Jul 2011: The Hindu Cremation
The Spring 2011 issue of The Cremationist of America featured an article by Dennis Werner, General Manager of St. Michael’s Cemetery and All Soul’s Crematory, on Hindu Cremation. The article is part of a feature on Hindu cremation customs.
“While planning to build a crematory and chapel, we were researching the best ways to serve the local NYC metropolitan area. Through our research, we came to find out that the Hindu community not only prefers cremation, but they also have ceremonial rituals that require a chapel substantial enough to hold large amounts of people. While visiting the local Hindu Temples in Queens, we found that the majority of Hindu cremations have at least 100 people from the community come to the crematory to witness final prayers and the beginning of the cremation process. With this information, we increased the size of our chapel and built a brick wall around the retorts so that the people viewing would only be exposed to the front of the cremation unit and the control panel…”
Read more (the All Soul’s / St. Michael’s article is on page 10)



