Church under fire for barring man's burial in a plot his family already owns

Relatives of a Toronto-area man who recently died say a church is refusing to let them bury him in its cemetery even though they own a plot there.

The dispute, unfolding in Richmond Hill just north of the city, is pitting a local church against the family of Louis Tsotsos, 67, who died of COVID-19 complications last month, and the Bereavement Authority of Ontario (BAO), a provincial government agency that oversees cemeteries and funeral homes.

"It's been very disheartening and distressing on all of us," said Tsotsos's niece, Christina Nastas.

"We are unable to bury my uncle, who's now sitting at [a] funeral home in limbo."

The Tsotsos family has owned a burial plot at the cemetery since 2014 and two other family members are already buried there. But when the Headford Cemetery and the adjoining church were sold in 2020, no one informed the family, who no longer have any relatives in the area.

It's not clear why the dispute started. The Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God, which now occupies the church and oversees the cemetery, denies it is barring the burial. But the stalemate has escalated to the point where church officials called police last month accusing funeral home employees who tried to prepare the burial site of trespassing, CBC News has learned.

York Regional Police were called to the graveside at the Headford Cemetery, adjacent to the church, on Jan. 27, a day before the funeral of Tsotsos, who had died two weeks earlier.

A church worker claimed funeral home employees were trespassing, according to police.

"They should be ashamed of themselves," Nastas said of the church employees who allegedly interfered with the funeral home workers. 

"This is not God's path to do this to someone, or their family, when they're trying to bury a loved one. It's unthinkable."

The Jan. 27 graveside confrontation was the culmination of a year of problems with the cemetery owners, according to David Brazeau, head of communications for the BAO.

He says those problems include the cemetery owner ignoring repeated orders from the BAO to allow the family to bury Tsotsos in peace.

"It's quite frankly shameful," said Brazeau. "The family should not be going through this. I mean, after all, they're grieving the loss of a loved one."

Now, the BAO has issued a notice warning anyone who owns a plot in the Headford Cemetery that they could face problems should they attempt to bury loved ones, and to contact the authority if that happens.

CBC News visited the church last week and was told by an unidentified clergyman to direct its questions to the Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God's email address. 

The church's response, signed by an unnamed "board of directors," denied church employees had done anything wrong.

"The statement ... that the Nativity of the Mother of God Orthodox Church made a decision to bar the Tstatsos (sic) family from burying their loved one in the Headford Cemetery is not true," the email reads.

"The statement is a provocation that has its goal to incite hatred towards the Orthodox Church. We are so sorry to hear that some people try to defame the good name of the Orthodox Church, mislead the public, and incite hatred against the Orthodox Church, its members, and the clergy."

The church did not respond to a subsequent email from CBC News, sent Monday morning, asking it to tell its side of story.

The problems appear to have begun in January 2020, when the church building and adjacent cemetery — which dates to the 1850s — were bought by an entity called Sept. 21 Inc. for $2.2 million. The property is now occupied by the Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God.

Within a few weeks of the sale, Brazeau says the church was informed by the BAO that it would have to apply for a cemetery operators licence - something every new owner is required to do.

Application incomplete

But the church's subsequent application was incomplete, Brazeau says. And despite follow-up emails from the BAO, that problem was never rectified.

Then, on Jan. 18, 2022, the BAO received a complaint from the Tsotsos family saying the church was denying them the right to bury Louis Tsotsos in the family plot.

On Jan. 20, the BAO wrote to the church demanding that they allow the burial to go ahead but received no reply, Brazeau said. 

Two further emails were sent to the landowners, on Jan. 21 and 24, but they also received no reply. Finally, on Jan. 25, the BAO's registrar, Carey Smith, sent an order to the cemetery owners.

"I am ordering the owners of the Headford Cemetery not to interfere with, or make any further attempts to delay the interment of Mr. Tsotsos," the order reads. 

"The owners are also directed to provide any assistance needed to ensure the family and Funeral Home retained by the family have access to the Cemetery on the day of the interment."

The next day, when funeral home workers went to the cemetery to prepare the plot, the confrontation with church workers happened.

Brazeau says the BAO has had no similar complaints from other families whose loved ones are buried in Headford, or anywhere else.

'Unprecedented' and 'shameful'

"We haven't seen a cemetery deny a family which has burial rights at that cemetery, the right to bury their loved one," he said.

"It's unprecedented and it is shameful." 

The family told CBC Toronto last week that the graveside confrontation on Jan. 27, the day before the funeral was to take place, was heaping tragedy upon tragedy.

Louis Tsotsos's daughter Lisa, flew in from England when she learned her father was ill.

"This is a whole new level of pain," she said. "My father, I couldn't visit him in the hospital due to COVID as he was passing away. And then I can't even conclude his life and be able to mourn and move on."

Lisa Tsotsos says there were concerns about covering the costs to store her father's body until the problems can be sorted out.

But the BAO says the family has since been told by the funeral home, where the body has been since mid-January, that they'll store the body until spring as a courtesy.