Read the Faith Central blog on extraordinary burial techniques

The Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body has meant that for centuries church leaders spoke out forcibly against cremation.

The Roman Catholic Church banned it until 1963, and still refuses cremation if done for reasons considered non-Christian. However, historically the Church used cremation when it suited it, such as when disposing of bodies after battles in medieval times.

In eastern religions such as Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism, where the body is seen as a temporal and temporary vessel for the soul, cremation is the norm. Burning the body is believed to hasten the soul's exit.

Cremation is forbidden in Islam, where obedience to the Koranic injunction to honour the “sons of Adam” means that a person's body must be respected as much when dead as when alive. Cremation is also banned in Jewish law, although some Reform and Liberal rabbis today do permit it, and for ashes to be interred in a Jewish cemetery.

Zoroastrians forbid cremation, but not because they consider the body to be sacred. For them it is the fire that is sacrosanct and they believe that it would be contaminated by the body. However, the Zoroastrian pop star Freddie Mercury was cremated.

The scale of the 2004 tsunami, in which 300,000 died, was one example of how, in times of disaster, different religious practices can be difficult to adhere to. Many bodies were buried or cremated en masse and before the victims were identified.

Protestant countries have traditionally taken a more liberal view of cremation, believing that an omnipotent God would be able to resurrect a body out of ashes as well as out of bones.

Cremation was legalised in Britain in 1884 and first regulated by Parliament in 1902.