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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Against Cremation
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
I think I should stop short of questioning your sanity, TubaMirum, but the genuine veneration of the relics of the Saints is, well, veneration (usually involving the careful and elaborate housing of them in precious reliquaries, keeping them safe, offering them for the veneration (by kissing) of the faithful, praying before the shrines containing them, etc.) - and as such, it seems pretty respectful to me.
Of course, jumping on the bodies and ripping them apart in a tussle with others for the bits is not very respectful in itself, so of course the Church does not (and where it appears to have done, should not) condone that. But I should have thought that that abuse is perfectly conceptually seperable from the pious and holy veneration of such relics. In fact, I should think any neutral observer could make that distiction quite clearly, and I can't imagine any relicodule (don't bother looking it up - I've just made it up) defending such greedy violence.
Sorry, Chesterbelloc - I think we'll have to agree-to-disagree on this one. I honestly think this is about the most disrespectful thing I can imagine - particularly the idea of chopping up the bones to spread 'em around. Give the dead a decent [burial/cremation] and let them rest in peace. That's our request to God at the time of interment, anyway; one wonders why the people making it can't honor it themselves.
What's particularly amazing to me is to watch Gregory rail on "Against Cremation" - and then blithely defend this practice. I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose.
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Ena
Shipmate
# 11545
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Posted
Yes, I agree with Gwai.
Father Gregory, does there seem a great difference to you between burying ashes and scattering them? Because it appears to me that burying ashes is merely speeding up the natural process of decay. What is wrong with that? It seems no less respectful than burying.
(I suppose that by that logic, preservation would be the most respectful, but clearly that's not practical on a large scale.)
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"Flying through rock is next week's lesson, Fletch" (Jonathan Livingston Seagull)
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Dear Ruth
quote:
Assuming that I'm getting all this business of requirements right, the Orthodox requirements of burial, of incense, of icons all seem to me like fossilizations of practices that were, in a time and culture that is now gone, ...
You have very clearly understood our position Ruth but this comment and everything that follows I reject.
The iconoclasm of the Reformation is a challenge in need of justification ... not the other way round if one takes the Vincentian canon seriously.
"Fossilisation" is a prejudicial piece of rhetoric that comes nowhere near theologising ... and, to my mind, undermines everything else you say after that.
I'm not defending iconoclasm -- if you want to start a thread on the evils of that, I'd be interested. You've employed very emotional rhetoric about cremation and other burial practices used by people who post on these boards, so you really can't justifiably complain about my fossilization metaphor.
I'm just trying to understand why this particular burial practice is the only one acceptable according to Orthodox theology, the only way of disposing of a dead body that can express Orthodox theology. You have not addressed the question of how your theology (and mine, I remind you) can be intrinsically tied up in a particular burial practice; as I said before, meaning just doesn't work this way. Meaning is carried in cultural practices because we say it is; cultural practices may lose their meaning while other cultural practices take on that meaning.
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Sorry, Chesterbelloc - I think we'll have to agree-to-disagree on this one. I honestly think this is about the most disrespectful thing I can imagine - particularly the idea of chopping up the bones to spread 'em around. Give the dead a decent [burial/cremation] and let them rest in peace. That's our request to God at the time of interment, anyway; one wonders why the people making it can't honor it themselves.
OK, but let's be sure we're doing so about the same thing. I'm talking about the veneration of body parts (and the personal effects, don't let's forget) of those whom the Church holds have already attained the beatific vision in Heaven - which is why their prayers are so much sought after, their being so much more freed from sinful shackles, and all that. They are with God now and forever. These folks are not "resting in peace" - they are fully alive and with their God.
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
What's particularly amazing to me is to watch Gregory rail on "Against Cremation" - and then blithely defend this practice. I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose.
I don't entirely agree with Fr Gregory about the general badness of cremation, but that sounds a bit personal - what do you mean by that?
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Sorry, Chesterbelloc - I think we'll have to agree-to-disagree on this one. I honestly think this is about the most disrespectful thing I can imagine - particularly the idea of chopping up the bones to spread 'em around. Give the dead a decent [burial/cremation] and let them rest in peace. That's our request to God at the time of interment, anyway; one wonders why the people making it can't honor it themselves.
OK, but let's be sure we're doing so about the same thing. I'm talking about the veneration of body parts (and the personal effects, don't let's forget) of those whom the Church holds have already attained the beatific vision in Heaven - which is why their prayers are so much sought after, their being so much more freed from sinful shackles, and all that. They are with God now and forever. These folks are not "resting in peace" - they are fully alive and with their God
I actually find it quite difficult to understand why anybody doesn't find the dismemberment of bodies - particularly the bodies of people who are held in esteem - to be offensive, chesterbelloc. I don't think the details matter at all; IMO it's inherently disrespectful for the living to dig up and dismember the dead simply in order to indulge their own desires.
Further, I think it presumes quite a lot to imagine that the people favored by the Church are now "fully alive with their God." How can anybody possibly know this?
The idea, I thought anyway, was that the dead rest till the last day, when they are bodily resurrected. In that case, how can this practice possibly be defended while at the same time cremation is condemned?
I can't understand this as anything except pure selfishness, myself. (And actually, that's about the nicest way I can possibly think to put it.)
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Dear Ruth
I am an overtly emotional person Ruth and I take the view that rhetoric is a much maligned art (to be distinguished from polemic and even that has its occasional uses).
Anyway ... to your question ...
quote:
You have not addressed the question of how your theology (and mine, I remind you) can be intrinsically tied up in a particular burial practice; as I said before, meaning just doesn't work this way. Meaning is carried in cultural practices because we say it is; cultural practices may lose their meaning while other cultural practices take on that meaning.
This analysis is based on a constructivist epistemology which, of course, since Kant has been in vogue in western culture. The idea basically is that meaning is always imparted and rarely if ever derived. It is a reaction of course against medieval essentialism which, for all its weaknessess had merit in providing a language of universal archetypes. Nominalism helped to erode that as well of course. These philiosophical trends in western thinking have now hardened into ideological givens. Anyone who challenges the constructivist hermeneutic is considered to have left his senses and humanity behind in favour of a static straight jacket of metaphysical and symbolical thinking. So, the swastika can both be a symbol of evil (Nazism) and spiritual maturity (Hinduism). It has no inherent meaning. Its only meaning is that we impart to it.
Surprisingly perhaps I am going to agree whole-heartedly with this constructivist interpretation of symbols and symbolic actions ... but only up to this point. The constructivist epistemology breaks down at the intrusion of the historical dimension which is not simply the legacy bequeathed to us from former times but a permanent and essentialist change in how the symbolic action imparts meaning rather than has meaning imparted to it.
So, bread and wine are now forever the antitypes before consecratioon of the Body and Blood of Christ. It matters not a jot what we may try and do to deconstruct that. The imbued quality of the element has essentially changed and permanently BUT ONLY IN A CHRISTIAN CONTEXT.
So, it is for a Christian who believes that Christ's 3 day burial sanctified the tomb as a portal of his resurrection that burial and not cremation becomes mandatory. The historical divine interventional changes archetypes into "real things." It is, essentialy, a sacramentalist approach. We should not be surprised, therefore, that constructivism has found a happier home in the Protestant rather than other Christian traditions.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
TubaMirum
As any reply I could make to your last would take this thread way into the side tracks, I think here is where we could usefully agree to differ.
CB
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
Fr Gregory: Thanks very much -- that furthers my understanding of your position a great deal. A lot to chew on there ... I'll have to munch for a while before I respond.
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Autenrieth Road
Shipmate
# 10509
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
So, it is for a Christian who believes that Christ's 3 day burial sanctified the tomb as a portal of his resurrection that burial and not cremation becomes mandatory. The historical divine interventional changes archetypes into "real things." It is, essentialy, a sacramentalist approach.
Father Gregory, this is the first you have mentioned on this thread that it is Christ's burial that requires burial and excludes cremation. Why is that?
This seems like an essential reason about the Orthodox position about burial, and yet it only comes up this late in the discussion.
quote:
We should not be surprised, therefore, that constructivism has found a happier home in the Protestant rather than other Christian traditions.
Are there other similarly sacramentalized acts you see, perhaps that it appears that Protestantism finds easier throwing off? Or more specifically of interest to me, a seven-sacrament Episcopalian (who nevertheless is not convinced that cremation is problematic)?
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Truth
Posts: 9559 | From: starlight | Registered: Oct 2005
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Dear Autenreith Road
quote:
Father Gregory, this is the first you have mentioned on this thread that it is Christ's burial that requires burial and excludes cremation. Why is that?
This seems like an essential reason about the Orthodox position about burial, and yet it only comes up this late in the discussion.
You don't expect me to use up all my ammunition on the first salvo do you? ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif) I have enough here for at least another 9 pages but I might fall asleep by then.
By "why is that" I take you to mean "why have you not spoken of this before?" However, if you mean:- "what on earth do you mean by this?" then I suppose I would say that Joseph of Arimathea knew the mind of Christ. Of course there are those who would say I have simply back projected this onto the Jews. And who do they back project it onto? Well, that's the point isn't it? Nobody back projects anything. We receive these things from from God and that includes those aspects of culture that touch on ultimate things.
Constructivism makes all sorts of things problematic for a Christian who grasp on revelation is slipping. Since all becomes the Great Human Project ... the games we play with "God" ... actually NOTHING matters in the end, not just sacraments. Everything is up for grabs. Only the smile on the Cheshire Cat remains. Who can believe in a smile? Only non-realists.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
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Autenrieth Road
Shipmate
# 10509
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Posted
Thanks, Father Gregory. Shall look forward to another 9 pages of varied ammunition. Unless you manage to sleep through the countershots ![[Biased]](wink.gif) .
I did mean the first interpretation of my question. I am glad you provided the answers inspired by the other interpretation, they give me another window to try to understand what you are saying.
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Constructivism makes all sorts of things problematic for a Christian who[se] grasp on revelation is slipping.
I have been wondering recently specifically why one should believe the Christian revelation is true, and not any of the others. How would one know?
That goes way far afield beyond burial practices, though.
What I find most curious in me is that the example of Jesus did it catches my attention most as a reason most likely to justify something. I'm not saying that very clearly. What I mean is, 4000 years of tradition does not move me so very much; Jesus did it does.
Not that you should think I'm convinced at all yet, on the specific subject of burial practices. Rather, I have the question in my mind of,
"what things did Jesus do?" And of those things, which things should we do (even if we fail abysmally most of the time and ignore them).
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Truth
Posts: 9559 | From: starlight | Registered: Oct 2005
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
That's very useful Autenreith Road. Tradition is meaningless without Jesus. The question is ... can Christianity do without Jesus? I aay, no.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001
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Myrrh
Shipmate
# 11483
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Dear Autenreith Road
quote:
Father Gregory, this is the first you have mentioned on this thread that it is Christ's burial that requires burial and excludes cremation. Why is that?
This seems like an essential reason about the Orthodox position about burial, and yet it only comes up this late in the discussion.
You don't expect me to use up all my ammunition on the first salvo do you? I have enough here for at least another 9 pages but I might fall asleep by then.
I don't think there's any real reason for insisting that cremation is unOrthodox; a short search shows the arguments for are mainly 'tradition', the arguments against are full of 'cremation is practiced by the enemies of the Orthodox', and most offensive of all, to my way of thinking, is from those who insist that it's so because the canons forbid it.
And as for the association of burial with Christ's burial, it's burial which appears to be the motif here and those anti-cremation for whatever reason actually abuse this idea.
From the funeral service:
Come, O brethren, let us gaze into the grave upon the dust and ashes from which we are made. Whither go we now? What are we become? Who is poor, who rich? Who is the master? Who a freeman? Are not we all ashes? The beauty of the countenance is mouldered, and Death hath withered up all the flower of youth.
Myrrh
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
It seems to me that we'll need to choose between cemeteries and proliffers. There isn't room enough for both.
For what it's worth, I'd rather make a generous contribution to a great church for the privilege of having my ashes residing in its columbarium, next to others, where they will be awash in reverberations of sung mass and evensong, than my bones leaching and shivering out somewhere under a rural snowdrift. This is just a personal preference, but I think that it is just as defensible symbolically.
But why is the body not more often present at funeral or requiem? Expense? This is rather unfortunate, but perhaps it is reason enough, unless the mortuary industry has reformed considerably since the days of Jessica Mitford.
When I learned, around age 14, that cremation was common, I greeted it with the same kind of mild romantic disappointment as to learn at the same age that it had become far more common to travel to Europe by airliner than ocean liner. It never occurred to me that some would condemn it as heretical and I was amazed when a graduate-school friend went into a tirade over how creepy cremation was and how could anyone do that to a loved one. The question still looks like an adiaphoron.
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
This turned out to be one of the most breathtaking, unusual, and moving places I have seen in a long time:
Bruckner's Tomb at St. Florian's Abbey
Bruckner was a chorister in this abbey near Linz, and later a teacher. It remained his favorite place in the world. One day, as he was walking in the crypt below the chapel while someone was playing the organ in the gallery high above, he stepped into a spot upon which the vaulting focused the organ's sound. He requested that when he died, he might be entombed at that spot. In due course, this was done.
There aren't many such spots, nor many souls with whatever deserts or clout Bruckner had to be so favored, but what an ideal honor! This abbey is so blessed with outstanding beauty of so many kinds that it seems that God must be focusing it upon the site as with a magnifying glass, just as the vaulting focuses the sound of the organ to a rare intensity. We visitors flutter in like moths, and some of us fluttering out again wonder how it is possible to survive the incandescence we've just been in.
But I want especially to point out the background behind the iron bars: Whether before or after Bruckner's internment I'm not sure, but several thousand skulls are neatly piled up, brought from nearby cemetery graves into the church. Far from macabre, I found this sight very comforting and peaceful.
This scene brings up a question for the opponents of cremation: what do you think of this treatment of the six thousand skulls? If it is right that these remains should be brought into the church building, then why did they need to spend a few centuries in the ground first? Or if it is not right, what should have happened to them when the old cemeteries yielded to some other use?
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Myrrh
Shipmate
# 11483
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
This scene brings up a question for the opponents of cremation: what do you think of this treatment of the six thousand skulls? If it is right that these remains should be brought into the church building, then why did they need to spend a few centuries in the ground first? Or if it is not right, what should have happened to them when the old cemeteries yielded to some other use?
I'm often in an emotional dilemma brought on by fascination with bones discovered on archeological digs and their treatment outside of a religious context, display in museums and so on.
The feelings of pity for those robbed from their graves to be gawked at, including by me, in such collections became a definite contrast when I was able to compare this with the emotions I felt when looking at the collection of bones in the ossuary of St Catherine's on Mt Sinai, where, and I'm not sure I can describe this well enough, I felt nothing emotional in particular I think because they were 'at home' in the context of the Church. I was expecting to feel something dramatic seeing such a collection, but zilch, I think "acceptance" comes closest, no separation perhaps.
Bones have the power to move us because they are part and parcel of what we are and vestige of the form we can still relate to, could a collection of ashes be such a forcible reminder of our past and future? I think it can, I was watching a TimeTeam programme a few weeks ago in which they uncovered ancient burials by cremation. The remains collected in the pit in which the fire had been built, as the body burned the ash fell and this had been gathered into a pot and the pit covered over. I felt the same reaction as I always do on seeing bones and mummies displayed, so for me ash still has the power to move.
In India where cremation is the norm I was told sannyasis are an exception. They go through a ritual on becoming sannyasis which culminates in them renouncing attachment to their old life and symbolic cremation is included, when they die they're thrown uncremated into the Ganges, the holiest river of India.
Myrrh
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and thanks for all the fish
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JimT
Ship'th Mythtic
# 142
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
The iconoclasm of the Reformation is a challenge in need of justification ... not the other way round if one takes the Vincentian canon seriously.
The Vincentian canon was made to perpetuate correct sameness. But “sameness” itself was shown by Christ to inevitably degrade into error in my opinion. Christ showed over and over that the scrupulous observance of uninterrupted millenea of exact observance to tradition eventually led to the veneration of the traditions themselves as holy and to the non-observant as unholy. The Good Samaritan parable specifically addressed this.
In my opinion the Christian church post resurrection immediately began the repetition of this error, which continues to this day. The institutional Christian errors that exactly parallel the instituional pre-Christian errors of Judaism are:
- Certain continued observances have become litmus tests of inclusion. Thus, the Orthodox faithful who elect cremation are equated with physical resurrection-denying pagans and excluded from liturgical prayers for the dead.
- Superstitions have emerged despite efforts by the institution to prevent this. The Orthodox faithful dig up bodies after three years and superstitiously attempt to equate the state of decay with the “level” of Christianity the departed must have had.
- Acts have taken precedence over intent and circumstance. A priest who accidentlly kills is somehow "unclean." Yet when the crowd went to stone the adulterous woman according to the Law, Christ asked if anyone else had broken any Laws? Are we not to do the same? Or are we to follow the New Laws of the institutional church?
Other examples can be seen in RCC and "High Church" Anglican Protestants showing up just in time for communion, because the physical act of receiving consecrated host is perceived as the most important part of the ceremony. Pentecostals make it virtually required to regularly and publically speak in tongues in order been as part of the "true faithful."
It appears to me that if one assigns pre-eminence to the teachings of Christ over strict observance to the Vincentian canon, perpetual reform and reinvention along the lines of the original intent of the tradition is required to combat the inevitable ill effects of perpetual sameness in ceremony and practice. Religious practice must change and adapt to remain alive or it will indeed "fossilize" and mimic death and injustice rather than life and justice.
[ 29. August 2006, 18:07: Message edited by: JimT ]
Posts: 2619 | From: Now On | Registered: May 2001
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JimT:
It appears to me that if one assigns pre-eminence to the teachings of Christ over strict observance to the Vincentian canon, perpetual reform and reinvention along the lines of the original intent of the tradition is required to combat the inevitable ill effects of perpetual sameness in ceremony and practice. Religious practice must change and adapt to remain alive or it will indeed "fossilize" and mimic death and injustice rather than life and justice.
I agree, JimT, that "perpetual reform" is crucial.
But I don't think, necessarily, that all practices must change; it doesn't follow from what you're saying that the practice itself is where fossilization occurs.
The approach to practice is where that happens, IMO. The Church needs to be continually renewed and refreshed, but interiorly.
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
It's funny isn't it how often these debates degenerate into a rerun of the Reformation ... even stranger because the factors that led to a Reformation in the west never existed in the east. So, I won't be playing this game.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001
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Myrrh
Shipmate
# 11483
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JimT:
In my opinion the Christian church post resurrection immediately began the repetition of this error, which continues to this day. The institutional Christian errors that exactly parallel the instituional pre-Christian errors of Judaism are:
- Certain continued observances have become litmus tests of inclusion. Thus, the Orthodox faithful who elect cremation are equated with physical resurrection-denying pagans and excluded from liturgical prayers for the dead.
Didn't one of the OT patriarchs request cremation, but family decided otherwise? When the reasons against degenerate to this kind of argument it does become annoying.
quote:
Superstitions have emerged despite efforts by the institution to prevent this. The Orthodox faithful dig up bodies after three years and superstitiously attempt to equate the state of decay with the “level” of Christianity the departed must have had.
Not superstiously, incorruptible bodies is a reality in the Church like miraculous icons, they are special in that they have meaning for us, but they don't define us. Best described as doing work for the Church as reminders of our reality.
quote:
Acts have taken precedence over intent and circumstance. A priest who accidentlly kills is somehow "unclean." Yet when the crowd went to stone the adulterous woman according to the Law, Christ asked if anyone else had broken any Laws? Are we not to do the same? Or are we to follow the New Laws of the institutional church?
Different concepts. A priest is the leading voice of the laity in worship and the prohibition against such acting with blood on his hands goes back to the building of the Temple, David wasn't allowed to build it for this reason.
Christ's teaching against the stoning of adulterers is an example of getting back to basics. Christ continued to teach the commandments as given to Moses and not as they developed when extrapolation created a situation where punishment for breaking them broke an original commandment. Killing someone for adultery is breaking the commandment to not kill; the ritual law of korban would deny a priest's starving parents bread, breaking the commandment to honour father and mother; killing someone for working on the Sabbath violates the commandment to keep it holy because the commandment not to kill is broken, and so on.
quote:
Other examples can be seen in RCC and "High Church" Anglican Protestants showing up just in time for communion, because the physical act of receiving consecrated host is perceived as the most important part of the ceremony. Pentecostals make it virtually required to regularly and publically speak in tongues in order been as part of the "true faithful."
I think that's common to any organisation, the main theme becoming a commodity of control, of acceptance. Many Orthodox Churches don't allow communion without prior confession which in effect is the priests taking control and exceeding their authority, breaking Christ's first canon in the Church's ecclesiology.
quote:
It appears to me that if one assigns pre-eminence to the teachings of Christ over strict observance to the Vincentian canon, perpetual reform and reinvention along the lines of the original intent of the tradition is required to combat the inevitable ill effects of perpetual sameness in ceremony and practice. Religious practice must change and adapt to remain alive or it will indeed "fossilize" and mimic death and injustice rather than life and justice.
I don't think the Vincentian canon applies to local traditions, it was very much an argument for continuing belief in what was believed by all Christians in faith not in practices. The argument was against Augustine's idea of grace wasn't it?
Myrrh
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Persephone Hazard
Ship's Wench
# 4648
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
(3) It makes honouring the dead, the body and the rituals of grief associated with the grave much more problematic.
In my opinion, the problem here is not with cremation itself but with crematoriams. Back in December I attended my partner's creamation and the process was rendered needlessly trumatic by the very corporate, production-line atmosphere-for example, the buliding looked very cheap and tacky, the service was less than half an hour long, and as we were leaving we saw the 'next' group of mourners awaiting the start of their service. They also didn't lower the curtain around the plinth, and watching the little doors open and a converyor belt slide the coffin away into a black abyss was...an experience that will stay with me for a very long time.
However, I can't see any problems inherent in cremation itself. There is, I suppose, the lack of a gravestone-but there's always the ashes, which many people scatter in a place special to the deceased.
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A picture is worth a thousand words, but it's a lot easier to make up a thousand words than one decent picture. - ken.
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John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
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Posted
Eyeliner --
you make a good point.
In North America the crematorium is never the site of the service. The whole British thing that has Fr. G so knotted simply doesn't happen here. WHich is why, I suppose, many of us simply cannot u nderstand what and why he is on about.
NA custom would see either the cremation after a standard funeral, and a committal of ashes (usually to a grave) thereafter, or to have the cremation before the funeral and have the urn of ashes present instead of a coffin, with committal in the usual way after. Neither of which seems to me to be obviously disrespectful of the body, of the family, or proper mourning or anything else at all that Fr. G alleges. (A slight variation would be to have a private funeral service at the graveside followed by a public memorial service. But the general comment applies here as well.) I fear that once again Fr. G is assuming that his personal experience is an accurate predicator of a general practice -- and it quite clearly is not. WHich makes agreeing with the position he has based on his personal experience rather difficult for those of us whose experience directly contradicts his. (Though he routinely ignores statements that deny universality to his personal experience.)
And by the way, certainly on this continent, there are no flames involved in cremation. Don't know about the UK. A very hot furnace will do what it has to so quickly that there is no time for flame.
John
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
In North America the crematorium is never the site of the service.
Yes and no. Some funeral homes have their own ovens. (if that's the right term). My grandmother's funeral was at the same funeral home where she was cremated.
[ 30. August 2006, 03:52: Message edited by: Mousethief ]
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
It's funny isn't it how often these debates degenerate into a rerun of the Reformation ... even stranger because the factors that led to a Reformation in the west never existed in the east. So, I won't be playing this game.
Respectfully, Fr. G, you set up the game that way. Then you seem to avoid questions that you don't want to answer. Then you make comments, like the one above, about the rest of us.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
quote:
Originally posted by JimT:
Acts have taken precedence over intent and circumstance. A priest who accidentlly kills is somehow "unclean." Yet when the crowd went to stone the adulterous woman according to the Law, Christ asked if anyone else had broken any Laws? Are we not to do the same? Or are we to follow the New Laws of the institutional church?
Different concepts. A priest is the leading voice of the laity in worship and the prohibition against such acting with blood on his hands goes back to the building of the Temple, David wasn't allowed to build it for this reason.
So there's no distinction between an accident and murder?
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
For someone of such wide sympathies Golden Key you don't seem to know much about Orthodoxy. The Reformation conflict matrix and the theological infrastructure that underpins it addresses issues that simply are not on our radar in Orthodoxy nor have they ever been. So, when we say "X" you think we mean "Y" because we are sharing a similar language. The ideas behind that disarmingly similar language are, however, radically different. For example, one Reformation challenge concerned the mediation of the Church between God and Man (or so it was alleged). In Orthodoxy we have never had such an ecclesiological deformation, so attempts to being us within that familar conflict matrix are entirely misconceived and certainly leave us stone dead cold.
Dear John
No, this isn't simply for us HOW cremation is done. It's the cremation itself.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001
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Myrrh
Shipmate
# 11483
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
quote:
Originally posted by JimT:
Acts have taken precedence over intent and circumstance. A priest who accidentlly kills is somehow "unclean." Yet when the crowd went to stone the adulterous woman according to the Law, Christ asked if anyone else had broken any Laws? Are we not to do the same? Or are we to follow the New Laws of the institutional church?
Different concepts. A priest is the leading voice of the laity in worship and the prohibition against such acting with blood on his hands goes back to the building of the Temple, David wasn't allowed to build it for this reason.
So there's no distinction between an accident and murder?
Any killing is a "shedding of blood" of another, in Judaism blood is synonymous with "life force". This idea is carried through in the prohibition against eating the blood of an animal, not kosher.
Myrrh
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and thanks for all the fish
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John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
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Posted
But Fr. Gregory -- most of your actual arguments are based on how it's done round your neighbourhood. The why it's done arguments seem to be later add-ons to your emotional reaction to what are, fair enough, some undesirable practices that you have experienced. And you still haven't bothered to acknowledge that many of us have experience contrary to yours -- perhaps because when the "how" changes, the "why" that is based on the "how" ceases to be tenable. And we couldn't have that.
John
Posts: 5929 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: May 2001
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
I'm sorry John but that is not how I see it. There are 9 pages here and the vast majority of my posts have been about why, not how. "It's the issue of burning" isn't a "how" statement but a "why" statement ... burning isn't on, not because crematoria are often naff, clinical and secular ... it's what burning means in terms of human action and Christian hope ... but I am not going to repeat myself.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
quote:
In North America the crematorium is never the site of the service.
Yes and no. Some funeral homes have their own ovens.
Sure, but they don't have funeral services within sight of them.
quote:
Originally posted by John Holding:
The why it's done arguments seem to be later add-ons to your emotional reaction to what are, fair enough, some undesirable practices that you have experienced.
Not true, actually. The most important (as far as I can see) and very clearly theological "why" was there in the OP:
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Gregory:
(1) It denies SYMBOLICALLY (not actually) the resurrection promise in the context of death being "sleep."
You gotta buy Fr Gregory's view that there has been "a permanent and essentialist change in how the symbolic action imparts meaning rather than has meaning imparted to it" to agree with his first "why" (and I'm not sure that I do), but he did put it forth from the very beginning.
{edited to put in attribution and indicate cross-post with Fr Gregory}
[ 30. August 2006, 15:22: Message edited by: RuthW ]
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Thanks Ruth. Oh dear, I'm getting weary. I do wish this thread could be quietly euthanased.
Perhaps it could be cremated?
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Nice one Chorister! ![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
Seriously though, this is now "doin' mi 'ead in" a bit so I will bow out gracefully now. Ta - ra!
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
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Myrrh
Shipmate
# 11483
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Posted
p.s.
I also think this comes under the same category heading, whatever that's named, as circumcision - something which came from the 'fathers' (John 7:22), but rejected as necessary for Christians.
Judging by the strength of feeling about this from Orthodox Jews and Orthodox Christians I think the following applies:
Galatians 6:15
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature
I can imagine circumcision woven into Orthodox teaching if that argument had never come up. If we're not circumcised even though Christ was I can see no reason why we should be buried as He was. And we wouldn't need to make excuses for those times when cremation is forced on us through circumstances.
quote:
Thus the Church, due to a pastoral concern for the preservation of right beliefs and right practice within the Tradition of the Fathers, and out of a sense of reverence for its departed, must continue its opposition to this practice. Each Orthodox Christian should know that since cremation is prohibited by the canons [rules of the Church], those who insist on their own cremation will not be permitted a funeral in the Church. Naturally, an exception occurs when the Church is confronted with the case of some accident or natural disaster where cremation is necessary to guard the health of the living. In these special situations, the Church allows cremation of Orthodox people with prior episcopal permission and only by "economia."
It is neither a right belief or practice nor not a right belief or practice for a Christian. The Church has no right to impose this any more than it has a right to impose circumcision.
Also, in Orthodox teaching the canons are not laws which must be obeyed, we don't have a juridical relationship with God or with the priests; rather a lot of them (canons) are an embarrassment showing as they do the failures in Tradition and "It shall not be so among you" is still the first rule (measure).
Myrrh
quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
No, this isn't simply for us HOW cremation is done. It's the cremation itself.
On further research I think the association of fire as a force for the destruction of evil as it plays out in examples from the OT has a part to play in the taboo against cremation which coupled with our predilection for collecting and venerating our ancestors' bones created a climate of antipathy to any other form of burial. This isn't found in India for example where fire itself is considered a god and sacrifice by fire seen as a good, as in purification by fire.
I think the theology, jewish and ours, has been superimposed on tradition.
Myrrh
http://www.sanskrit.org/www/Rites%20of%20Passage/ancestors2.html
http://www.aish.com/societywork/sciencenature/Cremation.asp
http://www.saintbarbara.org/faith/society/cremation.cfm
[ 31. August 2006, 03:53: Message edited by: Myrrh ]
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Gregory:
(1) It denies SYMBOLICALLY (not actually) the resurrection promise in the context of death being "sleep."
You gotta buy Fr Gregory's view that there has been "a permanent and essentialist change in how the symbolic action imparts meaning rather than has meaning imparted to it" to agree with his first "why" (and I'm not sure that I do), but he did put it forth from the very beginning.
He did, and then he refused to engage with any of us that disagreed with that theological point, preferring to riff on how cremation denies the reality of death, or whatever it was he was on about.
Suffice it to say that I do not agree that cremation "denies SYMBOLICALLY the resurrection promise". I do not agree with that symbolic interpretation, on the grounds that bodily destruction occurs anyway, whichever method is used. Thus the symbolism of cremation is - to me - exactly the same as that of burial.
I also pointed out that the purely symbolic should never, in my opinion, be required of anyone. Because symbolism is very much on the eye of the beholder.
The good Father has yet to respond to my disagreement with any argument other than "it does because we say it does, dammit". That and a bunch of crap about how the West is far inferior to the East because we don't kowtow to our religious masters any more seem to be all the arguments he has these days...
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
Well, I have to say I think the question of how symbols work and whether the Incarnation permanently changed that for some of them is a whole discussion of its own.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
If you picture the resurrection as being something like the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel, then you want the bones to be intact. It seems a category error to me. But one entrenched in Tradition, so not likely to change any time soon. I don't see any harm in burying people intact, but don't see that the cremation=disrespect argument holds a lot of water, especially when for example a bit of rug that the consecrated communion elements dribble into is meant to be disposed of by ... you guessed it....
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
If you picture the resurrection as being something like the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel, then you want the bones to be intact.
Firstly, I don't. Not at all.
Secondly, that would mean that only those who have been dead for a (relatively) short time will be resurrected, as after enough time even bones crumble and decay to nothing. Not to mention the fun they'll have in ossuaries (is that the word?) while all the skeletons attempt to get back into one piece - "Fred, you've got Mike's leg there! And I think that's Bill's third vertebra!"
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
If you picture the resurrection as being something like the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel, then you want the bones to be intact.
Firstly, I don't. Not at all.
Perhaps you missed the point that I disagree with this also.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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R.D. Olivaw
Shipmate
# 9990
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Posted
quote:
Myrrh posted:
In India where cremation is the norm I was told sannyasis are an exception.
There are also the Zoroastrians who take their dead wrapped in linen to the Towers of Silence to be devoured by vultures and their bones bleached by the sun. They believe that rotting flesh pollutes nature.
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We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness -Thich Nhat Hanh
Posts: 496 | From: I'm a leaf on the wind | Registered: Aug 2005
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
Perhaps you missed the point that I disagree with this also.
Ah. Oops. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Gregory:
(1) It denies SYMBOLICALLY (not actually) the resurrection promise in the context of death being "sleep."
You gotta buy Fr Gregory's view that there has been "a permanent and essentialist change in how the symbolic action imparts meaning rather than has meaning imparted to it" to agree with his first "why" (and I'm not sure that I do), but he did put it forth from the very beginning.
He did, and then he refused to engage with any of us that disagreed with that theological point, preferring to riff on how cremation denies the reality of death, or whatever it was he was on about.
Suffice it to say that I do not agree that cremation "denies SYMBOLICALLY the resurrection promise". I do not agree with that symbolic interpretation, on the grounds that bodily destruction occurs anyway, whichever method is used. Thus the symbolism of cremation is - to me - exactly the same as that of burial.
I also pointed out that the purely symbolic should never, in my opinion, be required of anyone. Because symbolism is very much on the eye of the beholder.
The good Father has yet to respond to my disagreement with any argument other than "it does because we say it does, dammit". That and a bunch of crap about how the West is far inferior to the East because we don't kowtow to our religious masters any more seem to be all the arguments he has these days...
I think many of us on the thread could have posted that, Marvin.
I agree with you and it would be nice if the good Father actually resonded to us rather than asserting that we are playing games and the he would be repeating himself if he id. I don't see how an explanation would a be a repeat, since I am not sure that an explanation has ever been given.
PS - I have just realised that the Ray Lamontagne track I am listening to is a cover of "Crazy" by Gnarls Berkley. How odd!
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Infinite Penguins.
My "Readit, Swapit" page
My "LibraryThing" page
Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003
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Myrrh
Shipmate
# 11483
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by R.D. Olivaw:
quote:
Myrrh posted:
In India where cremation is the norm I was told sannyasis are an exception.
There are also the Zoroastrians who take their dead wrapped in linen to the Towers of Silence to be devoured by vultures and their bones bleached by the sun. They believe that rotting flesh pollutes nature.
Sorry, I meant exception to the Hindu practice where fire is considered holy - in temples fire is passed around and participants "draw" it to themselves and over their heads as a blessing.
An interesting exception because here fire is considered too sacred to be polluted with decaying flesh, as is water and earth, so the bodies are left to feed carrion birds.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/india/1870-monier-parsees.html
The birds don't always have such good table manners, as the description in the above suggests, and often fly away with pieces of the body which in the past sometimes dropped into one of the city's resevoirs, after complaints the Parsis built a garden over it. Can't recall now the depth of soil, but not much, some 18"-2' holding an astonishing amount of vegetation. They too care about the bones of their dead.
Aren't there some Native American tribes that do something similar? I've seen that in some old westerns, the body placed on a platform to be exposed to the elements and passing birds.
Myrrh
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
"There I was, sitting in the U-bend, thinking about death..." Well, no, actually, but I was thinking about cremation in the shower this morning.
Leaving aside the spiritual realm for a moment, I find cremation very appealing because for me it means my body will continue to exist in relationship with everything else on this planet. All of my atoms were once part of the planet, and have been part of many, many living creatures. I want to feel that I am still part of many, many creatures and of this earth after my physical death. If my body were chemically preserved and isolated from the earth after death, that would me cut off from everything and everyone that I valued and enjoyed in life. If my body decays, my atoms can become part of the future.
When I euthanized my beloved T.C., I had to choose a method of "disposal". My immediate response, even while I was bawling my eyes out, was, "She was a gift from the universe to me. Let her go back to the universe." ![[Tear]](graemlins/tear.gif) OliviaG
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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ship's cat
stowaway
# 11793
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Posted
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by sharkshooter:
I have never been to a funeral where they actually lowered the casket.
I was shocked at my first Canadian funeral when they left the casket sitting above ground as we all walkd away.
But my main problem is with the west coast culture here in Vancouver that means there is seldom a coffin in church for a funeral - often not even ashes. There seems to be a denial of the actuality of death here somewhere.
I also don't like the idea of the body going unaccompanied to the crematorium - it seems lascking in respect somehow. Not that the body knows anything about it, mind you.
Posts: 310 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Aug 2006
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HenryT
Canadian Anglican
# 3722
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Posted
New Roman Catholic guidelines, at least in the Diocese of Pembroke (Ontario), are cited in a Toronto Sun op-ed titled It's a dying shame.
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"Perhaps an invincible attachment to the dearest rights of man may, in these refined, enlightened days, be deemed old-fashioned" P. Henry, 1788
Posts: 7231 | From: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada | Registered: Dec 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I notice that few here who support cremation have at all addressed the issue of why some churches suddenly got a new and better idea ... but not until the close of the 19th century after 4000 years of unbroken tradition.
The reason it started in Britain then was the cost of land in and around London. The big public cemetaries (Kensal Green, Highgate, Nunhead) held it off for a generation, but by about 1900 most people would have had to travel a long way to get to a graveyard.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
the "space" issue - if everyone was buried then with today's population we'd very quickly need whole cities dedicated just to graves.
I disagree. The old churchyards in the hearts of villages and towns, and even more the big 19th century municipal cemetaries, are wonderful green spaces we can all share. Especially when they go a bit wild - much better for wildlife than just about any other urban land environment, except maybe railway cuttings.
Fewer than a million people die in Britain each year. At about two square metres each, that's adding 2 square kilometres to the total national graveyard each year. If the average grave was kept going for two centuries that would be about 400 km^2 - well under a fifth of a percent of the total land area of the country.
Of course its already too late for London and perhaps some other big cities. The graveyard space we need should have been set aside in the outer suburbs in first part of the 20th century, as it was in the inner suburbs in the 19th. But smaller towns could still do it if they had the will. After all, they managed to find a great deal more space for golf courses.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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