Tomorrow is Easter. My family is not very religious, but we do enjoy our traditions.
I’m Greek Orthodox, and since I was a kid there have always been certain things that I’ve done with my grandparents or my parents. The week before Easter, we would color eggs and make lots of cookies, called “koulouria”. Our godparents were responsible for bringing us a new pair of shoes a couple of days before, as well as our special candles which we would use on Saturday – they would also usually pack in some money or chocolate. On Good Friday, we would go to church (we would always take the day off if our Easter didn’t match up with the Catholic one) and do this ritual called “epitaphio” ( I have no idea what it’s called in English, so I spelled it out phonetically). It’s where we would wait in line and crawl under altar with pictures of Christ and the Virgin Mary.This was actually the first year where I haven’t done this, since I’m getting too old for it.
We wouldn’t do this every year, but later that night we would walk around the town behind the priest and a bunch of altar boys who would hold up the altar and would sing hymns (I always wondered what our non-Greek neighbors thought of this cult-like behavior).This would usually last an hour, and then we would head back home and go to bed.
The most important tradition is on Saturday Night. No matter how religious you are, this is usually one tradition that every Greek upholds every year without fail. We would go to the church at midnight, at which point the priest would light a candle with a “blessed” light, which he would pass around the church. Once everyone had their candles lit (the name for the candles being “lambatha”) we would pile into the car, hope that no one caught fire, and head to someone’s house for a small feast, since most people do some fasting – either a week, or 40 days – before Easter. If you live in a neighborhood where there are Greeks, you’ll usually see a large group of them heading to their homes with candles in their hands. You’re supposed to make a cross outside your door (we actually have scorch marks on top of our door at home, and my dad makes sure to do it in the same spot ever year), and once you’re inside the house one person from the household takes their light and lights a previously-purchased candle. Most families try to keep the light going as long as possible, and even buy multiple candles throughout the year so that they can keep it going until the following Easter.
Then, on Sunday, we would go over to multiple people’s homes and do nothing but eat, eat, eat. (And yes, we do roast lamb on a spit – it’s kind of disgusting, really). This post might have made it seem as if I’m really religious, but I’m really not. The Greeks actually consider Easter to be more important than Christmas, and therefore there’s a lot more tradition and thought that goes into it.
Now that I’ve done enough rambling about our weird culture, onto the pictures!
