Covid-19 may have brought the specter of death closer to millions of people around the world, but with a relatively low mortality rate – just over 600 at the time of writing – concerns in Greece have mainly focused on the plight of the living. Given the new economic crisis triggered by the pandemic, it`s unlikely that Greeks will have much leeway to rethink the issues of death or life after death anytime soon. “When people have to prioritize survival — how to pay the bills, eat and send their children to school — they can`t worry about cremation and the role of the church,” she says. “A society that has solved these fundamental problems can open discussions about these things, but a society that is still thinking about how to live cannot.” The change finally came in 2006, when a bill to legalize cremation was finally passed by Parliament. However, individual communities were still unwilling to host a crematorium. When councillors in a district east of Athens finally agreed to build a facility, a local bishop collected 3,000 signatures against the plan and there were calls to burn the mayor. Meanwhile, another mayor, Yiannis Boutaris of Thessaloniki, had taken up the issue and considered the issue a central issue of Greek democracy, a “fundamental freedom to dispose of one`s body.” In 2017, Alkiotis and his allies in the Syriza government managed to bypass the local government by legalizing private entities. Less than two years later, the country`s only crematorium was opened by private investors in Ritsona, a suburb of Athens. “They called me the Trojan horse,” Alkionis jokes, “because I used the human rights discourse as a vehicle.
By not talking about Orthodox Christianity, we have also achieved freedom for Orthodox Christians. It seems that a number of factors play a role here, but the most important seems to be the Greek Orthodox Church. The Greek Church considers cremation to be wrong in God`s eyes, and although it is quoted as saying, “The Church does not oppose and has no right to oppose the cremation of the dead for members of other religions or other Christian denominations,” Church of Greece spokesman Charis Konidaris said. “For the Orthodox people, however, he recommends burial as the only means of decomposing the deceased human body, in accordance with its long tradition,” he said. (Back in 2006). It was a cold winter in 2017 and Anna Vagena couldn`t bear the thought of her husband and partner of 44 years, the famous singer Lukianos Kilaidonis, alone under the freezing point. “We took him to the theatre for a day so people could say goodbye to him,” says Vagena, herself a famous actress and current Syriza MP. “The next day we went to Sofia – it was the only way. The employees of the crematorium spoke only Bulgarian and Vagena paid more than 3,000 euros for the entire company. It was a negative experience, she says, another cause of great difficulty and sadness. On her return, she asked parliament, then under the Syriza government of Alexis Tsipras, why Greeks were still forced to travel to Bulgaria to be cremated. “There was already a law allowing cremation in Greece, but no congregation had implemented it because it feared and still fears the Church.
No one had the courage,” she said. “I got a lot of calls from people who wanted to cremate and asked me how they could do it, saying they just didn`t have the money. Through my role in government, I was able to help make this opportunity a reality. Giving people the opportunity to decide what happens to their bodies after death seems to me to be a fundamental issue in a democratic society – just as people decide how they live, they should also choose how they die. “There was, of course, a backlash from the leaders of the conservative church, with a bishop from the Aigio district banishing Vagena from his parish.” I expected this kind of opposition,” she laughs. “God is a very personal matter in Greece.” It is also a very political issue. The Orthodox Church is closely linked to the Greek state, which is considered by many to be a representative of Greek identity and language during the Ottoman occupation. When Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis signed Greece`s accession to the European Economic Community in 1979, he welcomed the awareness of “Greece`s belonging to Europe, with which it shared a classical Greek and Christian heritage.” Modernity, it seems, did not mean an exit from religiosity, as the Greek constitution still identifies Orthodoxy as the country`s “dominant religion.” The law has allowed cremations in Greece since 2006, but only recently was a crematorium opened in Ritsona, about 80km north of Athens. Cremation in Greece costs about $1,662 ($665 goes to the crematorium, while the rest goes to the funeral home that organizes it). In Bulgaria, cremation services can cost up to $2,217, not including travel costs for mourners and transportation costs for the deceased.
Greece`s first and only crematorium is privately owned. Although public crematoria have been legal since 2006, no community has opened one due to lack of space and pressure from the Greek Orthodox Church, which prohibits cremation. (The vast majority of Greek citizens identify as Greek Orthodox, and the Church has considerable political influence.) Lack of space due to poor urban planning is another reason why public incinerators are not built. But as cemeteries fill up and the cost of traditional burials rises, cremation is the preferred option for a growing number of Greek citizens. However, there are no crematoria in Greece and cremation must take place in another country. For more information, please contact the Anglican Church in Greece. In 2006, the Greek parliament passed a law authorizing cremation, but to date, no one has been cremated. So you might think that they would nibble the coin to cause cremation. A traditional burial costs about $558 more than cremation, all costs included. This money can go a long way in Greece, a country that recently left the third and final international rescue program in August 2018, but still needs time to recover economically. In 2006, the conservative government of the day, with the support of the opposition Socialist Party, passed the law allowing cremation – after years of pressure from people like Mr Alakiotis, human rights groups and state ombudsmen.
Greece`s first crematorium belongs to Antonis Alakiotis, who performs cremation in Ritsona, a town outside the capital Athens. The facility is now an option for Greek Orthodox and non-Orthodox, as well as expats, from as far away as China, Germany or the UK, where cremation is more common. The agreement also came from Cyprus, the only country in the European Union where cremation is not available. Greece no longer has a funeral hall, but the Orthodox Church does not allow cremation. Is his motive purely spiritual? Opposition to cremation in Greece has come from several quarters, but mainly from the Greek Orthodox Church, which has argued that the human body is God`s creation and cannot be burned. It promotes the decomposition of the body by burial in accordance with its ancient traditions. “She thought about cremation because her health was worse, but she was worried because it is very expensive to go to Bulgaria to be cremated,” Kosmaidou said. Kozmaidou also estimated that cremation services in Bulgaria are below average. “The fact that I am in favor of cremation has nothing to do with my faith. I am a deeply religious person, but no priest can tell me what I am going to do with my body. His sales pitch came just weeks after the first crematorium in present-day Greece opened at the end of September, after decades of resistance from the country`s powerful Orthodox Church. Until then, Greece was the only country in continental Europe today that did not allow cremation.
Those who want to burn the remains of a loved one to ashes have had to travel to neighboring Bulgaria, an expensive and time-consuming process. This is the second in a series of blog posts about the unique burial and cremation customs around the world. To read the first entry on the customs of Tibet, visit phaneuf.net/blog/unique-burial-series-tibet-sky-burials. In the coming weeks, I will be blogging about the traditions of many countries and describing in detail their burial and cremation customs. Although at first glance some traditions seem a bit harsh and are very different from the customs of the United States, they generally follow the belief system of that culture and are conducted with reason and intentions. The Church has doubled its resistance. In a four-page leaflet from the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece, entitled “Cremation: A Dignified Solution or Raw Recycling?”, he lays out his arguments against cremation, describing how remains are reduced to dust, not just cremated, and the need to pay attention to bodies awaiting resurrection. “Human bodies are not garbage!” they say. Although cremation is now legal, burial remains the standard method of treating the deceased in Greece.
However, there is an interesting twist. Due to the lack of land, a family property with enough space for two graves can cost up to $200,000.