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