Death, grief and burial rituals affect all of us. In turn they are affected by various trends; the significance of cemeteries, for example, is changing. The traditions associated with death and grief among worldview minorities are also gaining visibility.
Celebrated in early November, All Saint's Day, or All Hallows, is a Christian holiday for saints, martyrs and the departed. This time of the year, cemeteries fill with candles. Even if you don't visit graves yourself, you will notice candles in shops and discussions about the holiday in the media.
"The significance of All Saints' Day is more pronounced in Finland than in many other Nordic countries," says Professor of Pastoral Theology Auli Vähäkangas .
"The Second World War and its heroes increased the significance of cemeteries and visiting graves. This combined personal and communal grief manifests here in the frequent remembrance of the dead also on Christmas and Independence Day."
Instead of disappearing, rituals of remembrance change
In the past 20 years, three changes related to the culture of death have taken place in Finland. Funeral services have become more subdued, people wish to make remembrance increasingly personal, and there has been a substantial shift from coffin burial to cremation.
"Grounds filled with rows upon rows of similar gravestones originate in the strict control of our burial legislation. Today, people want to move away from it. The trend of individuality associated with grief and burial and the pursuit of naturalness are evidenced, for example, by burials at sea, the first forest graveyards currently being established and memorial services reflecting the deceased."
As more and more people want their ashes scattered in the sea or at the summer cottage, what will happen to the cemetery as a place of remembrance? Will All Saints' Day retain its status?
"My theory is that the meaning of All Saints' Day is changing, with the significance of cemeteries slightly diminishing. While celebrating the holiday is combined with elements of Halloween, urbanisation and multi-location living are reducing visits to family graves in rural areas. Instead, candles are lit, for example, at memorial sites for people buried elsewhere. The culture of death is another point of difference between rural and urban areas.
Vähäkangas believes not that people wish to abandon rituals, but that rituals change over time.
A new project investigating the cemeteries of worldview minorities
This autumn, Vähäkangas has received funding from the Research Council of Finland for a project entitled Meaningful Deathscapes - Worldview minority cemeteries in Finland (MeDea), which investigates the meanings religious and non-religious worldview minorities assign to their cemeteries.
The project focuses on Jewish, Muslim, Orthodox, Catholic and secular sites.
"Before the Freedom of Religion Act passed in the 1920s, the state church defined the religion of the governing body and, consequently, funeral customs. The act allowed the establishment of non-Lutheran and non-Orthodox cemeteries in Finland, making it possible for minorities to have their own sites."
These can be dedicated cemeteries or burial grounds within Lutheran cemeteries.
"In the study, all worldview minorities are considered on an equal footing. In other words, we don't talk about, for example, immigrants or native Finns. Our research method is co-research, which means research carried out collaboratively with communities, with approaches varying from community to community. The initial results will be submitted to the communities for comment," Vähäkangas says.
Under development is a guidebook on the death and burial cultures of minorities for, among others, funeral parlours, cemetery workers and care homes.
"Different worldview minorities encounter problems because Lutheran burial practices do not necessarily support their practices, such as ritual washing of the body and immediate burial. For example, Jews and Muslims have hired common gravediggers with excavators to observe rapid burial in accordance with their religions."
It is also interesting to examine All Saints' Day from the perspective of worldview minorities.
"All Saints' Day is not significant for Orthodox Christians, for instance, but they have begun to celebrate it because that is the custom in Finland. Celebrating Finnish traditions adds to the identity of minorities and, at the same time, their understanding of the holiday."
The notion of death is difficult to accept
Vähäkangas has noticed that people find it difficult to hear about death studies in everyday life. Death is perceived as an unfamiliar and frightening thing that people wish to push aside.
"Many Finns have been alienated from death," she notes.
"After death was transferred from homes to institutions, extended families and neighbours no longer come to say their goodbyes. By and large, only the nuclear family does so. Instead, many rituals associated with the burial practices of minorities bring death closer to people and make it concrete: death becomes real. In Orthodoxy, for example, the custom has been to leave the coffin open."
According to Vähäkangas, it is difficult to accept the idea of your own death and that of everyone else when advanced medicine makes it possible to postpone it so much further. Encountering death is tough also because questions about what comes after are more challenging if you cannot rely on your own clear belief system.
From this perspective, it is interesting how important All Saints' Day is to Finns.
Consideration for grief sought in performance-oriented society
Since death affects us all, in spite of our desire to avoid it, we will inevitably also have to deal with grief. According to Vähäkangas, the concept of grieving has become outdated.
"The concept is associated with the idea of grief as a linear activity, which can be dealt with by performing in an appropriate manner. Today, grief is increasingly thought of as a process. New experiences of grief can bring old ones to the surface, making grief part of life. The aim is not to get rid of it once and for all."
Grief is not a disease, but, for example, work communities should realise that grief consumes energy.
"Communities and supervisors should acknowledge that grieving individuals' fitness for work is temporarily reduced, and that practical arrangements also take time. And individuals are different: some are more resilient than others and need different types of support. Grief is not the same for everyone. That's difficult to accept in this performance-oriented society of ours. After all, stereotypical Finns deal with their grief on their own."
Vähäkangas would like to see more talk about death in society.
"It's important to talk about it to everyone appropriately. Families could establish more rituals related to remembrance and their own ways of remembering."
In fact, the trend of funerals reflecting the deceased is one element of this. They make grief tangible and help in the process of grieving. Grief related to the death of pets has also become an increasingly common topic of discussion.
"The celebration of All Saints' Day could emphasise that death is a normal part of life. Celebrating it does not mean that you're conjuring up death. Courage to talk openly about death helps you live well in the moment."
