Dynamics in today's burial culture

There have been large changes in funeral and burial culture in the last three decades: traditional, religious funeral rites are not binding and have been replaced by personalized farewell ceremonies and unconventional memorial practices. Despite the described innovations, 95% of those who die are still buried in the normal manner in a conventional cemetery - even if increasingly less often - accompanied by a church ceremony. One of the essential reasons for the diversity in today's funerals is cremation, which is especially common in the new federal states in Germany. The imagination of those believing in cremation in terms of dealing with the ashes has always been boundless and free from ethical concerns. The anonymous burial, i.e., funeral without identification of the individual grave location usually in a community field, has been an integral part of the German funeral culture for the last four decades. It developed differently in the former East and West Germany due to the different political conditions. Since 2001 it is now possible to bury the ashes of deceased in so-called forest cemeteries in Germany. Due to the dramatic decline in the number of church members and the resulting vacant churches, the question whether one should completely separate from the church buildings or whether a new use for pastoral-church purposes has emerged. The idea of urn and grave churches arose. The variety of innovations shows that there is high innovation potential present in the area of burial culture.