:00:00. > :00:00.Saturday to come. Now on BBC News, time for Our World,
:00:00. > :00:08.which contains scenes you might find upsetting.
:00:09. > :00:17.In the Greece, honouring your dead is more than just a matter of pride.
:00:18. > :00:24.It is part of the national psyche. But city cemeteries are now so full
:00:25. > :00:29.that disaster is living. We can have up to 45 excavations per day and up
:00:30. > :00:39.to 40 funerals per day. Is it that full that it is one in, one out?
:00:40. > :00:43.Exactly. Greece's economic crisis means that for many renting a grave
:00:44. > :00:45.is proving too costly. Most people are forced to exhume their loved
:00:46. > :01:00.ones after just a few years. Cremation, a more economic option
:01:01. > :01:02.that would solve the question of space, is fiercely resisted by the
:01:03. > :01:17.powerful Orthodox Church. Now Greeks are facing up to the
:01:18. > :01:38.painful realisation that their obsession with death is one they can
:01:39. > :01:45.no longer easily afford. It is an ordinary Monday morning here. But
:01:46. > :01:51.one family is about to undergo an extraordinary experience that is
:01:52. > :01:56.becoming all too common. This family are about to witness the axiom
:01:57. > :02:31.nation of their father. -- extubation.
:02:32. > :02:41.For his daughter, it is as painful as the funeral. His widow cannot
:02:42. > :02:48.bear to attend. Have you been thinking about it, have you been
:02:49. > :02:50.worrying about it? A lot. It is difficult, it is really difficult. I
:02:51. > :02:58.am sorry. His bones dug up and removed from
:02:59. > :03:16.the grave. The gravedigger then tie the bones
:03:17. > :03:26.up in a cloth and leaves them for the priest to bless.
:03:27. > :03:39.It is a grim process to witness. And clearly deeply painful for the
:03:40. > :03:47.family. Wine is pored over the bones. And special funeral cake is
:03:48. > :04:03.shared with the deceased. And all who attend. That is the first
:04:04. > :04:10.extubation I have ever seen. It felt pretty undignified. And there is a
:04:11. > :04:16.really been hanging over the grave with the dead man's clothes. His new
:04:17. > :04:22.home will be a small box in a cemetery building known as an
:04:23. > :04:33.obsolete. It is incredibly important to his family that they be able to
:04:34. > :04:45.continue to visit his remains. The root of the problem lies a question
:04:46. > :04:50.of space. In crowded cities, the cemeteries are full. And renting a
:04:51. > :04:57.grave beyond the usual three years as an expensive business. At a time
:04:58. > :05:12.of economic woes, difficult compromises are having to be made.
:05:13. > :05:19.One man who sought to ease the congestion on cemeteries is a
:05:20. > :05:21.successful funeral director. He wanted to build a crematorium next
:05:22. > :05:50.to his funeral parlour. Although cremation was legalised
:05:51. > :06:07.almost a decade ago, there is still no crematorium here.
:06:08. > :06:12.The failure to build a crematorium in Greece means that most people
:06:13. > :06:19.continue to adhere to the traditions that accompany burials. In Greek
:06:20. > :06:23.culture, this involves lots of expensive and time-consuming
:06:24. > :06:59.commemoration ceremonies. A significant obstacle towards
:07:00. > :07:03.opening and crematorium in Greece comes from one of the country's most
:07:04. > :07:22.powerful organisations. The Orthodox Church. Sunday morning, and it is
:07:23. > :07:33.standing room only in one of the city's discharges. -- biggest
:07:34. > :07:47.churches. The main attraction is the Archbishop, a deeply conservative
:07:48. > :07:51.figure in the Orthodox Church. His Simon is being televised live on
:07:52. > :07:53.Greek TV and he does not hold back from addressing the most
:07:54. > :08:17.controversial political issues of the day.
:08:18. > :08:26.Message delivered, the congregation had home. In a country where 98% of
:08:27. > :08:36.people identify as Orthodox Christian, his opinion carries a lot
:08:37. > :08:38.of weight. The church, steeped in tradition, is something that
:08:39. > :08:45.historically has helped define Greek national identity. And the
:08:46. > :08:53.Archbishop, one of its most revered figures, has agreed to grant an
:08:54. > :09:16.interview. What is the church's position on cremation?
:09:17. > :09:21.So given the strength of its opposition, has the church been
:09:22. > :10:11.blocking the building of the crematorium?
:10:12. > :10:19.For some Greeks, the prospect of a crematorium in their country is
:10:20. > :10:22.already too late. Three years ago, tragedy struck the family of a
:10:23. > :10:53.funeral director. Had he been able to, he would have
:10:54. > :10:57.cremated his son. Today he cannot bear to visit the grave. And the
:10:58. > :11:35.prospect of the axiom nation wants him.
:11:36. > :11:46.Most Greeks can't afford the 30,000 euros they need to buy a permanent
:11:47. > :11:51.plot in a cemetery. For them, the in dignity of exhuming a young one is a
:11:52. > :11:56.simple fact of life and increasing number of Greeks, even holding and
:11:57. > :12:04.exhumation service and then keeping the bones in an all story is a cost
:12:05. > :12:13.to far -- ossuary. Back at the main cemetery, gravedigger is exhuming a
:12:14. > :12:16.body. The relatives have not shown up and they haven't paid for the
:12:17. > :12:51.bones to be kept -- the gravedigger.
:12:52. > :13:21.He has been exhuming 15 bodies a week for the last 33 years but there
:13:22. > :13:24.are some things even he can't face. Once the remains have been removed
:13:25. > :13:32.from the grave, he washes them carefully. Even if the bones aren't
:13:33. > :13:46.going to be kept, they're still playing. -- cleaned. Before setting
:13:47. > :13:50.out on their final journey. Because the family aren't paying to keep the
:13:51. > :14:09.bones, they are taken to a communal mass graves in a remote corner of
:14:10. > :14:24.the cemetery. In the end, there is no ceremony. That's really, really
:14:25. > :14:32.gruesome. It is clear that this space is nearly full. There was very
:14:33. > :14:36.little at the top -- gap. There are thousands of bones that may have
:14:37. > :14:41.just been thrown in. I have to say, it is a pretty miserable and. It is
:14:42. > :14:50.a communal pits of bones. It just doesn't feel very respectful,
:14:51. > :14:54.somehow -- end. This is home to 10% of the country's population and
:14:55. > :15:00.Greece's economic crisis is manifesting itself in hidden ways.
:15:01. > :15:04.Overcrowded cemeteries, the financial burden of burials and the
:15:05. > :15:20.failure to build crematoria are all hurting its citizens. But it's in
:15:21. > :15:25.Athens, home to almost half the population, that this crisis is at
:15:26. > :15:32.its most acute. Here it is the cost of living, not death, that is
:15:33. > :15:42.causing the most pain. Today the city is gridlocked by a general
:15:43. > :15:49.strike. In the south of the city lies Athens' third cemetery. It is
:15:50. > :15:53.so full here that they have had to start digging up the pavements to
:15:54. > :16:04.bury the dead and they are operating on a one in a 1-out policy -- 1-out
:16:05. > :16:11.policy. This employee is confronted every day with people who spend much
:16:12. > :16:14.of their waking lives here. This is a typical ossuary. This is
:16:15. > :16:19.incredible, the ceilings are really high in the boxes are stacked almost
:16:20. > :16:26.to the top. Even hear, you will notice that people come, they leave
:16:27. > :16:30.flowers, elite memorabilia, they try to light candles and place them next
:16:31. > :16:36.to the box. That must be a bit dangerous. It is dangerous, we tend
:16:37. > :16:40.to run after them, especially the old ladies. The intensely close
:16:41. > :16:41.family relationships that Greeks pride themselves on often linger
:16:42. > :17:10.beyond death. Today, this man has brought some
:17:11. > :17:21.fresh herbs to put on his mother's box of bones. But before you get to
:17:22. > :17:27.join the 32,000 sets of remains in this ossuary, there is another
:17:28. > :17:32.hurdle to overcome. Around a quarter of bodies fail to fully decomposed
:17:33. > :17:40.in the three-year lease that the cemetery offers on graves --
:17:41. > :17:42.decompose. When I examined my father, from the knees up he was
:17:43. > :17:47.complete and it was the most shocking thing I have ever seen in
:17:48. > :17:52.my life. It must've been really upsetting. He looked wretched. But
:17:53. > :17:54.the overcrowding is so severe that waiting for bodies to decompose
:17:55. > :18:01.slowly is a luxury the cemetery cannot afford -- fully. And things
:18:02. > :18:07.get even more McCabe are at the final stage of the journey, the
:18:08. > :18:10.digestion picked for unclaimed or Mainz -- macabre. Denis Betts is one
:18:11. > :18:14.giant pit and these are all different entrances -- beneath oz?
:18:15. > :18:22.Very deep and filled to the brim with bones. There is no more room.
:18:23. > :18:28.The situation is so bad, a backlog of unwanted bones is building up.
:18:29. > :18:41.This area is filled to the ceiling with boxes. -- us -- remains. There
:18:42. > :18:49.is, however, a green and silver lining to Athens' cemetery crisis --
:18:50. > :18:55.there is, however, a grim silver line to Athens' crisis. Grease's
:18:56. > :19:06.future doctors rely on corpses to learn their trade -- Greece's. This
:19:07. > :19:28.doctor believes there is no substitute for working on the real
:19:29. > :19:32.thing. To encourage donations, the university has agreed to take care
:19:33. > :20:18.of all subsequent burial costs. Business is booming. But for most
:20:19. > :20:25.people, it is hard to see the upside to this crisis. This man was a
:20:26. > :20:30.successful businessman and so the banks crashed and withdrew their
:20:31. > :20:36.funding for his company -- until. But then two years ago, a far
:20:37. > :20:40.greater disaster struck. My son was coming home from work and he lost
:20:41. > :20:49.control of his motorbike and he was killed outright. Outright. So that
:20:50. > :20:54.was when everything just exploded for us. He wasn't able to sell the
:20:55. > :21:01.house he owns in a prosperous suburb of Athens and he couldn't afford the
:21:02. > :21:07.cost of burying his own son. This is a cash situation, you have to pay
:21:08. > :21:12.for this thing, you see? Read-out -e4000, I just didn't have the
:21:13. > :21:17.money. It is pretty much a business here as well. They don't have
:21:18. > :21:22.cremation, because the church is so powerful here -- 3000 -4000.
:21:23. > :21:28.Eventually, he managed to bury his son with the generous assistance of
:21:29. > :21:32.the local community and a relative in the UK but he is in no doubt what
:21:33. > :21:37.to make of the burial system and the preoccupation with death. You pay
:21:38. > :21:43.for the burial, you pay for the grave. Then you have to exhume the
:21:44. > :21:47.body. If you want to keep it in the ground, you have to pay rent on the
:21:48. > :22:00.grave. And then you have got to put this thing into a ossuary. It goes
:22:01. > :22:04.on and on. Every 40 days you have to go to church and pay for the priest
:22:05. > :22:15.and do this, that and the other thing. It is a racket. It seems to
:22:16. > :22:18.me that increasingly, there is a contradiction between Greeks of
:22:19. > :22:21.session with commemorating the dead and the grim reality of what
:22:22. > :22:28.actually happens to their loved ones. With the economic crisis
:22:29. > :22:35.getting more acute, people are preparing for things to get harder.
:22:36. > :22:39.But now it seems that another certainty is being denied them. A
:22:40. > :22:52.sense of pride and dignity in death.