ΚΑΛΟ ΠΑCXA-ΚΑΛΟ ΠΑΣΧΑ-HAPPY EASTER !

The week of Easter begins on Palm Sunday and there are church services everyday commemorating the last week in the life of Jesus Christ. The evening services are the most well attended of course, except for Wednesday when the Service of the Holy Unction is held in the afternoon. On Thursday morning the service commemorates the Last Supper and the Betrayal of Christ. This is the day that traditionally eggs are colored /dyed red, signifying the Blood of Christ, and the Greek Easter bread, tsoureki, is baked. The evening service is a long one and features twelve gospel readings. It is in this service that a two-dimensional figure of Jesus Christ on the Cross is brought into the church and set up, while the church bells ring. In many places a vigil is kept in the church all night.

Good Friday or Holy Friday is when it starts to get very interesting. The nails holding the figure of Christ are knocked off and the figure is taken down from the cross and draped in a white cloth. A large piece of cloth, embroidered with the image of Christ, called the Epitaphios or Epitaph which has been decorated with flowers by women through the night, is brought into the church where it is sprinkled with rose-water and more flower petals are thrown upon it. The bells of the church begin to toll and all the flags in Greece are lowered to half-mast, mourning the dead Jesus. In the evening a funeral service is held and at about 9pm the Epitaphios is taken from the church and with the bells tolling mournfully, is carried through the streets of the neighborhood, village or town, in a solemn procession. In cities, towns and villages with more than one church the epitaphios parades may join together at certain points. In Hydra the epitaphios is taken into the sea at Kamini as it is in Tinos at the church of Saint Nicholas at Kalamia or in Kallithea-Athens where three churches meet at Davaki Square. In some places an effigy of Judas is burned while in others Barabbas is. On the island of Skiathos the Epitaphios service begins on Saturday at 1am and the procession through the town begins at four in the morning as it does in Zakynthos.

On Saturday the Orthodox Patriarch breaks the seal of the door of the tomb of Christ in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and emerges with the Holy Flame, Holy Light or Holy Fire, which is then flown to Athens accompanied by high-ranking priests and government officials to Athens International Airport where it is met by an Honor Guard to the small church of Agoi Anargyroi in Plaka. From there the Light is distributed to churches all over Attika and the rest of Greece.

At 11pm on Saturday night pretty much the entire country is in church. The lights are turned off at midnight and the priest announces that Christ has risen from the dead as candles are lit from his and then from each other. The tiny glow at the front of the church grows and soon the whole room is illuminated by the light of everyone's candles. At the stroke of midnight the priest intones the paschal hymn "Christ has risen from the dead and in so doing has trampled on death and to those in the tombs he has given life". The church bells ring in celebration, fireworks go off, ships sound their sirens and the light and sound makes other celebrations tame by comparison. People greet each other happily with the words Christos Anesti (Christ has risen) which is replied to with Alithos Anesti (Truly He has risen).

Easter day is most people's favorite day of the year. A lamb is roasted and friends and families get together to eat, drink, talk and dance. In some towns like Arachova and Livadeia, it is a community celebration with rows of lambs roasting in the village square. In other towns like Monemvasia, Rhodes, Hydra, Halkidiki, Koroni, Chania and Leros the effigy of Judas or Barabbas is burned. In Syros and Karpathos people bring their guns and shoot Judas as a scapegoat for society's ills. In the town of Asine in Argolida they actually have a street battle with the men of the upper and lower parts of the village hurling insults and fireworks at each other. In southern Messenia people go to the main squares to watch the saetapolemos, which are rockets without sticks that the men hold while the force of the explosions makes them jump as if they are dancing. This practice supposedly goes back to the War of Independence when people of the area fashioned this home-made bombs to scare the horses of the Turks to force their riders to dismount and lose their advantage. During the afternoon the red eggs are brought out and each person takes one and hits their end against someone else's until the last person who has an un-cracked egg is considered the lucky person for the year.

Many Athenians who have not gone home to their villages or to the islands will go up to Mount Parnitha or somewhere in the countryside surrounding Athens. After their meal people pick wildflowers and make wreaths for their homes.

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