Cremation in this country is a ‘small miracle’

It is simply a sunny greeting and the cremation halfway shines each white and austere under the conifer wood and among the vineyards of Ritsona, a town northbound of Athens. We are greeted astatine the entranceway by the president of the Greek Cremation Society, Antonis Alakiotis, the antheral who fought for 23 years against the hydra of ecclesiastical interests, fearful politicians, and the deliberate ineligible complications, to execute this hard step guardant – a milestone successful modern Greek history.

“It is simply a small occurrence that we person a crematorium successful Greece, such a blimpish country. It took a batch of time, effort, but it was done. And it has already been successful cognition for six years,” helium tells Kathimerini.

It was September 30, 2019, when the archetypal cremation successful Greece took spot successful this agleam space with its simple, astir dematerialized lines and the studied, elemental procedures that calm the turmoil of the soul. “It was of a woman from Crete. She was accompanied by her two middle-aged children, from whom she had persistently asked not to beryllium buried, but to beryllium cremated. ‘To beryllium honorable with you,’ her children told me, ‘if we had not recovered a clergyman successful Crete to work a prayer, we would person buried her. We did not want her to spell without a prayer,’” recalls Alakiotis.

“[Late Thessaloniki politician and winemaker] Yiannis Boutaris – with whom we had been friends and collaborated since 2006 for a crematorium astatine the Anastaseos Cemetery successful Pylaia, which did not hap – told maine the aforesaid happening when helium visited the Ritsona crematorium, two years earlier helium passed away. He told me, ‘I don’t want to spell without a prayer.’ When helium died, a clergyman work a ceremonial prayer. However, astatine the past farewell successful the courtyard of Thessaloniki City Hall, where the erstwhile president of the Republic, the premier minister, and the leaders of the parties were present, the metropolitan of Thessaloniki was not present. Wasn’t it unfair for Yiannis Boutaris, an influential governmental figure, a charismatic, beloved man, who helped his metropolis so much?” helium asks.

The euphony of pianist Philippos Kalyvas successful the cardinal ceremonial hallway softens the symptom of separation for the relatives, making the hard lawsuit much bearable. [Nikos Kokkalias]

There are priests and metropolitans passim Greece “who connection a ceremonial prayer, adjacent a ceremonial service, to the relatives of the dormant who chose cremation,” says Alakiotis, “but the Church successful wide maintains a punitive cognition toward them. Stephen Miller, the distinguished American archaeologist who promoted the archaeological ιστοσελίδα of Ancient Nemea utilizing tremendous resources helium brought from the US, wanted to beryllium cremated. In fact, helium came to Ritsona and chose an urn. When helium died and was cremated, a clergyman and idiosyncratic person from Nemea felt the request to connection a ceremonial supplication to the archaeologist’s ashes, which were placed successful the depository helium built. For this prayer, the clergyman faced disciplinary action.”

There are cases of relatives who support the cremation of celebrated relatives retired of the limelight, says Alakiotis. Or who, though they respect the wish of the deceased, bash not adjacent travel them to the crematorium. “No comparative oregon person accompanied the assemblage of a celebrated composer. We, the radical of the crematorium, sent him disconnected with his songs. But mostly it happens that the person’s wish to beryllium cremated is not adjacent realized, precisely due to the fact that there is this antagonistic spirit connected the portion of the Church and the relatives cannot find a clergyman to execute the ceremonial work oregon a prayer. Which, arsenic Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Dodoni has mentioned, is not offered to the deceased, due to the fact that they are not there, it is offered ‘for the comfortableness of relatives and friends.’ In different words, the Church punishes the relatives for the prime of the deceased. And while society is progressively affirmative astir cremation, and comments, tributes, and affirmative reviews connected the nett are increasing, we person cancellations of planned cremations each week. Burial customs are profoundly rooted successful people’s lives, but, connected the different hand, it is tragic when the choices of loved ones are not respected. Respect for the past wish is simply a motion of civilization.”

A soft is heard playing. Relatives participate the small and ample ceremonial halls to accidental goodbye to their deceased. Beside them, crematorium employees, women and men successful airy bluish suits and white shirts, facilitate and discreetly usher them. Other relatives and friends wait softly wrong oregon successful the outdoor refreshment area. About 1,500 radical walk done the cremation halfway each week, which carries retired astir 5,000 cremations a year, twice the fig of the archetypal years. But contempt the dense quality presence, bid prevails. It is arsenic if the light, cleanable space with the scattered sculptures has the powerfulness to enforce contemplation and soften the symptom of loss, to marque the hard goodbye much bearable.

“I anticipation that the Holy Synod will reconsider the contented and bash what the Patriarchate of Constantinople did. Most Greek-speaking Orthodox churches successful Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, the Orthodox churches of Russia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, etc, connection a ceremonial work arsenic an objection to the families of the deceased who chose cremation. What is it that differentiates the presumption of the Church of Greece from that of the Greek-speaking Orthodox churches abroad? It is simply a question that indispensable beryllium answered,” Alakiotis says.

In an interrogation fixed two years agone by Archbishop Ieronymos, the caput of the Greek Orthodox Church, successful Ta Nea newspaper, helium had said that the Church indispensable respect everyone’s wishes. And that cremation is “an unprecedented issue, which has not yet been discussed and studied, so it is not astatine each unlikely that astatine some constituent the Church will spot it successful a antithetic way.”

“I anticipation so,” says Alakiotis. Because “there is nary theological, dogmatic oregon anthropological contented that makes cremation unthinkable for the Church,” helium adds.

“Orthodox theology has ne'er taught that the Grace of God is constricted by carnal conditions oregon by the chemic creation of the body,” Archimandrite Neophytos Mandalos, clergyman of the Holy Chapel of Agia Kyriaki successful Attiko Alsos, precocious stated successful an sentiment piece.

“Is the Church’s invocation of tradition for burial hypocritical?” asks Alakiotis, noting the three years that the deceased is allowed to stay successful the world owed to overcrowding successful the cemeteries. “Is not something arsenic macabre arsenic exhumation a Christian tradition? Then, when the contiguous relatives who support the ossuaries die, the bones of their relatives extremity up successful the incinerators and turn to dust. What’s the quality [with cremation]?”

The columbarium is located successful a quiescent country of the white, austere complex, connected the backmost patio, among trees and sculptures. [Nikos Kokkalias]

However, reactions still look that support a mostly antagonistic cognition toward cremation, arsenic was evident from the reactions expressed by residents and the municipal authorities successful Aspropyrgos, West Attica, when it became known that Crem Services SA, the institution that manages the Ritsona crematorium, would make different unit person to Athens. The task received preapproval from the Aspropyrgos Municipality’s gathering section for the operation of a two-story gathering with a basement (deed fig 1196068/1.10.24) connected onshore it purchased successful the Kyrillos Hill area. But the preapproval was unanimously revoked astatine a municipal assembly gathering convened aft a missive from the area’s taste association, connected the grounds that the task would beryllium an biology load and too adjacent to a settlement. The municipal authority’s view was besides adopted by the Communist Party, whose members submitted a question to the ministers of the interior, situation and energy, requesting that different space beryllium recovered that meets each the requirements.

The crematorium successful Ritsona, with its state-of-the-art special filter instrumentality which has not caused the slightest biology interaction successful its six years of operation, has appealed against the revocation of the preapproval. As Crem Services SA claims, the country where the unit will beryllium located is not designated arsenic residential but arsenic a wholesale trade zone, where industries already operate, while the reasons enactment guardant by the municipality successful tribunal interest imperfections successful the crippled and not the beingness of a settlement. Could this absorption person to bash much with the thought of the crematorium and not with the licensing rules?