Saint Paisios the Athonite said the following about cremation:
Someone came here, a University professor, and he told me that they are seriously considering burning the bones of the dead, because there is no room.
"Look," I said to him, "why isn't there room? Thessaloniki has so many forests! The whole of Chortiatis! Fill a cemetery, after 3-4 years, you make another one further down. Why have they filled the mountains everywhere with apartment buildings?"
He also told me that it is from a hygiene point of view! What do you mean from the point of view of hygiene, while you have polluted the whole world, you have polluted the sea in Thessaloniki and elsewhere, while the bones are washed and cleaned! Have a little respect. But they want to degrade people, to make them worth nothing, to tear them from their roots, from their ancestors, from their tradition, to leave them alone and desolate, to destroy their memory, their connection with their predecessors, with the values and life of their ancestors, in order to then do whatever they want with various theories that pull them here and there. They go to spread atheism. Someone has died? Oh well, they're gone!
"Look," I said to him, "why isn't there room? Thessaloniki has so many forests! The whole of Chortiatis! Fill a cemetery, after 3-4 years, you make another one further down. Why have they filled the mountains everywhere with apartment buildings?"
He also told me that it is from a hygiene point of view! What do you mean from the point of view of hygiene, while you have polluted the whole world, you have polluted the sea in Thessaloniki and elsewhere, while the bones are washed and cleaned! Have a little respect. But they want to degrade people, to make them worth nothing, to tear them from their roots, from their ancestors, from their tradition, to leave them alone and desolate, to destroy their memory, their connection with their predecessors, with the values and life of their ancestors, in order to then do whatever they want with various theories that pull them here and there. They go to spread atheism. Someone has died? Oh well, they're gone!
