Greek Easter
Embraced by all Greeks, Easter (Pascha) is the most celebrated feast in Greek culture. Rich in tradition and custom, it is the highlight of the religious calendar. As Orthodox Easter is based on the Julian calendar, Easter falls at a different time each year, and at a different time from the Easter period recognised by other Christian churches.
For Greeks Easter is symbolised not only in the celebrations of Easter Sunday. It involves a period of preparation over a number of important days.
Clean Monday
Clean Monday (Kathari Dheftera) is the beginning of Lent (Saracosti). Religious tradition requires abstinence and self-discipline in this period. On Clean Monday Greeks wish each other Good Lent or Kali Saracosti. In Greece it is a public holiday.
Lent
Lent (Saracosti) begins 40 days before Palm Sunday. The devout follow a diet of vegetables, bread, wheat products, legumes, shellfish and fruit. All animal products (e.g. milk, butter, meat) are prohibited.
Some follow these prohibitions strictly while others only fast on Wednesdays and Fridays and in the last week of Lent. Many elderly Greek Australians adhere to the traditional requirements of fasting, prayer and charity. In the week leading up to Easter they may wish to make confession.
Palm Sunday
The last week of Lent, or Holy Week, begins with Palm Sunday. Commemorating Christ’s return to Jerusalem, it is the most significant aspect of Easter. Greeks attend a special church service where everyone receives a cross made of palms. At home, fish is served rather than meat. Palm Sunday is also the name day of all those called Vaios or Vaia, meaning bay or palm leaf.
Holy Week
In Holy Week (Megali Evdomatha) evening church services focus on specific themes: charity (Holy Monday), forgiveness and repentance (Holy Tuesday), compassion and mercy (Holy Wednesday). On Holy Thursday a special morning church service commemorates the Last Supper. The evening church service commemorates Christ’s final hours before the Crucifixion. Red Easter eggs are traditionally dyed on Holy Thursday. They are used at midnight on Holy Saturday and for Easter Sunday celebrations. (Learn how to dye eggs and make bread for Greek Easter in Religious Activities.
Good Friday
Good Friday (Megali Paraskevi) is the most solemn day of the year and is a time of strict mourning and fasting. On Holy Friday even those who are not religious fast. The church holds morning, afternoon and evening services and most Greeks attend at least one.
The evening service attracts the most attention. A flower-decorated funeral bier holding the epitaphios (an icon of Christ’s burial embroidered on cloth) is venerated. Worshippers kiss the bier and hold their crosses up to it. You may have seen candle-lit processions following a funeral bier in the streets around local Greek Orthodox churches. The police often put up road blocks to allow processions to occur.
In Greece Good Friday is a public holiday. In Australia Orthodox Good Friday does not coincide with the Good Friday public holiday. Some Greek Australians take time off work to attend church services.
Holy Saturday
Many people take Holy Communion at the Holy Saturday morning service. Often a long queue forms outside the church. Holy Saturday is spent preparing meals to be shared after midnight mass. Many people also deliver gifts to godchildren – clothing, or the traditional items of a long white candle and dyed eggs.
The midnight service (the Anastasi or resurrection service) is the climax of the Orthodox year. People arrive at their church before midnight. Nearly all Greeks, religious and non-religious, attend this service. Inside the church participants hold candles. A few minutes before midnight all lights are switched off, the priest appears at the altar holding a lit candle, and he invites everyone to receive the light to glorify Christ, who has risen from the dead.
The light is passes among the congregation until the entire church is aglow. Then the priest reads about the Resurrection from the Gospel and the Christos Anesti is sung. As they leave the church people greet each other saying Christos Anesti (Christ has risen) and reply Alithos Anesti (He has truly risen). This greeting is used for up to 40 days after Easter.
People return home, keeping their candles alight. Traditionally, families use the Anastasi candle to make a cross of smoke over the front door and to light the kandili in front of the family icon. The Anastasi meal follows with the cracking of the dyed eggs and traditional Easter foods, including Easter bread (tsoureki) and mayeritsa or lamb soup.
Easter Sunday
Easter Sunday (Pascha or Lambri) is a day of feasting. Lamb is typically cooked on a spit and a variety of other Greek dishes are eaten. Greek Australians continue to celebrate Easter in the customary ways. In the days leading up to Easter Sunday, Melbourne ‘s Greek community is busy buying the essential ingredients for Easter celebrations from specialty Greek stores: eggs, dye, decorated candles, sweets, Easter bread and meat. Butchers, especially those in Melbourne’s Greek shopping precincts, are inundated with orders for whole lambs, lamb for mayeritsa soup, and koukouretsi (lamb intestines), which are used to wrap a variety of meats to be cooked in the oven or on a spit.
