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Kerala Church Abandons Coffins, Embraces Simple & Environment-Friendly Burial Practice
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Kerala, 5 Sep 2022 12:45 PM GMT
Editor : Shiva Chaudhary |
A post-graduate in Journalism and Mass Communication with relevant skills, specialising in content editing & writing. I believe in the precise dissemination of information based on facts to the public.
Creatives : Shiva Chaudhary
A post-graduate in Journalism and Mass Communication with relevant skills, specialising in content editing & writing. I believe in the precise dissemination of information based on facts to the public.
The decision to stop using caskets for burial was made, according to parish priest Fr Johnson Thaundiyil, following a thorough discussion both inside the church and with the community.
A Catholic church in Kerala abandoned the long-standing practice of encasing the dead in coffins and buried them on a plain linen cloth for the first time. According to a priest, this month, the new burial ritual was adopted by St George Church in Arthunkal, in the Alappuzha region.
Christians have only recently begun to consider cremation as an alternative to the conventional burial method, even though it is already very prevalent.
Decision To Stop Using Caskets For Burial
Cremation has not always been a part of the Christian religion. Even though there is no explicit command against cremation in the Bible, early Christians agreed with their Jewish forebears that it was not a choice they would consider. But with time, this viewpoint has changed.
The decision to stop using caskets for burial was made, according to parish priest Fr Johnson Thaundiyil, following a thorough discussion both inside the church and with the community.
Why Is Cremation A Preferred Alternative For Christians?
Thaundiyil said, "In our coastal area, the amount of salinity in the soil is very high. This led to a delay in the decomposition of the bodies buried in wooden caskets. Even bodies buried five years back had been found not fully decomposed in such a manner to conduct another burial. Hence, we decided to avoid the coffin, which would speed up the process of decomposition," as reported by The Indian Express.
The priest stated that the body would be placed in a steel coffin during the funeral process under the new norm. The body would be wrapped in linen for burial at the cemetery grave and lowered into the pit. For regular use, a steel casket would be provided.
The 150-year-old church began the practice on September 2. He asserted that we're returning to the straightforward, environmentally beneficial burial method. A few years ago, several churches in Kerala permitted the cremation of the deceased due to the limited space in church cemeteries and the strict requirements of civic organizations for building new burial grounds. Despite the church's approval, cremations remain an aberration rather than a routine.
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