Greek Easter traditions

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Greek Easter traditions
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The Orthodox Easter Lent period begins
50 days before the Easter day itself, during
which we do not eat meat, fish, eggs and dairy
products. Today, mostly very few elderly people
do that .
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This is Mrs Lent we used to cut off one of her
legs in the end of every week till Easter.
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The Holy Week

• The main celebration starts the last weekbefore
  Easter, the week of the suffering of Jesus
  Christ. From Good Monday to Easter Sunday, we go
  to the church every afternoon. During this week
  we do not cook with olive oil but with water. On
  Good Thursday we all follow the Crucifixion
  service, but we also dye our eggs, mostly red, as
  we are told about an incident that happened to
  Jesus' mother Mary She was carrying some eggs
  but also crying because of the death of her Son.
  Someone, who was passing by, told her not to cry
  but to wait for her Son's Resurrection. She found
  it impossible to happen and she said to the man
  that if her Son would be Resurrected those eggs
  should become red. That is what happened
  immediately, as a miracle. That is why we dye our
  eggs red.

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On holy Thursday we honor Christ's Crucifixion
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The ceremony of Christ's burial

• On Good Friday every church decorates with
  flowers a wooden grave, called Epitapfy and
  carries it around the parish and its
  neighbourhood, followed by many people having
  candles in their hands.

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It is a sacred ceremony.
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Everything is prepared

• The next day everybody prepare the houses and the
  food for Easter Sunday when all the family
  gathers at home or, if the weather is warm, in
  the countryside.

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At midnight

• We follow the Resurrection Service at midnight,
  when the bells sound very loudly, teenagers light
  noisy fireworks- unfortunately we have many
  accidents- in order to imitate the earthquake
  that came after Christs Resurrection. The
  children light their beautiful candles.

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Nice fireworks enlighten the sky
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We kiss each other and return hometo eat a
delicious lamb soup, called magiritsa.
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On Easter Sunday we usually skew a whole
lamb, and a kokoretsi. We also eat salads with
raw vegetables like tomatoes, cucumbers, green
peppers or lettuce, spring onions, dill, olive
oil and vinegar.
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Food must be enough for the whole family and the
friends.
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But the most delicious dish is kokoretsi.
Everybody is upset waiting to taste it!
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We also bake tsourekia, a perfumed sweet yeast -
bread and vanilla biscuits.
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Children do celebrate Easter!

• For the children it is a great joy to have
  received their godfathers' gift along with a nice
  Easter candle and, of course, presents from
  parents and other relatives.

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Many different traditions

• From region to region there are many different
  traditions all around Greece e.g. the fire on
  which we burn the traitor Judah or the swings
  for the young girls etc. We just described how we
  celebrate those holy days in Athens, a city.

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Our best wishes for a Happy Easter to all
of you!