Cyprus finally gets its first crematorium — 25 years in the making

Living in Cyprus churchdeathdevelopmentsPaphosreligionTop News Cyprus finally gets its first crematorium — 25 years in the making Pb23002 Cyprus Crem Visuals Pr Release A3 View From Southern Boundary Relevant News Cyprus finally gets its first crematorium — 25 years in the making 12 June 2026 “Clarity and peace to build”: Why founders are choosing Cyprus to scale their startups 12 June 2026 Cyprus set for mainly sunny weekend with temperatures around 34°C 12 June 2026 Christina Karakondylou 12 June 2026 FacebookXWhatsAppEmailPrintViber For nearly 25 years, Maureen Watt watched families in Cyprus bury their loved ones against their wishes. A Scottish funeral director who has lived on the island for 21 years, she kept hearing the same thing from the British, German, Dutch and other non-Orthodox communities she served: there is no crematorium here. She spent the better part of two decades pushing, lobbying and petitioning to change that. She conducted thousands of funerals along the way and watched families navigate a system that could not accommodate their wishes, and received the same question everywhere she went: how’s the crematorium coming? Now, finally, she has an answer. Golden Leaves Cyprus Crematorium Limited has received its final planning permit for a facility in Agia Varvara in Paphos. This will be Cyprus’s first crematorium. Construction is expected to begin in or before September, with completion targeted for 2027, but officially expected in 2028. The building will cover just over 1,000 square metres on a site of more than 11,000 square metres, at an estimated construction cost of €4 million. The petition and the partner Maureen’s involvement began in 2008, when she was selling funeral plans across Cyprus for Golden Leaves Ltd. and kept running into the same problem. Families — British, German, Dutch, and others — were asking about cremation. There was no answer to give them. Around that time, she met Clive Turner, a British expat living in Kamares, Paphos, who had been campaigning for a cremation facility and gathering signatures to put before the government. Maureen joined him. Together they collected thousands of signatures from residents across the island. The lobbying went on for years, with meetings at various ministries, and very little to show for it. “We honestly felt as though we were getting nowhere,” Maureen recalls. But the more she spoke to people, the clearer the demand became. Their research showed that 91.5% of expatriates living in Cyprus preferred cremation as their first choice. The bureaucratic wall, however, remained standing. By 2010, Maureen had met Neofytos Christodoulides, who would later become her business partner at Angel Guardians Funeral Home. Two years into their collaboration, she raised the crematorium question again. Together, they re-engaged with government officials with renewed determination. After persistent lobbying and countless meetings, a preliminary licence was secured in 2016, the same year the Cypriot parliament passed legislation permitting cremation after more than a decade of debate. Maureen then reached out to Steve Rowland and Barry Floyd of Golden Leaves Ltd., who agreed to come in and fund the project for the island. “We put to the government all the positivities for the crematorium,” Maureen says, “and they seriously started to look at it.” 25 years in the making The public debate over cremation in Cyprus effectively began in 2001, with a death that forced the question into the open. Ploutis Servas, AKEL’s first Secretary General, had expressed a clear wish to be cremated. His family took his remains to the United Kingdom to honour it. That was a turning point for the public discussion. A bill proposed by then-DIKO MP Marios Matsakis reached parliament in 2002, where it met fierce resistance from the Church of Cyprus. A grassroots initiative called “Cremation in Cyprus” formed in 2003, driven largely by British residents. Maureen would later personally speak to “thousands of people wishing to be cremated after their death”. Further attempts at legislation followed in 2006 and 2009. Each time, the bill stalled. The Holy Synod made its position clear: the Church could not prevent people from choosing cremation, but it would not conduct funeral rites for those who did. “It would be contrary to our beliefs and tradition,” the Synod stated. Maureen is careful to draw the distinction. “The crematorium is not here to upset the Greek Orthodox religion or anyone,” she says. “It’s about offering the community the choice,” and “giving families a cost-effective service to meet what their actual wishes are”. The amended bill passed in spring 2016, and for years, no private initiative materialised. Funeral home owners lobbied the state to build the facility itself; the government declined. The rest of Europe, meanwhile, had resolved this question long ago. Britain in 1884, France by 1887, Greece only in 2006, with its first crematorium opening in 2019. It was not until 2023 that a private initiative in Cyprus was publicly confirmed. What the facility will offer The site in Agia Varvara was selected for its privacy, accessibility, and tranquillity. The facility has been designed with sustainability and dignity at its core, featuring state-of-the-art cremation technology meeting full environmental compliance, landscaped remembrance areas, and columbaria for the storage of urns. Two chapels will serve families: one accommodating up to 60 people, the other up to 120. Both will be open to all faiths and to secular services. Families may choose to hold a church service first, then proceed to the crematorium, where eulogies can be delivered before the committal. The crematorium will be accessible to all funeral homes on the island, and Maureen intends to distribute documentation in Greek, English, Chinese, and Russian to ensure every community is informed. She also hopes the facility will eventually serve families from surrounding countries who wish to have their loved ones cremated in Cyprus. For those wishing to register their preference, a form is currently available at the Paphos District Office, as well as through Angel Guardians. Maureen would like to see that process extended island-wide, and, eventually, for the requirement itself to be reconsidered. For Maureen, the written-consent requirement cuts closer to home than most. Currently, only the Paphos District Office is accepting the registration form, on which individuals must state their wish to be cremated upon death. She would eventually like to see the requirement done away with altogether. “My dad was 53 when he died. He would have signed a form if that was necessary in Scotland. But seven months later my wee brother was killed and he was only 17. And he would never have signed one of these forms. Would they have denied our family him being cremated?” It is a question that goes to the heart of what the registration process cannot account for: the young, the sudden, the unprepared. And it is why Maureen wants access to the forms extended well beyond Paphos in the meantime. “If there are people in Limassol or Larnaca or even Nicosia who wish to be cremated,” she says, “it doesn’t make sense for them to come to Paphos for the registration form.” The cost of no choice The absence of a crematorium has never been merely an inconvenience. Families who wanted cremation faced repatriation costs on top of grief. Cemetery plots, where available, range from €350 to €6,000. Some communities have their own burial restrictions; an expat in one village might find the local cemetery closed off to them, and the nearest accepting one an hour’s drive away. The Covid-19 pandemic made the consequences impossible to ignore. When flights stopped and repatriation became impossible, people who had never wanted to be buried were buried here anyway. “There are some people buried here that did not want to be buried,” Maureen says. “But there was no other option.” The crematorium, she believes, is ultimately about something simple: dignity, and the right to have your final wishes honoured. “It’s not about who wishes to be cremated and who doesn’t,” she says. “It’s about having the option.” Subscribe to our Newsletter Latest News “Clarity and peace to build”: Why founders are choosing Cyprus to scale their startups Cyprus set for mainly sunny weekend with temperatures around 34°C Iran peace deal could be signed this weekend, Trump says Cyprus awards Blue Flag to 56 beaches and two marinas for 2026 Jazz icon Claire Martin closes Minthis Music Festival 2026 Della to play at a church with an orchestra The 27th Contemporary Dance Festival concludes with the Finnish production TEMPO Follow en.philenews on Google News and be the first to know all the news about Cyprus and the world.