Religious Views on Cremation: What Every Major Faith Teaches

Updated October 12, 2026 · Written by Jordan Colton, founder of Cherished Emblems · Checked against each tradition's published sources · How we research and review this series

What do the world's religions say about cremation?

Religions are divided on cremation. Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism generally expect it. Islam, Orthodox Judaism, and the Eastern Orthodox Church forbid it. The Catholic Church allows it with rules about where the ashes must rest, and most Protestant churches, Latter-day Saints, and Jehovah's Witnesses leave the choice to the family.

This is the home page of a reference series on how each religion, and the branches within it, view cremation. Each linked page answers the question directly, explains the official teaching and when it was set, describes how the tradition is lived today, and answers the questions families actually ask: scattering, keeping ashes at home, dividing them, memorial jewelry, and what kind of funeral is possible. Every doctrinal claim is cited to the tradition's own sources, with a Wikipedia entry alongside for general background. We wrote it because a grieving family, or a friend choosing a gift for one, deserves a real answer, not a guess.

Key facts at a glance

• Traditions that generally require or expect cremation: Hinduism, Buddhism (most schools), Sikhism, Jainism.
• Traditions that forbid cremation: Islam (all major schools), Orthodox Judaism, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Baha'i Faith, Zoroastrianism (traditionally).
• Traditions that allow cremation with conditions: Catholic Church (ashes must rest in a sacred place; no scattering, home keeping, or keepsakes, with one narrow exception since 2023), Conservative Judaism (ruled against Jewish tradition and rabbis advise against it; if it happens, the ashes should be buried).
• Traditions that leave it to the family: Most Protestant denominations, Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, most secular and humanist families.
• Indigenous and Pacific Islander traditions: Vary by nation and community; there is no single position, and some practices are not shared outside the community.
• United States today: The Cremation Association of North America reports a 62.8 percent cremation rate for 2025 and projects 69.1 percent by 2030. The rate first topped 50 percent in 2016 and was 38.1 percent as recently as 2009. See the history of cremation in America.
• Who decides: In Catholic, Orthodox, Islamic, and Orthodox Jewish communities, religious law. Nearly everywhere else, the family.

We are not a religious authority. This page is for information only; please confirm anything here with your own spiritual leader.

On this page

• Why this resource exists
• Compare two traditions side by side
• Christianity
• Judaism
• Islam
• Hinduism
• Buddhism
• Sikhism
• Jainism
• Baha'i Faith
• Zoroastrianism
• Shinto and Japanese Buddhism
• Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese traditions
• Indigenous and Pacific Islander traditions
• Secular and humanist perspectives
• Common questions families ask
• Where personal choice and memorial keepsakes fit
• Update history
• Sources

Coming next: full pages for Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, the Baha'i Faith, Zoroastrianism, Japanese and East Asian traditions, and secular families are being written and reviewed. Until each is published, its section below is the current summary, sourced and dated like the rest of the series.

Why this resource exists

We sell cremation jewelry, and for years the same question kept arriving in our inbox in different words: is this allowed? Sometimes it came from a person planning for themselves. More often it came from someone choosing a gift. A daughter in law raised Baptist wanted to give a pendant to her Catholic mother in law. A friend wanted to do something for a Jewish coworker who had just lost her father and did not know whether keeping ashes was even a possibility. A grandson wanted to honor a grandfather who had converted late in life to a faith the rest of the family did not share.

Giving a memorial gift across a difference in faith is hard. You want to be thoughtful, and you are afraid of getting it wrong at the worst possible moment. When we went looking for somewhere to send these families, we found scattered forum threads, a few denominational pages written for clergy, and plenty of sales pages that answered "yes" to everything. There was no single place where the major religions, and the branches inside them, were laid out side by side in plain language with the sources shown. So we built one.

Every page in this series answers the question first, explains what the tradition officially teaches and when that was decided, describes how it is lived today, and answers the questions families actually ask about scattering, keeping ashes, dividing them, memorial keepsakes, and funerals. Where a tradition says no to keepsakes with ashes, we say so, and we suggest what does fit. There is no right or wrong way to carry a loss, but there is a way to carry it that honors what the person believed, and that is what this resource is for.

Compare two traditions side by side

You know your own tradition. You are trying to understand someone else's, maybe for a parent whose faith you did not share, maybe for a friend you want to give a gift to without getting it wrong. Our comparison tool puts any two traditions next to each other on the eight questions families actually ask: whether cremation is allowed, whether burial is preferred, scattering, keeping ashes at home, dividing them, memorial jewelry, a funeral with the ashes present, and who decides. Every answer comes from the cited pages in this series.

Open the comparison tool

Christianity

Christianity is the largest faith in the United States and the one with the widest range of answers. The Christian Views on Cremation hub compares every major denomination side by side, and Is Cremation a Sin? What the Bible Says walks through every passage of Scripture people cite for and against it. Individual pages:

• Catholic: allowed since 1963, ashes must rest in a sacred place, scattering and keepsakes not permitted.
• Eastern Orthodox: forbidden; funeral rites normally withheld when cremation was chosen.
• Protestant (overview): allowed by nearly every body, a matter of family choice.
• Southern Baptist: allowed; no convention resolution, each church decides.
• United Methodist: allowed; no position for or against, liturgy provided for ashes.
• Lutheran (ELCA, Missouri Synod, WELS, ELS): allowed; a matter of Christian freedom, with the Missouri Synod's rite encouraging interment of ashes over scattering.
• Evangelical and nondenominational: allowed; a matter of conscience, some leaders prefer burial.
• Latter-day Saints: allowed; the family decides, and the body is to be treated with respect and reverence either way.
• Jehovah's Witnesses: allowed; a personal decision with no scriptural objection.

Pages for Presbyterian, Episcopal and Anglican, Pentecostal, Oriental Orthodox, Seventh-day Adventist, Christian Science, and Quaker traditions are in progress.

Judaism

In Judaism the branch is the whole story. Jewish Views on Cremation walks through Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist positions in turn. In short: Orthodox Judaism forbids cremation because burial in the earth is a commandment and the body is owed honor; Conservative Judaism rules cremation against Jewish tradition and directs rabbis to advise families against it, though a rabbi may still officiate before the cremation and the ashes should be buried in a Jewish cemetery; Reform Judaism discourages cremation while leaving the decision to the family; Reconstructionist Judaism treats it as a personal choice. The memory of the Holocaust weighs on all four.

Islam

Not allowed. Islam forbids cremation, and this is one of the few questions on which Sunni and Shia authorities agree. Sunni scholars at Islam Question and Answer state plainly that "it is not permitted to burn the dead; rather it is obligatory to bury the dead," and the Shia jurist Ayatollah Sistani's Islamic Laws makes burial of the body obligatory. The body is to be washed, shrouded in white cloth, prayed over, and buried in the ground without delay, laid on its right side facing Mecca. Burning the body is considered a violation of the honor God gave to the children of Adam (Quran 17:70), and the Islamweb fatwa service applies the same ruling even when land is scarce.

Hinduism

Expected. For Hindus, cremation is the last of the life rites, called antyeshti, the last sacrifice. It is the rite for nearly everyone, freeing the soul from attachment to the body so it can move on. The pyre is traditionally lit by the eldest son or a close male relative, and the ashes and bones are immersed in a sacred river such as the Ganges. Small children and saints are the exceptions: their bodies are considered pure and are buried instead (Heart of Hinduism). For Hindu families the question is rarely whether to cremate, but what to do with the ashes afterward and how soon. Background: Antyesti on Wikipedia.

Buddhism

Customary, not required. Buddhists in most societies cremate, following the example of the Buddha himself, whose funeral "set the standard for Buddhists through the coming millennia" (Tricycle). Death is treated as a moment of religious significance for both the person and the family, when the karma of a lifetime shapes the next rebirth, and monks chant verses on impermanence at the funeral (Buddhist funeral, Wikipedia). Cremation or burial follows the wishes of the person or the family. Customs differ between Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana communities: in Tibet the body may be offered in a sky burial, with cremation reserved mainly for lamas or for winter. The full page, Buddhist Views on Cremation, covers Theravada, Mahayana, Japanese, and Tibetan practice in turn, including keeping, dividing, and scattering ashes.

Sikhism

Expected. The Sikh code of conduct, the Sikh Reht Maryada, Article XIX, directs that the body be cremated however young the person was, that the whole of the ashes be immersed in flowing water, and that no monument be raised where the cremation took place. The funeral, called Antam Sanskar (the final rite), has three parts: the cremation, a ceremony at the gurdwara with a reading of the Guru Granth Sahib, and the immersion of the ashes (Antam Sanskar, Wikipedia). Death is understood as God's will, and wailing is discouraged in favor of prayer.

Jainism

Expected. Jains cremate, ideally within a day of death, and the funeral guidelines of the Federation of Jain Associations in North America note that Jains generally do not collect the ashes at all, though a family that wishes to may arrange it. The emphasis of the rite is on nonviolence and on the soul's onward journey rather than on the remains.

Baha'i Faith

Not allowed. The Baha'i law of burial comes from the Kitab-i-Aqdas, whose note 149 records that the burial law "precludes cremation of the dead." The body is to be buried, not burned, and within an hour's journey of the place where the person died.

Zoroastrianism

Traditionally not allowed. Zoroastrian teaching holds fire and earth sacred, so the traditional practice exposes the dead in a dakhma, a tower of silence, where neither element is polluted by the corpse (Tower of Silence, Wikipedia). Practice has changed in the modern era. The Encyclopaedia Iranica notes that Iranian Zoroastrians moved to cemetery burial in the 1930s, that some Parsis in India now choose burial or cremation, and that orthoprax priests will not perform the funeral rites when a body is cremated.

Shinto and Japanese Buddhism

Nearly universal. Japan cremates almost every person who dies: a Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare report put the figure at 99 percent. Most funerals are Buddhist (90.1 percent, with 3.4 percent Shinto, according to a Japan Consumers' Association survey), and after the cremation the family uses special chopsticks to place the bones in a small urn, the kotsutsubo (Nippon.com). Shinto treats death as impure, so when a death occurs the household kamidana shrine is closed and covered with white paper, while the Buddhist altar becomes the center of the rites (Japanese funeral, Wikipedia). The urn is usually placed in a family grave, though scattering and tree burial have grown.

Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese traditions

The norm today, shaped by ancestor veneration. Cremation is now standard across much of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea, shaped by a mix of Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist, and folk practice. Funerals commonly include offerings of food, incense, and joss paper, and Taoist or Buddhist prayers to help the soul find peace; in the Confucian tradition, interment is said to help the deceased reach final serenity (Chinese funeral rituals, Wikipedia). In mainland China the method is also a matter of national regulation, which designates cremation areas and, in revised rules effective March 30, 2026, encourages sea, tree, flower, and lawn interment of ashes (China Daily). Ancestor veneration continues regardless of the method, which is why urns, columbaria, and household altars matter so much in these cultures. Background: East Asian funerals on Wikipedia.

Indigenous and Pacific Islander traditions

There is no single Native American, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander view of cremation. Practices differ by nation, region, and family, and some belong to the community alone. Some nations historically cremated; many did not. We are approaching this section slowly and with the help of community voices rather than desk research, and we will only publish what can be shared respectfully and with a source. If you belong to one of these communities and would like to help us get it right, we would be grateful to hear from you.

Secular and humanist perspectives

For atheist, agnostic, and humanist families, the question is practical and personal rather than doctrinal. Humanist celebrants lead funerals and memorials for either burial or cremation, and secular families are also the ones most often choosing newer options such as alkaline hydrolysis (water cremation), which 26 states permitted as of March 2026 according to the Cremation Association of North America, and natural organic reduction (human composting), legal in 14 states as of September 2026: Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware, Maine, Vermont, Georgia, Minnesota, and New York (Earth Funeral legislative tracker). Our guide to choosing between cremation and burial covers the practical side.

Common questions families ask

Which religions do not allow cremation?

Islam, Orthodox Judaism, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Baha'i Faith, and traditional Zoroastrianism forbid cremation. Conservative Judaism rules it against Jewish tradition and advises families against it, but still calls for the ashes to be buried if a cremation happens. Each holds that the body is owed a specific kind of honor that burning does not provide. The reasons and sources are in the Islam, Judaism, Eastern Orthodox, Baha'i, and Zoroastrianism sections.

Which religions require cremation?

Hinduism, Sikhism, and Jainism expect cremation for nearly everyone, and most Buddhist communities practice it by custom. Hindu tradition makes exceptions for small children and saints, whose bodies are considered pure and who are buried instead.

Does Christianity allow cremation?

Most Christian denominations do. Catholics may cremate but must place the ashes in a cemetery, church, or columbarium. Eastern Orthodox Christians may not cremate. Protestants, Latter-day Saints, and Jehovah's Witnesses treat it as a family decision. See the Christian hub for each denomination, and Is Cremation a Sin? for what the Bible itself says.

Can religious families keep ashes at home or in memorial jewelry?

It depends entirely on the tradition. Catholic guidance does not permit it apart from a narrow exception a bishop may grant. Orthodox Jewish, Muslim, and Eastern Orthodox teaching does not contemplate keeping ashes because cremation itself is not allowed. Hindu and Sikh custom expects the ashes to be immersed rather than kept, though many families in the diaspora keep a small portion. Most Protestant, Reform Jewish, Latter-day Saint, Jehovah's Witness, and secular families are free to keep an urn at home or wear a small, symbolic portion of ashes in a pendant.

Why do religions disagree about cremation?

The disagreement comes down to what each tradition believes the body is. Faiths that teach bodily resurrection have historically buried the dead as an act of faith, and some still require it. Faiths that teach reincarnation or liberation of the soul see the body as a vessel to be returned to the elements, and cremation does that. Faiths that emphasize ancestor veneration care more about where the remains rest than about the method.

What if my loved one's wishes conflict with our religion?

Talk with your clergy before deciding. Most traditions have pastoral provisions for hard cases, such as an Orthodox priest offering memorial prayers when a cremation has already happened, a Catholic bishop's guidance on where ashes may rest, or a Conservative rabbi who will still lead a service before a cremation the family has chosen. You are not the first family to face this, and clergy are used to helping.

Do these rules apply to pets?

No. Religious teaching on cremation and burial concerns human remains. None of the traditions in this series has a rule against cremating a pet or keeping a pet's ashes at home or in a keepsake. Families who follow a strict tradition for themselves often make a different, entirely personal choice for a dog or cat, and clergy do not object.

Where personal choice and memorial keepsakes fit

We sell cremation jewelry, and we want to be plain about that so you can weigh what we say accordingly. This series exists because, over years of talking with families, we kept hearing the same worry: "Is this allowed?" The honest answer is that it depends on your faith, and we would rather tell you that your tradition says no than sell you something you would later regret.

Where a tradition leaves the choice to the family, keeping a small, symbolic portion of ashes close in a memorial pendant is one of the ways people carry someone through the ordinary days, and you can see how those keepsakes work in our cremation jewelry collection. Where a tradition says no, there are other ways to keep them close: a piece engraved with a name, a date, or a line of Scripture; a lock of hair; soil or sand from a place that mattered. There is no right or wrong way to carry a loss.

Update history

October 12, 2026: Linked the related pages in this series, including Is Cremation a Sin? and the comparison tool, so readers can move between traditions. (source)

October 12, 2026: Added a statement that Cherished Emblems is not a religious authority, that this guide is for information only and is not religious advice, and that decisions belong with your own spiritual leader. (source)

October 11, 2026: Linked the new page Is Cremation a Sin? What the Bible Says About Cremation from the Christianity section and the Christianity question, and listed every published page in the series in this page's structured data. (source)

October 11, 2026: Linked the new Buddhist page from the Buddhism section and removed Buddhism from the list of pages still in progress. The Buddhist page is published pending review by Buddhist clergy and practitioners. (source)

October 11, 2026: Brought the Conservative Judaism summary in line with the audited Jewish page: the 1986 ruling calls cremation against Jewish tradition and directs rabbis to advise against it rather than banning it outright, and when a family proceeds anyway the burial of the ashes is private, without a rabbi. Removed the Oriental Orthodox churches from the list of traditions that forbid cremation until their page is researched and sourced. Shortened the answer on which religions do not allow cremation, gathered the notes about pages in progress into one line, and added a page explaining how the series is researched and reviewed. (source)

September 6, 2026: Added the Lutheran page to the Christianity list. (source)

Show earlier updates (15)

September 6, 2026: Gave Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, the Baha'i Faith, Zoroastrianism, Japanese practice, and Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese practice their own sections, each with a one line verdict, the tradition's own source, and a Wikipedia entry for background. Previously these were grouped into two combined sections. No positions changed. (source)

September 5, 2026: Added a question on pets, a "Next step" box linking to the new Memorial Gifts by Faith page, and the gifts page to the series. (source)

September 5, 2026: Moved the comparison tool to its own page and replaced it here with a short introduction and link. (source)

September 4, 2026: Redesigned the comparison tool with paired tradition shortcuts, a "show only differences" filter, and question cards; data unchanged. (source)

September 4, 2026: Added the "Why this resource exists" section and an interactive tool for comparing two traditions side by side. The comparison data is taken from the key facts on each tradition's page and will be updated whenever a page changes. (source)

September 3, 2026: Replaced the United States cremation figure. The draft cited an NFDA projection of 63.4 percent for 2025 alongside an unsourced "about 25 percent in 1999"; the Cremation Association of North America now reports an actual 2025 rate of 62.8 percent, and the 1999 figure could not be located in any CANA or NFDA publication, so it was replaced with CANA's documented milestones (38.1 percent in 2009, above 50 percent in 2016). (source)

September 3, 2026: Verified the Islam summary against Sunni and Shia sources and cited them. Removed the unsourced claims that "all four Sunni schools of law" have ruled on the question and that burial should happen "ideally within a day," keeping the sourced statements that burial is obligatory and should not be delayed. (source)

September 3, 2026: Verified and cited the Hindu summary. Narrowed the list of who is buried rather than cremated to small children and saints, the exceptions the source names; an unsourced reference to "those who died of certain causes" was removed from the answer and the FAQ schema. (source)

September 3, 2026: Verified the Sikh summary against the Sikh Reht Maryada, Article XIX, which directs cremation, immersion of all the ashes in flowing water, and no monument at the cremation site, and cited it. (source)

September 3, 2026: Corrected the Jain summary. The draft said Jains "do not keep ashes"; the JAINA funeral guidelines say Jains generally do not collect ashes but will arrange it if a family wishes, and the page now says so. (source)

September 3, 2026: Verified and cited the Buddhist summary, including the Buddha's own cremation, cremation as the norm in most Buddhist societies, and Tibetan sky burial with cremation reserved mainly for lamas or winter. (source)

September 3, 2026: Verified the Japan summary and added the figure: a Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare report cited by Nippon.com puts Japan's cremation rate at 99 percent. Added a citation for mainland China's funeral and interment regulations, revised with effect from March 30, 2026. (source)

September 3, 2026: Verified and cited the Baha'i position (Kitab-i-Aqdas note 149, which records that the burial law precludes cremation) and the Zoroastrian position, adding the Encyclopaedia Iranica's account of modern practice: cemetery burial in Iran since the 1930s, some Parsis choosing burial or cremation, and orthoprax priests declining rites after a cremation. (source)

September 3, 2026: Replaced the vague "growing number of states" for alkaline hydrolysis and natural organic reduction with current counts: 26 states for alkaline hydrolysis (CANA, March 2026) and 14 states for natural organic reduction, listed by name (tracker updated September 1, 2026). (source)

September 3, 2026: Reworded the Latter-day Saint summary to match General Handbook 38.7.2, which leaves the decision to the family and asks that the body be treated with respect and reverence; a reference to temple clothing that could not be confirmed in the Handbook text was removed from this summary. (source)

Sources

1. Ad resurgendum cum Christo, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 2016
2. Regarding Suicides and Cremation, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America
3. Why Does Judaism Forbid Cremation?, Chabad.org
4. What Is Reform Judaism's Position on Cremation?, Central Conference of American Rabbis
5. Ask The UMC: cremation and organ donation, The United Methodist Church
6. How do Lutherans regard organ donation and cremation?, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
7. General Handbook, chapter 38, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
8. What Does the Bible Say About Cremation?, jw.org
9. 2025 Cremation and Burial Report, National Funeral Directors Association, 2025
10. Industry Statistics, Cremation Association of North America
11. Religious Landscape Study, Pew Research Center, 2023 to 2024
12. It is not permissible to burn the body of the deceased after death, Islam Question and Answer
13. Cremation in Islam, Islamweb fatwa service
14. Islamic Laws: Laws of Burial (Dafn), Office of Ayatollah Sistani
15. Antyeshti, Encyclopaedia Britannica
16. Antyeshti: Funeral Rites, Heart of Hinduism, ISKCON Educational Services
17. Antyesti, Wikipedia
18. What Are Buddhist Death Rites?, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review
19. Buddhist funeral, Wikipedia
20. Sikh Reht Maryada, Section Four, Article XIX: Funeral Ceremonies, Sikh Missionary Society UK
21. Antam Sanskar, Wikipedia
22. Jain Funeral Procedures, Federation of Jain Associations in North America (JAINA)
23. The Kitab-i-Aqdas, Notes 149 to 152 on burial, Baha'i Reference Library
24. Corpse: Disposal of, in Zoroastrianism, Encyclopaedia Iranica
25. Tower of Silence, Wikipedia
26. Funerals in Japan, Nippon.com
27. Japanese funeral, Wikipedia
28. Funeral service rules changed drastically, China Daily, January 2026
29. Chinese funeral rituals, Wikipedia
30. East Asian funerals, Wikipedia
31. Alkaline Hydrolysis, Cremation Association of North America, March 2026
32. Tracker: Where Is Human Composting Legal in the US?, Earth Funeral, September 2026
33. Cremation in the Jewish Tradition (Rabbi Morris M. Shapiro, CJLS), Rabbinical Assembly, 1986