The Greek Orthodox Church does not always celebrate Easter on the same date as the Catholic and Protestant countries. I have been told that the reason is that the Orthodox Church uses another calendar when calculating Easter.
In Greek, Easter is called Pascha, meaning passover: It is the eternal Passover from death to life and from earth to heaven. Kalo Pascha = Happy Easter
On Friday night 17 April 2009 the Southampton Greek Orthodox Church held a ceremony about Jesus Christ's death. Unfortunately I wasn't there. But I went to the Resurrection Ceremony on Saturday at midnight. It was interesting! Let me give you some details: (I wish I had a camera but anyway that's all I have & found from google images)
When we met at the bus stop with most of the Greeks I realised that Christinaki made me a special "lampada". It was so nice. There was a vanilla bunny on it. yay! Honey prepared it for me!
When we arrived at the church the priests started praying. One of them walked around the audience with something giving a different smell. It was like a holy smell spreading all around us.
Later on, the ceremony of lighting candles started. At midnight all the lights are extinguished and the priest came on the altar carrying a candle. The priest lit his candle and the people rushed forwards in order to be the first one to lit his/her candle. I have been told that they believe the people who receive the light of the resurrection receive the light as a symbol of the resurrection. People passed the light from candle to candle and the light filled the church. I am lucky that Christinaki lit my candle which means I got good luck form her. I wished "Christos Anesti" and she answered "Alithos Anesti/Indeed he has risen" and we kissed each other. It was a very touching moment especially for the Greek people. (plus for Melisaki)
Accordingly we went outside as you can see below:
It is very nice that we were all together in front of the church. I'm flattered that you accepted me and Aysegul like one of your Greek friends on your special day!
I have been told that people, carefully, take home their lighted candles with the holy light of the Resurrection. Before entering their houses they make a cross with the smoke of the candle on top of the door, they light the oil candle before their icon-stand, and try to keep this light burning throughout the year. But they didn't do that because it was dangerous/hard to take the candle home.
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On Easter Sunday we had a barbeque party. My dear Greek friends prepared everything and invited all the people in our course.
There were eggs, Easter bread (tsoureki) and a lot of other great Greek food.
alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326523131433148994" />Check what I found:
"The Easter Egg is associated with beliefs of particularly ancient origin. It was commonly believed that the universe developed from a great egg and that the halves of its shell corresponded to Heaven and earth. The egg was also connected with the springtime fertility rituals of many pre-Christian and Indo-European peoples, like the old Cretans, and both the Egyptians and the Persians made a practice of colouring eggs in the spring."
Greeks mainly color eggs red to signify the blood of Christ. They use hard-boiled eggs which are baked into twisted sweet-bread loaves or distributed on Easter Sunday; people rap their eggs against their friends' eggs and the owner of the last uncracked egg is considered lucky. I was lucky for a long time! I lost afterwards but I don't wanna give more details about how I managed to be lucky in that period :P
It was a great weekend. Starting from the guys made the BBQ and pretty girls worked in the kitchen: Thank you.
P.S. I couldn't find the picture of the Easter bread that Christina made. :/ Actually I didn't try the one I put here, but I tried hers. It was awesome!!
hey, that was a nice holiday... i didn't know anything before i saw your blog,It is interesting! something in china is really similar relating to the eggs, in the new year, when families visit each other, the host used to color the egg into red and gave them to little children, and also, when there is a new born children, the parents will color the eggs and send them to the neighbors, but it is kind of old fashion, some of us don't do it anymore, but i like it!
YanıtlaSilLovely! :) How do you color your eggs? Like Christina did???
YanıtlaSil