That's a tremendous amount of money. I'm sure the church bringing in professional services to handle funerals is a more modern innovation too. The ideal in my

That's a tremendous amount of money. I'm sure the church bringing in professional services to handle funerals is a more modern innovation too. The ideal in my head is that it would be entirely handled by the community - I presume this ideal existed in the past, though I'm not sure how far back you'd have to go per-locality. In the UK where I live, churchgoers also are typically buried by a funeral director, so I'm not talking about something that still exists AFAIK. Also, I'm sorry for your loss.