Christian graves to face Mecca
September 23rd, 2006 ~ Current eventsBoy, it gets harder and harder all the time to be an Anglophile.
This bit of voluntary sharia law comes to us from Nottingham, England (link HERE):
A multi-faith cemetery will have all its graves aligned with Mecca, despite Christian burials traditionally facing east. …
In today’s secular society you could be forgiven for not knowing which direction Christian graves face.
Ancient tradition shows they should look east in anticipation of the second coming of Jesus Christ.
But all headstones at the new £2.5m High Wood Cemetery in Bulwell will be plotted to face north-east, in line with Islamic faith.
Muslims believe the dead look over their shoulder towards Mecca, towards the south-east.
Now, only 15% of the High Wood Cemetery is allotted to be Islamic. And they do have different sections for different religions. So why angle Christians toward Mecca? Well, that would be because “the council wanted to give a tidy, linear appearance.” So the unspoken assumption is that Islamists will know their traditions and be adamant that the cemetery comply — Christians won’t and won’t.
And sad to say, they’re probably right about both assumptions.
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September 24th, 2006 at 2:41 am
It`s truly frightening, isn`t it ?
Sadly, Britain has lost so many of its Christian traditions. At the cemetery where DH and I have already bought our grave plots, our graves *are* facing East.
September 24th, 2006 at 4:11 pm
Good for you! And I shouldn’t be so cocky — I don’t know if I would’ve known about that tradition or not, so shame on me as well.
I think that as frightening as it is for Great Britain (and a lot of Europe, methinks) to routinely refer to itself as post-Christian, it’s every bit as frightening for us New Worlders to realize that we’re usually only about 50 years or so behind Europe for cultural shifts.
You’d never know it to look around the American landscape and see Titanic-sized megachurches, but really solid Christian teaching and praxis is pretty rare. Unfortunately for us, having a bumper sticker is not the same as having something carved on your heart.
September 24th, 2006 at 8:47 pm
I don’t see why England doesn’t just hand the keys to the kingdom over to Saudi Arabia now and save the muslums the trouble of taking it over, Lord knows England is doing everything they can to make them feel right at home.
September 26th, 2006 at 9:18 am
I’d be curious to know what the view is out Elizabeth’s Garden Window, since she lived in the UK. It seems like on both sides of the ocean, we’re thinking the other one has gone mad. Their foreign policy looks to us like telling the Muslim extremists, “Help yourself to the brandy and cigars, but please don’t break anything.” Ours looks to them like, “We’re going to open up the can of whoopass on y’all, and after that we can be friends.”
Everybody might like to choose “none of the above” but that doesn’t seem to be an option.
October 4th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
Having just returned from two weeks in the UK (mostly Scotland), allow me to offer my assessment of your assessment: Bingo.
While we had a lovely time over there (as we always do), I found I no longer wanted to go inside the beautiful old churches for a look-round. They’re just tourist sites now, which made me sad. I kept thinking of a story I’d read about St. John Maximovitch. It seems that sometime in the 1950s he walked into Westminster Abbey, but after just a few minutes he turned to the priest accompanying him and said, “Let us leave. There is no grace here.”
October 4th, 2006 at 12:56 pm
Boy, that’s incredibly sad. Greg and I just went to Scotland for the first time about a year ago, and I just thought it was too beautiful for words. But seeing the ruins of abbeys and the churches and cathedrals turned into tourist traps just gets to you.
October 5th, 2006 at 10:51 am
A friend at my OCA parish, an older fellow who grew up a Catholic in France, said much the same thing when he returned from a trip to his homeland earlier this year.
According to one of our guidebooks, there is exactly one functioning monastery in Scotland, a Benedictine abbey. I’m not sure where it is. Yes, it is sad, but the people, the restaurants (honest), the sights, the ale, and even the Scottish weather were great.
October 5th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
The restaurants?!! Well, that is a plus. The country that brought us haggis and Scottish eggs usually doesn’t take many prizes for good eats.
October 5th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
There are many excellent ethnic restaurants, especially Indian, plus those serving “New Scottish” cuisine, emphasizing the best locally grown ingredients prepared in new ways. And any vegetarians out there MUST try David Bann in Edinburgh. Brilliant!