Courthouse News
The Massachusetts case involves the Church of the Holy Spirit of Wayland, an Episcopal parish founded in 1961 and shuttered in 2015.
In 1967 the church opened a small cemetery area for parishioners who had been cremated. Eventually some 51 people were buried there.
When the parish sold the property to a Coptic church for $1.8 million in 2016, it did so with the understanding that the cremated remains would be removed because cremation is not allowed in the Coptic faith. The families of 36 deceased people in the cemetery agreed to a disinterment, but 15 families objected and went to court.
Undergirding the case are contracts signed by the families that state the Episcopal church could amend its regulations for the cemetery at any time but that also promise that the church would provide “perpetual care.” More
…I don’t know how it is in MA, but in OH you basically buy a deeded 6 foot hole and you hold title to it, BUT no one is EVER allowed to sell it at a profit. Bodies can be evicted from them for nonpayment if you don’t pay off the hole, but that’s it.
So someone buying a cemetery here would basically have to negotiate deals with hundreds or thousands of property owners, none of which will be very inclined to sell since they literally can’t make money doing it. Not a lot of incentive to pay for a disinterral only to reinter somewhere else at your own expense.
I’m not a Copt so I don’t know what their particular hardon against it is, but some religions believe it violates the spirit of the dead rising and standing beside their graves if their bodies are not intact, or Biblical prohibitions against “passing through fire”, and stuff like that.
But since the Copts didn’t do it, didn’t participate in it, and don’t have to look at it, they should just let dead dogs lie. It’s not THEIR bodies that were burned nor did they do the burning.
Best advice?
Let it GO.
They are DEAD.
They were there before YOU were.
And they ain’t hurting you NOW.
“I say to you againe, doe not call up Any that you can not put downe; by the Which I meane, Any that can in Turne call up somewhat against you, whereby your Powerfullest Devices may not be of use. Ask of the Lesser, lest the Greater shall not wish to Answer, and shall commande more than you.”
The most distressing part of that story were the statistics given as an aside:
“Every week, another 75 to 150 religious congregations in the U.S. close their doors, according to a study by the United Church of Christ. Of those that remain, half the congregations have 65 people or fewer and two-thirds have fewer than 100, the nondenominational group Faith Communities Today has reported.”9
They can build their own building.
That’s a cool looking building. If they are desperate to get out of this hole, (pun) I’ll buy it for the right price. That building has potential.
It struck me as strange that these were cremated remains that were buried in a cemetery.
Is that normal practice, to cremate the deceased then inter them in a burial ground?
Dr. Tar MAY 7, 2022 AT 8:28 AM
“It struck me as strange that these were cremated remains that were buried in a cemetery.
Is that normal practice, to cremate the deceased then inter them in a burial ground?”
…kind of a personal preference thing. My father-in-law wanted to be cremated and wanted his ashes buried in a box in the grave plot of his eldest daughter who preceded him.
We granted that request.
…it’s a bit more common for secular cemetaries and those run by religions who do not have a problem with cremation to provide little niche crypts for that purpose, usually a wall of them like this…
https://www.thegardens.com/all-in-one-service/crypts-niches/
…again, I know nothing about the faith as practiced by Copts or why they have a problem with it, or if the cemetary is arranged like this, but the law may say that these are essentially, legally, small privately owned condos and that will cause a whole bunch of other problems if their faith means that ABSOLUTELY can’t share the ground with cremated remains.
…BTW, when I said we intered my FIL’s ashes in his daughter’s plot, I mean we had to pay the CEMETERY to do it, and paid full freight for a grave opening and closing so they could bury an 8×8 box on top of a burial vault.
That shit ain’t FREE.
Which may be one reason folks don’t want to move their kin…