Greek Easter - information

~Easter is the most important feast day on the Greek Orthodox calendar, and completely outshaddows Christmas, which until recent years was a solely religious holiday.

Easter is known as Paska in Greek.  This word derives from the Hebrew word “Pasah” which means passage or crossing, and it alludes to the passage of Christ from life to death at his crucifixion and back to life again at His resurrection.  Another Greek term used for Easter is “Lambri” or light, which metaphorically refers to the brightness and joy of this holiest of feast days.    

          The Lenten period is known in Greek as the Megali Sarakosti or Long Forty Days as it is actually a 7 week or 48 day period, and is thus distinguished from other periods of fasting which take place before the Feast of the Virgin Mary on the 15^th of August and during Epiphany before Christmas.  Lent begins on Kathara Deftera or Clean Monday, a term that derives from the housewives’ custom of cleaning their pots and pans with hot water mixed with ashes, but also from the start of the purification of the body and spirit as believers move away from the sins of Carnival, a three-week period known for its bawdiness that is rooted in pagan fertility festivals, towards Easter.  

Eggs are dyed red on Thursday.  From ancient times red is believed to have special protective powers, while in the Greek Orthodox context it is said to symbolize the blood of Christ.  A popular folk tale speaks of a woman who was holding a basket of eggs when she was told that Christ had risen from the dead.  She reportedly said, “Indeed?  And can these eggs turn from white to red?” whereupon that is miraculously what happened.  Easter bread, called tsoureki in Greek, and cookies, known as koulouria in Greek, are baked on this day.  Children collect flowers that will be used to decorate a bier on the following day.  The evening service is the longest of the week, and there is an all-night vigil.  It is customary to visit the graves of the dead on this day as the devout believe that the souls of the dead are set free on this night to coincide with Jesus’ descent to death and the world below.

Good Friday is a day of total fasting and places of business traditionally shut down.  In recent times this has been modified, and it is now customary for shops to remain closed on Friday morning only.  Flags are flown at half mast and church bells toll a funeral knell.  Vinegar is often consumed, either on its own or poured over lentil soup, in remembrance of the vinegar that was given to Jesus to quench His thirst while He was on the cross.  Shortly before noon the women of each parish decorate a bier where the icon body of Christ lies.  In some villages it is customary for young girls who are still virgins to undertake this task.  Garlands of spring flowers decorate the bier or epitaphios.  Following the evening service, the epitaphios is carried out of the church and carried through the streets in a funeral procession.  The faithful walk behind the bier singing a lament and carry lit candles made from unbleached yellow wax.

Holy Saturday sees a lifting of the gloom that prevailed the day before when the service of the first resurrection is read in the morning.  On the island of Corfu there is a tradition of throwing terra cotta water jugs from balconies and windows.  It is reminiscent of the way the arrival of the New Year is celebrated in parts of Italy, and hardly surprising given the proximity of this island to Italy.

On this holiest of holy days, the devout receive communion during the morning service, which is a particularly joyful occasion.  The somber mood lifts and the church is decorated with bay branches, laurel, myrtle and rosemary.  At the start of the service, the priest emerges from behind the altar screen and casts flower petals or laurel leaves towards the congregation as he announces the “First Resurrection”.      

The rest of the day is spent preparing the Easter feast.  An egg and lemon tripe soup known as mayeiritsa is made from the innards of suckling lamb or kid.  The intestine is carefully turned inside out and rubbed multiple times with coarse salt to clean it.  It is then parboiled, cut into small pieces and then simmered again with spring onions, dill and rice before being dressed with egg and lemon sauce just before it is served.  The fainter of heart make the soup without the intestine, using just the liver and kidneys, whereas others substitute chicken liver and use chicken broth to make a simple egg and lemon soup. 

The entire community converges at the church on Saturday evening.  Adults carry unlit white candles and children carry colorful decorated candles known as lambades that have been given to them by their godparents.  The service begins around 10 pm and shortly before midnight, all the lights are extinguished, symbolizing the darkness of the grave.  The priest disappears behind the altar screen and comes out bearing a candle lit with the holy flame, brought to Greece by plane the same day from Jerusalem, and saying “come ye, partake of the light and glorify Christ who is arisen from the dead.”  The holy light is passed from individual to individual as each person lights his or her candle.  Then on the stroke of midnight the priest announces “Christos anesti” or Christ has risen and the church psalters break out in an Easter hymn.  Everyone present turns to his or her neighbor and embrace and kiss.  Then the church bells start to peal and the church yard fills with the noise of fire crackers going off.

The truly faithful remain in church for the entire night, but most people rush home taking care to protect the flame of their lit candles so they can inscribe the sign of the cross in the lintel of the house before entering.  The fast is broken upon with hard boiled red eggs and mayeritsa.  Wine is finally allowed and flows freely.  Everyone engages in the ritual of cracking eggs, saying “Christ has risen” or “Christos anesti” to which the response is “alithos anesti” or “he truly has risen”.  It is said that this tradition dates from Byzantine times, when the belief was that just as a chick emerges from a cracked egg, so Christ emerged from the tomb.  There is a real spirit of competition around this tradition, and the person who manages to emerge with an intact egg is said to have good luck for the year to come.              

     On Easter day, the adults of the household rise early to prepare the Pascal lamb or kid.  In most parts of Greece the entire carcass is impaled on a spit and then roasted over an open fire lit in a pit specially dug for this purpose.  However on some islands the lamb is stuffed and roasted in the oven. ~Maria Vertopoulos and

Greek Calendar Customs, written by George A. Megas, and published in Athens in 1963