BURBANK : Attorney to Review Church Burial Plan

The Burbank City Council has asked the city attorney to review the constitutional questions raised by a church’s request to bury its leader behind its altar.

The council, worried that writing an exemption to city codes to allow churches to apply for such a burial permit, had reached a 2-2 stalemate last week. On Tuesday, after representatives of St. Ephraim’s Syrian Orthodox Church on Glenoaks Boulevard repeated their request, the council voted 4 to 0 to have the matter reviewed by City Atty. Joseph Fletcher.

Representatives of the church likened blocking the request to the violations of religious freedoms that Mayor George Battey Jr. and Councilwoman Susan Spanos have said they were trying to avoid.

“It is in the heart of our traditions, culture and religious beliefs,” said Pastor Joseph Tarzi, who explained that the practice of burying church leaders behind the altar goes back to the time of early Christians.

The church wants to bury its American archbishop, Athanasius Y. Samuel, in a simple tomb behind the altar after his death. Samuel, 86, leader of Syrian Christians throughout the United States and Canada, is best known for his role in discovering a portion of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Tarzi told the City Council that while Samuel is based in New Jersey, he visits Burbank five to six times a year and often stays for several weeks.

“We have not ever had a problem like this anywhere in the world, even when in a country dominated by Muslims and Hindus,” Tarzi told the council. The church burials would be available only to a bishop or other clergy, but not to the general public, and the tomb would not be visible to the congregation, he said.

Mike Caggiano, the architect for the church, told the council that many of the problems in issuing the conditional use permit to a church could be solved by setting specific requirements, like having burials above ground to make it easier to move if the church is sold or relocated.

“The current code is religiously neutral,” countered Ted McConkey, a Burbank resident who said that although he has strong religious beliefs, he does not think that the City Council should be involved in the issue.

“The difficulty lies in the discretionary powers of Burbank elected officials to deny the conditional use permit,” he said.

The change could open up the city to problems if one religious group is denied a permit and then could sue, saying its religious rights had been violated, McConkey said.

“Litigation is a very real possibility in these times,” Spanos said.

Fletcher said it would take four to eight weeks to review the issues and asked that another public hearing be scheduled when the request is brought back to the City Council.

“There is a way we can deal with this reasonably,” Councilman Bob Bowne said.

“I’d like to get this back into the arena of being a land-use matter rather than an emotional issue,” Battey said.