The petitioner sought permission to exhume the remains of his grandfather, who was buried in 1982, in order for their cremation and removal to Hong Kong for burial at their ancestral temple. The deceased had practised a ‘Confucian-based’ religion, in which clan members were traditionally exhumed and cremated three years after burial and then re-interred in the ancestral burial ground. In applying the principles set down in Re Blagdon Cemetery,Footnote 1 the chancellor found that a fundamental mistake had been made, in that none of the family had appreciated or had had explained to them the concept of final Christian burial and that they had entirely failed to appreciate that ecclesiastical law does not readily recognise the idea of temporary burial. A faculty was granted. [RA]
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