Greece: No Place to Die Our World


Greece: No Place to Die

Similar Content

Browse content similar to Greece: No Place to Die. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!

Transcript


LineFromTo

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.

Download Subtitles

SRT

ASS