Greek Easter Customs and Traditions

Easter  is the greatest celebration of the year  for the Greek Orthodox Church . It is the symbol of human rebirth and the promise of life after death. It is the ultimate message of love and forgiveness, it is the time when God and sinners reconcile and spread the love Jesus Christ  taught the world with His death and glorious Resurrection.

A few  days before Easter, housewives do the spring cleaning so that everything looks new and shiny for Easter. The Holy Week begins on Monday following Saturday of Lazarus and Palm Sunday. On Palm Sunday , olive branches are taken to church and left  there for forty days. The  sanctified olive branch is then taken home. The olive leaves are placed in a special pot called “kapnistiri” and are used for incense burning. The smoke from the olive leaves is believed  to remove  all evil and jealousy in the family.

Easter 2006 at Saint Raphael's Church

On Holy Thursday, eggs are dyed red, ready to be cracked soon after Resurrection on Easter Day’s early morning hours.  The icons in our churches are covered with black cloth as a sign of mourning for Our Lord who went to the cross and died in order to take away our sins. The power of death and the reality of evil ruled the world on that dreadful Thursday. Yet, Jesus Christ’s death marks the beginning of the victory of life over death. The solemn service consists of The Twelve Gospel Readings – narratives from the four Gospels relating the events of the Holy Passion and Jesus’ last instructions to His disciples.  After the fifth gospel, the crucifix is adorned with a flower wreath and carried in procession.  Earlier in the morning, the Holy Communion is taken. It consists of a few drops of red wine mixed with some breadcrumbs symbolizing the blood and the body of Jesus Christ.

Good Friday is baking day. The Greek homes are filled with the delightful scents of mastic, mahaleb and cinnamon while flaounes, tsourekia and koulouria (sesame bread) are being baked.  However, Good Friday is also a day of mourning, fasting and prayer.  In the evening, at church, we observe the liturgy of Epitaphios  - a shroud depicting Christ’s sacred body is carried in procession and placed in a flowered bier that represents Christ’s tomb.  With both sorrow and joy, during this solemn and profoundly touching ceremony, we sing along with the priests and choir “I Zoe En Tafo” :

 "In a tomb they lay Thee O Christ the life. By Thy Death Thou has cast down the might of death and become the font of life for all the world"

  

On Holy Saturday morning, we observe the “First Resurrection”, that’s when the news is brought that Christ is no longer in His grave. At about 9:00 in the morning, the church bell rings joyfully, the church doors are banged and the black cloth covering the icons falls.  But the grand liturgy of Resurrection is held at midnight. Everyone goes to church with a candle. At about midnight, the lights go off and the priest solemnly proclaims “Here is the Holy Light” which is actually brought from Jerusalem to the Orthodox world. Then we all light our candles and greet each other with “Christos Anesti” (= Christ Has Risen) to which the other replies “Alithos Anesti” (He Has Risen Indeed). Then off we go home for a midnight supper consisting of magiritsa (Greek Easter Soup) and flaounes, tsourekia and koulouria.

Magiritsa

Easter Sunday is a day of feast, dancing and singing. Lambs are roasted on a spit and a sumptuous Easter lunch is prepared which usually lasts till late afternoon.  Families gather together or go on picnics, both children and adults engage in red-egg-crack competitions. The winner is the one whose egg is left uncracked! Easter Day also reminds us that we should forget and forgive allowing the Holy Light to shine on.

Roasted lamb on a spit

Do you celebrate Easter in your country? Have you got any special customs and traditions?  

Comments

[Phivos Nicolaides]

Greek Easter customs and tradition are so rich and beautiful! Have a great Easter Anastasia!

[Lakis Ioannou]

Sugar, first of all, let me congratulate you on a great post which I enjoyed reading very much. Gaitanos, by the way, is brilliant in his performance of "I Zoi en tafo." My mother's village has been noted for the hospitality of its people for centuries. On Easter Day, any visitors to the village are kindly invited to Easter lunch at the locals' homes. Also, on Easter Day, just after church, the priest of the village stands at the church door with a candle lit with the holy light from the previous night. All the villagers, one by one, greet him by kissing his hand. Then they firsst shake hands with the other villagers and then take their hands to form a big circle round the church. This means that all fights and quarrels are now forgotten and that they are all friends caring for each other. Of course, there's nothing like my mum's homemade Easter "koulouria!"

[Haruko N]

Thank you very much for this very interesting and informative post about your customs on easter. In Japan, our biggest celebration is Shintō shrines which hold regular festivals (matsuri) to commemorate important dates related to the shrine and its deities and to pray for a wide range of blessings such as abundant rice harvests, fertility, health, and business success. The essential meaning of the term matsuri is “welcoming the descending gods” or “inviting down the gods,” for it is believed that Shintō’s heavenly deities periodically descend to earth to visit shrines, villages, and families, and to make their wills known among the people. The timing of these visitations equates to the timing of Japan’s Shintō festivals. There are countless festivals in Japan, ranging from public to private, local to national, and official to unofficial. These celebrations are an integral part of Japan’s Shintō traditions, and often include parades, music and dancing, and theatrical performances.

[Jim]

In Britain, on Maundy Thursday, the Queen takes part in the Ceremony of the Royal Maundy, which dates back to Edward I. This involves the distribution of Maundy Money to deserving senior citizens (one man and one woman for each year of the sovereign's age), usually chosen for having done service to their community. They receive ceremonial red and white purses which contain coins made specially for the occasion. The white purse contains one coin for each year of the monarch's reign. The red purse contains money in place of other gifts that used to be given to the poor.

[Tipper]

Wonderful post! I loved reading about the traditions Easter brings to your country : ) Here where I live-many people attend Easter church services-some are held at sunrise-and then followed by the usual church services. There are usually easter egg hunts for the children too.

[Karolina]

In Thrace,Northern Greece, the children make the effigy of Judas on Good Friday. Then they go from home to home asking for branches to make a bonfire and burn Judas during the Epitaph procession. The procession stops at a chapel, where the fire is ready. While the priest reads the Gospel, the effigy of Judas is burning Later or the next day, people can get a handful of the ashes and throw into the graves of their beloved.

[Jean-Paul Bouvier]

La tradition veut que le dimanche de Pâques en France, on s'offre des œufs en chocolat. Pour les enfants, ce sont les cloches, parties à Rome durant le Carême, qui laissent tomber des œufs en chocolat, œufs de Pâques, lorsqu'elles reviennent au pays. Ainsi, à la fin de la traditionnelle messe de Pâques, les cloches des églises retentissent et les enfants se pressent dans les jardins pour aller chercher les œufs laissés tomber par les cloches de Pâques. On se retrouve ensuite autour d'un repas en famille comprenant généralement un plat d'agneau rôti et des œufs et poules en chocolat.

[Laura]

It was such a pleasure reading through your lively Easter customs and traditions! For offering prayers in the church on Easter Day, men and women in England dress up in their best clothes including colourful Easter bonnets with flowers for ladies. Special Easter parades are also held, the most popular being the one conducted at Battersea Park in London. In my family, we usually have yummy hams and potatoes for Easter lunch but many people would rather have roast turkey or lamb and simmel or saffron cake.

[Stefania]

A Greek Easter custom that particularly impressed me is the pot-throwing in Corfu where I spent Easter 3 years ago. At exactly 11 a.m. the first Resurrection takes place and is signified with the "botides"(clay pots) being thrown from the windows and balconies when the first "botos" (bell ring) is heard. Great post, Anastasia, and wonderful photos!

[Alexia M]

Beautiful post and lovely photos! Easter in the Netherlands is marked by the pre-lent Easter Carnival celebrated in all major cities with a big parade. Also egg-hunting is very popular here, especially among children.
Easter dinner is a real feast - roasted lamb, boiled, poached or fried eggs,potatoes and vegetables, paasbrod (sweet dutch easter bread filled with almond paste and raisins) and paastol (a traditional Dutch oval-shaped fruited bread loaf. It is made of yeast-bread dough with dried fruits, raisins and currants, lemon and orange zest, water, milk, butter, sugar, vanilla, brandy and cinnamon. And, of course, chocolate eggs!!!

[Andreas]

Whenever I read your posts on our special days, I miss home but I also feel happy to be reminded of customs and traditions that I am likely to forget. So, your post takes me back to Athens where I was born and grew up. As a boy I had to wear new shoes on Easter Day!! I hated fire crackers - so I never took part in "burning Judas." Jesus Christ taught us to love our enemies, so why burn Judas? I also carried a red egg in my pocket on Holy Saturday Midnight Mass to be cracked soon after "Christos Anesti." Thank you for these great memories your post brought back today - a great post, by all means. Kali Anastasi! Kalo Pasxa!

[Account Deleted]

In the Philippines, a predominantly-Catholic nation, the people there celebrate the Lent season as the most important holiday in their calendar next to Christmas. They have a series of activities based on what day it is---Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Black Saturday and Easter Sunday. They visit many churches as much as they can to revere Jesus Christ on the Cross. They chant novenas on a parade in towns. Most of the mass media are closed and only air Christian programs and shows, though it is restored on Easter.
In the US, because of its divisive culture, the Holy Week is not celebrated. But the whole nation celebrates Easter---which is a puzzle to me.
I wish you a blessed Holy week Anastasia, and happy Easter! Let's be reminded of the meaning of the death of our Savior Jesus Christ.

[Lisa A]

Easter or la Pasqua is one very big and important celebration in Italy. One of our many customs is on Palm Sunday. The churches all over Italy are full of baskets with palms and olive branches. When the priest bless them, he give them to the people in the church. In Rome, on Palm Sunday, many thousand of people go to Saint Peter's square to recieve the palms blessed by the Pope. Our Easter lunch start with Brodetto, Easter soup thicken with eggs, and follows Agnelino, roast baby lamb and desert is usually Colomba Pasquale - a special cake which has the shape of a dove.

[Sophia]

In my hometown, Lemesos, on Holy Friday, children go from door to door and ask people if they can pick flowers from their gardens to decorate the Epitaphios. For the Easter lunch, we have souvla and kokoretsi with roast potatoes, greek salad and of course flaounes and tsourekia. Sometimes we have for starters what is left from the soup - magiritsa or avgolemono. Kali Anastasi kai Kalo Pasxa na ftasoume. Kai xronia polla gia ti giorti sou, Anastasia mou.

[Mrkmakth]

Easter is celebrated in the USA with traditional church services and festive parades over the easter weekend. However, Easter here is very much commercialized - easter bunnies, easter eggs, easter trees, easter lambs are found in different forms almost everywhere. The easter bunny and egg tree were introduced to the American folklore by the German settlers in Pennsylvania. Easter dinner usually includes lamb, baked ham, potatoes and vegetables.

[Account Deleted]

Oh I forgot....you can witness the strangest Holy Week custom in the world in the Philippines---reenactment of the crucifixion where people flog themselves on the streets for the public to view and have themselves nailed to the cross in their beliefs to atone for their sins.
Here's a link to what I wrote a year before about strange Holy Week customs ;
http://www.ilovehateamerica.com/a_filipino_immigrants_lov/2010/03/the-strangest-holy-week-customs-in-the-world.html