peer reviewed ; This article discusses funerary politics in relationship to the political culture of the small state of Luxembourg in northwest Europe during the age of modernisation. During the long nineteenth century, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg experienced several political changes which affected sepulcral culture, but this did not lead to a 'Kulturkampf' over cemeteries between the Church and the State as is occurred in neighbouring countries. Disputes were resolved at the local level. We apply small power theory to explain the relatively harmonious co-existence of State power with the Catholic clergy, and hightlight the important role of local government. For the top-down introduction of cremation, we need ot change scale and focus on an urban elite setting the national agenda. Luxembourg was one of the last member states of the European Union to place body/earth burial andd cremation on an equal legal footing and its own 'national' crematorium only opened in the 1990s.