Death customs

Two days after pop music icon Prince died, the singer’s was cremated in a private ceremony away from the media spotlight. Following an autopsy at the Minnesota medical examiner’s office, Prince’s body was released back to his family.

Attempts to inter Ahmet Suphi Alt?ndöken, the convicted felon in the brutal rape and killing of 20-year-old-student Özgecan Aslan in February 2015, have precipitated a crisis after village residents locked the doors of their cemetery and refused to bury Alt?ndöken's body. 

Saying the last farewell to a loved one is always a very heavy and sobering occasion for everyone. In some cultures, however, even a funeral can lend itself to some dancing, singing and even getting drunk. How would like to go inside the emotional drink-fueled world of an Irish ‘wake’? Yes, some Irish pay their respect to the deceased by singing and drinking.

The people who loved him have the final chance to say goodbye to Greek singer Pantelis Pantelidis, who lost his life after the car he was driving crashed on the road barriers.

Two Italian designers, Anna Citelli and Raoul Bretzel, have put forth a green alternative to cemeteries, funerals and burials – even cremation. The Capsula Mundi concept uses an egg-shaped burial pod of biodegradable starch plastic as the coffin where the body is placed in a fetal position.

The Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church of Greece on Thursday repeated its refusal to sanction the practice of cremation, in an announcement issued on Thursday.

“The Holy Synod refuses [to accept] that it is dignified for the deceased to be burned in a furnace,” it said after a meeting chaired by Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Ieronymos.

A horse burial which contained an unusually well preserved skeleton of a horse, intact even down to the hooves, was discovered during landscaping works around the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre in the Faliro Delta.

The find was presented to the Central Archaeological Council in a session held on Tuesday.

Friends and family of great Greek actor Minas Hatzisavvas gathered at the 1st Cemetery of Athens to pay their last respects to a talented man. He expressed the wish for a state funeral, followed by a cremation to take place in Bulgaria due the fact that there are no cremation facilities in Greece.

Great Greek actor Minas Hatzisavvas will receive a state funeral at the first cemetery of Athens at noon on Wednesday. His family have expressed the desire for money to be gathered for refugees instead of wreaths.

Actor Yorgos Kotanidis, a friend and colleague, of the actor that passed away on Monday posted on Facebook:

Cemeteries in Greece are overcrowded and have nowhere to expand . For this reason bodies are often kept underground for three years before being exhumed so that bones can be stored at an ossuary.

Families have the option of leasing for another three years, but the costs are prohibitive. Most people choose to exhume the graves.