Isaiah suggests - this suggests violation taking place somewhere - perhaps Theophan would care to comment .

Dear Anhelyna,

In Orthodox Greece where there is little land, a person is buried for three years. After three years time, the body (which is not embalmed) is exhumed with a memorial service, and the bones and skull which are left are placed in boxes and placed in ossuaries, just like we see in early Christianity.

I don't know about laws requiring embalming in most countries, but this could be an alternative which Christians like you and other Catholics could demand...thus, fulfilling all the same emotional and other reasons for cremation while still remaining true to the traditional Christian practices and views of burial.

Alice

Alice - I'm aware of that Greek practice - but cannot see it happening over here - it's a different mindset and I really think that most folk could not cope with it . This is possibly a cultural 'thing' if you like.

Yes, I understand because, when I was younger, my American sensibilities used to find this practice totally 'maccabre', and I felt the same way was when I first saw the relics of a saint, despite both of these being the norm throughout Europe for centuries.

On the same token, I also found cremation just as maccabre the first time I heard about it (and found out that my schoolmate's boyfriend had an urn in his dining room of the cremated remains of his mother--this was back in the 1970's and we both thought that was the most disgusting thing we had ever heard.)

So, it is funny how popular culture can make what was once unacceptable, acceptable... if you think about it! If our funeral people would make the above practice an option, I am certain that eventually it would catch on, just as cremation, a once unheard of practice in Christianity, has now caught on.)

Regards,
Alice

P.S. Anyway, I simply offered this for consideration and not to impose anything on anyone. My church doesn't allow it, and I am fine with it, but for those who are (now) allowed, Metropolitan Isaiah's encyclical and the Orthodox position is something to ponder and think about.

Interesting. That was the custom in the Tyrol, in Austria, too. I don't know if it is still done. I hope so.

This is a very good post. Thank you, Alice, for sharing this.

I once thought cremation was ok. Then I happened to drive by a crematorium. I got such a case of . . . creepy, disgusting shivers down my spine . . . that it changed my mind in a minute. Lord have mercy !

-- John

On the flip side of the coin, if they exume the body within 3 years and have another memorial, it sure does not help the family with closure issues.

Dear Stormshadow,

It is customary for the Orthodox to have memorial services for the three year anniversary of a loved one anyway.

Ideally, ofcourse, no one wants a body unearthed, but then again, no one should want a body burned either!

As for closure in the cases of unearthing, I cannot say for sure, but my father-in-law died two years ago, and we know that he will be unearthed next year. My husband does not seem to have a problem with this and nor do I. We have had closure...the Orthodox church is very smart in the *necessary memorial services which it dictates the faithful to have for their deceased. I can personally attest that they are very cathartic and therapeutic. There is no greater love for the deceased than for a Christian to have prayers said for their souls...no amount of flowers or visits to a grave can trump that. Our memories and earthly love rests in our hearts for them, and our prayers for their soul can be said anywhere.

In Greece, every cemetery has priests around so that whenever one does visit a grave or ossuary (sometimes people are not unearthed, if the family pays enough money for the lot to be had by them permanently--because, as I said, this is done for reasons of space) they can have a brief trisagion (ALL HOLY) prayer said for the soul. The saints and Fathers of the Church tell us that the soul finds great refreshment when prayer is said for it. It is a beautiful thing.

My priest in NY does an interesting thing. There is a section of our town's cemetery where there are alot of parishioners buried. So, every Memorial day he has a liturgy said at he cemetery on their behalf and those who want to remember them attend the liturgy there...

One great saint, I don't remember who it was (St. Seraphim of Sarov?) used to say: CHRIST IS RISEN whenever he passed by a graveyard.

In Christ,
Alice

*(Memorial services are generally held: 40th day, Sixth month, First year, Third year, Saturday of the Souls set aside throughout the Church Year, and whatever anniversary thereafter one wants it)

Interesting indeed.

Alice,
I think the important issue is that of respect for the body.
Cremation was in former days a denial of the resurrection and therefore was not allowed for a Christian. If today this is no longer the case, then it should be an option which families have. Personally I do not like the idea but would not be opposed to cremation.
Stephanos I

I assume without the blessing of the church. I can imagine no priest who would agree to this.

Christ is in our midst!! He is and always will be!!


OLS:

First of all, His Eminence is absolutely correct. The soft tissue is "evaporated" by the intense heat and flame. The remaining bones are pulverized so that they fit into an urn. It is a crude process and much bone fragment and bone dust is lost. So if we revere the bones of the saints by placing them in reliquaries, we should also revere the bones and remains of all those who are baptised (plunged) into Christ and anointed with the royal anointing of Chrismation.

His Eminence does not relate, however, the full range of bizarre (I must label this word my own humble opinion) options available. I had a request to send the cremains of one man's mother to a place where they press the carbon remaining under great pressure to produce a diamond. He wanted to wear his mother as a "pinky" ring. His siblings stopped that.

There is a place that will take your cremains, mix them with pottery grade clay, and return your loved one as a set of dishes. There are places that offer jewelry that can contain portions of the cremains. There are cremation gardens where they may be dug into the earth. People take them home to plant under rose bushes. I could go on but you get the picture of human ingenuity in this area.

When I did my student teaching in the early 1970s, one student of mine asked about an after-dinner ritual that had taken place the previous Sunday in his family. Grandma divided up Grandpa's cremains so everyone could take some home in a canning jar.



stormshadow:

This whole "closure" idea is something that has become a buzzword in the current literature. It originated, IMHO, by psychological professionals who have had little first-hand, up-close experience dealing with grieving people. It's a bit like an arms-length approach to the fact that some person has had their heart ripped out and feels utterly bereft of the ability to go on--at least temporarily. The real research shows that our Victorian ancestors had it right--and our Byzantine brethren have it right. It takes two or three years of life revolving around the familiar holidays, Holy Days, and other family events for people to patch their lvies back together. The fact that people seek "closure" is, IMHO, an attempt to provide some cover for the fact that all our relationships are becoming more isolated due to the fact that we use the internet, for example, instead of live contacts. We all tend to head home after our work and live our isolated lives without the civic involvement that marked past generations, including parish commitments. For those who grieve, there is never any "closure." We just learn to live with a hole in our hearts where the loved one used to be.

This idea, too, has helped lessen the praying for the dead that has been a part of Apostolic Christian Tradition from the beginning. After all, if we have "closure," that means we are finished with that person and having to maintain any further relationship. After all it's over.

________________________________________

The next thing on the horizon is a procedure whereby the body is immersed in a tank of solution that dissolves it. The bones are then processed and the liquid is neutralized so it can either be reused or safely flushed into the sanitary sewer system. Uses less fossil fuel--natural gas--than a retort. It's currently being done in Sweden but there are those who are trying to obtain a franchise to do it here and have the laws changed to allow it as an option. Some suggest that the solution can be made strong enough chemically to dissolve the bones, too. Then we've completed the job and can send all the whole liquid down the drain.

It seems to me that this is all part of a general cultural shift to "getting rid of" what is "in the way" or "holding up progress." Euthanasia of the elderly; abortion of the unborn; denial of health care to those who do not measure up to some measure of utility; getting rid of a dead body. That we have moved back to the pagan idea that the body is something to be "rid of" goes without saying. In fact, there are some Christian groups who actually teach that the body is a "shell" to be gotten rid of and not something to be treated to any respect, especially once the soul is gone on. I've witnessed this preached in funeral sermons. There is also a movement among those who claim that we hurt the environment when we embalm bodies and waste precious resources on earth burials.

There is a movement toward what are called "green burials" that might be parallel to what Alice describes in Greece. Though limited at present, it amounts to using biodegradable containers and burying the body in unmarked graves so that the elements will be absorbed into the soil. The skeleton will remain but be slowly dissolved, too, though over a much longer period of time. Personally, I don't see many families digging their own graves and using this method, but who is to say hwat hte future might bring.

The Catholic Church allowed the current change in her attitude toward cremation on the basis of the crowding issue and inculturation into some Asian societies. It caught on here in North America because many Catholics took the call of Vatican II to mean we should assimilate--become like the others in our culture. So much of traditional practice disappeared as we became more like everyone else--moving around and having no long-term roots in a community. Think about it. If you have no roots in a community, your children do not stay and will probably never return to live where they grew up, and your circle of friends shrinks as you age, why would you go to the "trouble" of maintaining all the traditions associated with Christian living, including burial? This is not to say I agree with any of this--just my own observation made after many years of watching and serving close to those losing loved ones. I've observed this trend and hear it far more often as the years go by. And I live in a very conservative area--one that has much less turnover than many more metropolitan areas. But I've also lived in those other areas and worked there, seeing much of what I write happening many years ago--long before it worked its way to us in rural central PA.

Just some thoughts,

BOB

The evolution of Christian burial is certainly truly cultural. Does anyone with these strong views against cremation really know what happens in the basements of funeral homes. These bodies come out pickled in cancer causing chemicals. Add in sealer caskets that do not allow gas to escape and you have bodies literally blowing up due to all that pressure. Talk about abuse of a body! Where is the out rage in that? I am sure early Christians would shudder at 21st century version of sanitized death. But we think nothing of it, to us it is the natural way to do things. But is it?
Also to be considered are those who die horrific deaths in fires, or drowning when the body is in the water for a very long time or any other method of death whereby the body is destroyed (can you say "vaporized in a nuclear attack?").
Let's face it, if left to nature every body will decay into total nothingness, even bones if given enough time.

The Orthodox Church is not totatly inflexible on this matter of cremation. Here is what I know from personal experience.

Greek Orthodox: During his 30 year tenure (1970 to 2003) as Archbishop of New Zealand Archbishop Dionysios (Psiahas) allowed cremation. No special reason was required. A full church funeral was provided. But no priest went to the crematorium with the body. There is a new Metropolitan for the last few years, I don't know his policy.

Serbian Orthodox: 18 years ago the Synod of bishops decided to allow cremation but each instance had to be approved by a bishop and a (quite steep) fee was payable to the Patriarchate. However, this was abandoned after less than 2 years and now cremations are generally not permitted again.

Russian Church Abroad: During the last decade the number of emigrants from Russia has increased enormously. This Diocese (Australia & New Zealand) allows cremation if the family wish the ashes to go back to Russia for burial. I do not know if this is permitted throughout the Russian Church Abroad.