The representation of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Japan has announced the establishment and organisation of an Orthodox cemetery in Japan, where the faithful can be buried rather than cremated, as is mandated in most of Japan.
The plot will have about 100 spaces, with a possibility of expansion, open to all Orthodox Christians regardless of their jurisdictional or ethnic affiliation.
“We wholeheartedly want to keep the tradition and teaching of the Orthodox Church intact and to have the possibility that here in Japan, the body can go to whence it came until the Universal Resurrection, that is, in the earth,” the representative of the Romanian Patriarchate in Japan Fr. Daniel Corîu emphasised.
The Holy Trinity Orthodox Cemetery will be built and organised in the town of Minami-Alps in the Yamanashi Prefecture, with the support of the Funeral Association and in collaboration with the Fuji Temple. The project is conceived as a confession of faith in the area, given the secularist practice of cremation or the practice of “tree burials” of Buddhist origin.
“Through this project, we want to give a testimony of faith in Japan,” Fr. Daniel said, “so that in the social mentality, it wouldn’t just be the Muslim religion that wants burial, but that people would also hear the desire of the Orthodox Church to have the same practice, for theological and doctrinal reasons, entirely following Christ—its head and foundation.”
There are also plans to build a wooden chapel in the future cemetery.
Donations can be offered for the project on the site of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Japan.
This is what the site of the future cemetery in Minami-Alps currently looks like:
Photo ©Doxologia / Florentina Mardari
English article by OrthoChristian
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