This week is the Greek Holy Week. This will be the sixth Easter I spend away from Greece and I miss the beautiful traditions more each year.I am not a very religious person in general, but when Easter comes I really do feel the need to go to Church, to pray, to meditate and to come closer to other Greeks.
Greeks celebrate Easter more than Christmas.
The best thing to do is go to an island: Patmos (pictured) is the "Easter Island", since in it's Monastery's cave, Apostle John wrote the Apocalypse. Corfu has beautiful traditions, bands playing and the famous smashing of jars. And in small islands you feel like Christ has indeed risen on Saturday night, when all the churchbells ring, the fireworks light up the sky and the ships sound their horns...
Absolutely breathtaking!
Holy Week itself, begins after 'Palm Sunday' and runs from Monday, where fasting and observance lead up to the so-called, 'Passion'.
On the Monday I always feel a strange kind of peace, that is brought by the fact that the Holy Week has started. Monday was always the day that school would close for Easter, so that was another reason to feel happy!
My knowledge for all the traditions and religious meanings is not huge, but I will try and explain a little bit about what each day means to me, in the next few blogs...
4 comments:
Dear Marietta
What a beautiful post!
I have fond memories of attending church with my family & friends on Palm & Easter Sundays.
You have such rich traditions in Greece!
I gather you have been in London for a few years now.
I miss being at home, too, although I've been away for over 30 years now!
I enjoy keeping up the traditions with my own family, too.
Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, etc.
LOL
Love
Dale
Beautiful Marietta. Amazing that you can actually go to Patmos. Easter is huge for me because it is the single most important, pivitol day in all of history. The traditions don't mean as much to me as does Christ Himself. Sometimes though the traditions can make a person understand more and feel the reality a bit more. Easter is what it is all about. Without Easter, Christmas means nothing. Without Easter, Good Friday was in vain. Christ is the only one who claimed to be God who actually rose from the dead in his actual body. Then He never died again, He just rose to heaven and is still alive today. I know He is alive because He lives in me. And I'll tell you what. I couldn't live without Him. Live is hard enough WITH Him, I could not imagine if I didn't have Him in my life. Not only does Christ rising from the dead give me hope for eternity, it gives me hope for today! Great post Marietta. I can't wait to hear more.
HI Marietta,
I think your Greek traditions are much like our Catholic ones - lots of church, vigils, ceremony and joy at the end. We definitely never got a whole week off school, though! :)
Hi Marietta!
Will you be making koulouria and tsoureki? I can't make either. Once i tried the koulouria and they were like rocks!! I am not much of a baker so we have to go to other peoples houses to get it from them:))
xxxooo
Zoe
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