AS AN exception to the principle of the permanence of Christian burial, the Consistory Court of the diocese of Chichester has granted a college for the exhumation of the body of a lifelong atheist from the consecrated a part of a municipal cemetery.
In March 2023, Christopher Anthony Reid died of pneumonia on the age of 63. At the time of his death, Mr Reid, who had mental-health issues, had lost contact together with his immediate family. His carer informed the authorities that he had no details of Mr Reid’s next of kin.
The local authority buried Mr Reid in Bognor Regis Town Cemetery in an area consecrated in accordance with the rites of the Church of England. In September 2023, Mr Reid’s widow and three daughters learned of his death. They were particularly troubled by the selection of his final resting place.
His wife and daughters said that Mr Reid was an atheist and resolutely against the practice of burial. They applied for a college to have his stays exhumed and cremated, and his ashes to be scattered, which was what, they believed, he would have wanted.
In their written statements to the Chancellor, the Worshipful Mark Hill KC, Mr Reid’s family said that he would have been outraged at his final burial place, that he had a preference for science over religion, and that he “despised” three things: “The monarchy, the Government, and the Church of England”. The Chancellor said that those views were “highly material” to his decision.
To understand the ecclesiastical law that applied to this case, the Chancellor said, it was “crucial to step back and consider the role of the Church of England within the nation’s life”. Its civic functions weren’t confined to its members, but prolonged to the population as a complete. As a general proposition, the Chancellor said, “the general public, regardless of their religious affiliations . . . have a legal right to be married of their parish church and buried in its burial ground.”
Article 9 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms gave rights that were abbreviated to freedom of faith. That right prolonged beyond religion to incorporate belief systems and world-views. Thus, the rights protected included atheism, agnosticism, and humanism.
The Chancellor emphasised that he made no criticism of the local authority, the funeral directors, or the cleric involved in Mr Reid’s burial and the selection of a plot within the consecrated a part of the cemetery. They “couldn’t reasonably have been expected to have known of his atheistic beliefs”, they usually “acted entirely properly”, the Chancellor said.
But, unquestionably, the evidence established a mistake, because those liable for deciding Mr Reid’s final resting place had no knowledge of his “aversion to Christianity basically and the Church of England particularly”. That would have been sufficient to eliminate the case without recourse to the Human Rights Convention.
Article 9 of the Convention, nonetheless, was “each relevant and compelling”, since it “reinforces and undergirds the necessity for an exception to be made allowing an exhumation to happen”, the Chancellor said. Mr Reid’s strongly held atheistic beliefs were “entitled to the identical level of respect in death as they might in life”.
The faculty was granted, and Mr Reid’s family were at liberty to have his body cremated and to deal together with his ashes as they saw fit. They were required to bear the prices of the of the petition for the school, and people costs needed to be settled in full before the school was implemented.
