Cremation in the Christian World

Columbarium niches built into the side of St. Joseph's Chapel Mausoleum at the Catholic Mount Olivet Cemetery, Key West (rural Dubuque), Iowa.

Today, cremation is an increasingly popular form of disposition of the deceased. This is true even in the Christian world, which for many years was opposed to cremation, but has come to a greater acceptance of cremation over the past century.

In Christian countries, cremation fell out of favour due to the Christian belief in the physical resurrection of the body, and as a mark of difference from the Iron Age European pre-Christian Pagan religions, which usually cremated their dead. It was even made a crime punishable with death by Charlemagne in 789 for this reason.^[1] Beginning in the Middle Ages, rationalists and classicists began to advocate cremation. In Medieval Europe, cremation was practised only on special occasions when there were many corpses to be disposed of simultaneously after a battle, after an epidemic or during famine, and there was an imminent danger of disease spread. Much later, Sir Henry Thompson, Surgeon to Queen Victoria, was the first to recommend the practice for health reasons after seeing the cremation apparatus of Professor Brunetti of Padua, Italy at the Vienna Exposition in 1873. In 1874, Thompson founded The Cremation Society of England. The society met opposition from the Church, which would not allow cremation on consecrated ground, and from the government, who believed the practice to be illegal.

Cremation was forced into British law when a Welsh doctor, William Price burned his infant son, named Jesus Christ, in a Pagan ritual shortly before 1883 in the historic town of Llantrisant. The doctor was a well known eccentric whose cremation ceremony was initially stopped by people coming home from church. The police returned the partially burnt body of his son on condition that it would neither be buried nor burned. Later that year, Dr. Price reneged on his promise and burned his son's remains. The townsfolk, unhappy with this sacrilege, went in an angry mob to burn out Dr. Price, but were turned back when they discovered only his wife armed with pistols. Dr. Price had already left the building. Dr. Price was arrested and tried in an 1884 court case which resulted in an amendment to legalize cremation in February of that year.

Due to this legal decision several companies pre-empted the legalisation of cremation and formed cremation companies in anticipation of a change in the law, knowing that Price had set a critical precedent. One of the first such companies was set up in Manchester in 1892, closely followed by Maryhill, Glasgow in 1895.

An Act of Parliament for the Regulation of burning of human remains, and to enable burial authorities to established crematoria, the "Cremation Act" was eventually passed in 1902, removing all ambiguity.

The Roman Catholic Church

Also see the Roman Catholic section of the main cremation article.

For most of its history, the Roman Catholic Church had a ban against cremation. It was seen as the most sacrilegious act towards Christians and God, not simply blaspheming, but physically declaring a disbelief in the resurrection of the body. In 1963, the Pope lifted the ban on cremation, and in 1966 allowed Catholic priests to officiate at cremation ceremonies. The Church still officially prefers the traditional interment of the deceased. Despite this preference, cremation is now permitted as long as it is not done to express a refusal to believe in the resurrection of the body. [1] Until 1997, Church regulations used to stipulate that cremation has to take place after a funeral service. Such funeral services are conducted in the same manner as traditional burials up to the point of committal, where the body is taken to the crematorium instead of being buried. A burial service is performed after the cremation is completed.

In 1997, the funeral rite was modified so that church funerals can take place when the body has already been cremated before the ashes are brought to the church. In such cases, the ashes are placed in an urn or another worthy vessel, brought into the church and placed on a stand near the Easter candle. During the church service, and during the committal rite, prayers that make reference to the body are modified. Any prayers that refer to the "Body" of the deceased are replaced with "Earthly Remains."

Since the lifting of the ban, even with the official preference for burial, the Church has become more and more open to the idea of cremation. Many Catholic cemeteries now provide columbarium niches for housing cremated remains as well as providing special sections for the burial of cremated remains. Columbarium niches have even been made a part of church buildings. The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, California has a number of niches in the crypt mausoleum. However, church officials still tend to discourage this practice because of concerns over what would happen to the niches if such a parish closes or decides to replace the current building.

The Church requires reverent disposition of the ashes which means that the ashes are to be buried or entombed in an appropriate container, such as an urn. The Church does not permit the scattering of ashes or keeping them at home, though some Catholics have done so despite the ban.

Traditionalist Catholics have objected to the practice of allowing cremation, which sedevacantists believe to be one of the many reasons why the post-Vatican II church is no longer the true Catholic Church.

Eastern Orthodox Church

The Eastern Orthodox Church forbids cremation. Exceptions are made for circumstances where it may not be avoided as in when civil authority demands it, during epidemics or other similar necessary cases. When a cremation is willfully chosen for no good cause by the one who is deceased, he or she is not permitted a funeral in the church and may also be permanently excluded from liturgical prayers for the departed. In Orthodoxy, cremation is a rejection of the dogma of the general resurrection, and as such is viewed harshly.

Protestant Churches

The Protestant Churches approved cremation earlier than the Catholic Church with the rationale being "God can resurrect a bowl of ashes just as conveniently as He can resurrect a bowl of dust.^{[citation needed]}" The development of modern crematoriums also helped to differentiate Christian cremations from Pagan rites of burning the body on pyre. The first crematorium in Stockholm, Sweden was built 1874; in Finland, the Helsinki Lutheran Parish Union built its first modern crematorium in 1926 which is still in use. Nowadays in Lutheran Scandinavia, approximately 50 to 70 percent of the dead are cremated, and in large towns up to 90 percent.

In Scandinavian Lutheran doctrine, the ashes are to be dealt with the same dignity as any earthly remains. They are either to be interred in an urn or sprinkled on consecrated ground, "dust returning to dust," and not stored at home or disposed of in an undignified way. Most large parishes do have crematoriums as part of their chapels, and urns are buried in the cemetery in the usual manner, or sprinkled on special consecrated grounds. Some seashore parishes also have consecrated sea areas where the ashes can be scattered.

The rise in popularity of cremation has resulted in the resurgence of the old Lutheran tradition of family graves in Scandinavia. As urns require less space than caskets, the family grave in the cemetery can now contain the earthly remains of the family members in many generations.

Cremation has become accepted in the American Episcopal Church, so much so that many parishes have built columbaria into their churches, chapels and gardens.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism)

Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) have said that cremation is "not encouraged"; however the church provides instructions for properly dressing the deceased prior to cremation.^[2] In the past, Apostle Bruce R. McConkie^[3] wrote that "only under the most extraordinary and unusual circumstances" would cremation be consistent with LDS teachings.

See also

• Dr. William Price the eccentric Welsh physician whose prosecution in 1884 confirmed the legality of cremation in England and Wales.
• Jeanette Pickersgill the first person officially cremated in the United Kingdom (in 1885)

References

1. ^ Bregman, Lucy (2010). Religion, death, and dying, volume 3. ABC-CLIO. p. 13. ISBN 0313351732, 9780313351730. "Cremation had been banned officially by Emperor Charlemagne in 789 as a capital offense and was generally perceived as a pagan practice antithetical to Christianity." 
2. ^ Church Handbook of Instructions, Book 1 (2006). The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, pp 81,183-84.
3. ^ McConkie, Bruce R. Mormon Doctrine, A Compendium of the Gospel, 1958