What do you do if a loved one dies? Well, in Switzerland and every other country around the world, your first reaction will probably be a profound shock, even if the death had been expected.
However, once the death has been registered, you are likely to turn to a funeral director or funeral home. You can rely on the funeral director to look after all aspects of the funeral for you. This includes appointing a celebrant to conduct the ceremony, if this is the family’s wish.
As in so many areas of everyday life, registering a death works differently in Switzerland. Your first port of call in the alpine nation will be the civil registry office (Zivilstandsamt in German, l’office de l’état civil in French) at your local council. Many local authorities may also have a dedicated Funeral Office (Bestattungsamt).
In many cantons, including Zurich, St. Gallen, Schaffhausen and Thurgau, the Funeral Office will arrange everything – transport, cremation, church service, priest or minister and cemetery. In the city of Zurich, for instance, which has the largest funeral operation in Switzerland, you can sign up on the website of the city’s Funeral Office for an appointment, where all of the necessary arrangements will be made.
In other areas and cantons, the funeral or civil registry office will put you in touch with a funeral director.
The good news is that in a number of cantons, again including Zurich, the local authority will cover almost all the costs of a simple funeral. But beware! Not all cantons do this and, indeed, the average cost of a funeral in Switzerland is estimated to be between 4.000 and 8.000 francs, according to data from Everlife.ch.
In Switzerland, there are various options available regarding who will hold the funeral service. If the family is a member of a church or other faith group, it is common for a priest, imam, rabbi or other official religious figure to conduct the service.
In Switzerland, people still overwhelmingly choose funeral services in churches. Figures from 2019 show that 37 percent of all funerals for over-15-year-olds were held in Roman Catholic churches and 25 percent in Swiss Reformed churches.
However, over the past few decades, many in Switzerland have now turned to funeral celebrants. Celebrants are officiants who are able to hold funerals for those who do not want a religious service.
Funeral celebrants have become increasingly popular in Switzerland as it becomes more secular. With the number of exits from the Catholic Church doubling in Zurich in 2022, demand for non-religious services is soaring - to the point where over the past few years, training programmes for funeral celebrants have become established and professional organisations have been created.
However, Swiss civil registry offices and funeral offices do not appoint funeral celebrants, or even, in most cases, recommend them. Neither do funeral directors. A few have lists of funeral celebrants, but it is up to the family to find and hire one if they do not choose to hold their funeral in a Swiss Catholic, Reformed or other form of church.
Why is this? Well, if you look at the way the profession of funeral celebrancy began, things soon become clear. Funeral celebrants began working in Australia as far back as the 1970s, when a demand arose for individualised ceremonies independent of churches.
Funeral celebrancy soon spread to other English-speaking countries and training programmes emerged to equip people to fulfil this role. Independent ceremonies are now so strongly established that, in the UK for instance, there are some areas where 70 percent of all funerals are conducted by celebrants.
But the fact of the matter is that the Swiss have been slow to embrace celebrant funerals. With so many funerals still taking place in religious settings, it’s perhaps not surprising that most people in Switzerland haven’t even heard of funeral celebrants – Trauerredner in German, or célébrants in French.
If the local authority doesn’t recommend celebrants or keep a list, families wanting to use their services can turn to professional celebrant associations like the Schweizer Trauerredner*innen, ACOR (l’Association des célébrant(e)s et officiant(e)s romand(e)s), SZL (Berufsverband Schweizerischer ZeremonienleiterInnen) or Amanos.
These organisations maintain lists of celebrants who are qualified and able to conduct personalised and dignified funeral ceremonies for families.
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