THE Consistory Court of the diocese of Oxford has granted the
petition of the ambassador of the Republic of Serbia for a faculty
for the disinterment of the remains of Queen Maria of Yugoslavia,
who died in England.
er remains were buried in the royal burial ground at Frogmore,
Windsor, on 22 June 1961. In September last year, the government of
the Republic of Serbia adopted a decision on the establishment of
the organising committee for the exhumation and transfer of the
remains of members of the royal house of Karađjorđjević to the
family crypt at St George's, Oplenac, in the Serbian city of
Topola.
The ambassador's petition to the consistory court was for
permission to exhume the remains of Queen Maria (otherwise known as
Maria Karađjorđjević) so that they might be reinterred in Serbia,
in St George's, with the remains of other members of the royal
family.
Elizabeth II had given her consent to the exhumation, as had
Crown Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia, and other surviving relatives
of Queen Maria. The Dean of Windsor, the Rt Revd David Conner, had
also expressed his agreement to the proposed disinterment.
The Burial Act 1857 states that, except where a body is removed
from one consecrated place of burial to another by faculty, it is
not lawful to move remains that have been interred in a place of
burial "without licence under the hand of one of Her Majesty's
Principal Secretaries of State and with such precautions as such
Secretary of State may prescribe as the condition of such
licence".
Although St George's had probably been consecrated according to
Orthodox rites, such consecration was not the same as the
consecration required by the Burial Act. Therefore, Queen Maria's
remains were, in law, to be regarded as being transferred from one
place consecrated according to the laws of England to another place
which was not so consecrated.
Although the Burial Act applied only to this country, it was the
exhumation of the body that required the licence of the Secretary
of State rather than its re-interment, which might be in a country
where the laws of England did not apply. On 11 April, a licence was
granted on behalf of the Secretary of State for Justice requiring
that Queen Maria's remains "be transported to the Republic of
Serbia to be re-interred in the Oplenac Royal Mausoleum".
Even when a licence had been granted, however, the provisions of
ecclesiastical law relating to exhumation still applied. Faculties
for exhumation had been granted in the past for the bringing
together or accumulation of family members in a single grave,
provided that special reasons were put forward for the lapse of
time since the date of burial.
The Revd and Worshipful Dr Rupert Bursell said that Queen
Maria's remains had been buried in England since 1961, but it had
not been possible for a petition for exhumation to be lodged at an
earlier date, as the family had had necessarily to await a
favourable decision by the government of Serbia. That decision had
now been made.
That there were special reasons why the remains should be
re-interred in the royal mausoleum could be inferred, the
Chancellor said, from the fact that the decision to seek exhumation
was made by the Serbian government itself. In the Chancellor's
view, there could not be a better example of the exercise of the
comity of nations, and it was difficult to imagine a better example
of a family grave than a royal mausoleum.
It was entirely clear, the Chancellor said, that the
jurisdiction of the consistory court should not be exercised save
where it was satisfied that the remains would be treated, and
continue to be treated, with reverence and dignity.
Just as the special protection of the ecclesiastical courts
demanded that human remains would not be disturbed, save in
exceptional circumstances, the consistory court should not permit
an exhumation unless it was satisfied that those remains would
thereafter be interred or preserved in a place of real
permanence.
The Chancellor was satisfied that all those requirements would
be more than adequately met by the re-interment in the royal
mausoleum, and directed that a faculty for disinterment be
issued.