well let me tell those of you who are not familiar a little about ' Pasxa '( Easter ) as its called there in Cyprus ! :
The holiday is usually never falling the same time as the Western world as different calendars are used to determine the dates Greeks using the Julian calendar and the western world uses the Gregorian one ,anyhow in Cyprus this year it will fall on 17th 18th and 19th of April
Starting with the Good or Great Friday all government building fly the flags at half mast to mark the mournful day and each individual church around Cyprus starts early in the morning to make an Epitaphios of Christ, this involves decorating a kind of wooden frame with fresh flowers , its kind of a little competition I think to see who makes the best one and over the years I have seen some very attractive ones and its always a hard decision to say which is the best ,here is a photo of one I took the last year before I left Limassol.
This Epitaphios when done is kept in the church until evening when they hold the service and then carry it out into the streets in a procession to be viewed by all the people .
Decorating the Epitaphios
Next is the Easter Saturday , apart form the families preparing the various easter specialities to eat , things like 'soureki ' ' and 'Flaunas' which are types of breads , eggs are coloured and after that the families are wanting to get their best clothes and get dressed ready to go to the churches to be there for 11pm they take along various styles of candles ( Lampada) ready to be lit at midnight when the bells toll to announce that Christ is risen , and the echos of the words 'Christos Anesti ' can be heard everywhere as everyone greets eaqch othere with the message , the response to this greeting is ' Alithinos Anesti ' which means the true lord is indeed risen. Fireworks are set off and huge bonfires are lit and the atmosphere is indeed joyful.
After the families get home , tradition calls for everyone to enjoy home made soup made usually only at easter ( Magiritsa ) its a kind of creamy ,lemony soup made from lamb sweetmeats ,and also some of the breads I have mentioned , and also the classic Ouzo or red wine is there to add to the enjoyment and contribute to the merriment !! usually this celebration is going on until early hours of the Sunday morning.
The big Sunday of course is again spent in rejoicing with family and friends and the grills and spits are turning all over the island barbecuing the Lamb/kid Souvla pieces which the Cypriots love to eat, along with a hundred other dishes and goodies , hotels on the Island have very reasonable offers for the local who want to travel to another part of the island to spend the weekend , I had the pleasure last year to stay at the Sunrise Beach Hotel ,my friend was visiting from UK so we headed of to the town of Protaras and had a wonderful time, she loved the traditional Greek dancers who entertained us with their show at the Sunday Lunch .
This year will be special just the same even though Chester will be working all of the weekend and instead of going to visit the Epitaphios at the church we are heading off to the Immigration offices in Norfolk to have my biometric finger prints taken to proceed with the process of me getting permanent resindency , not so exciting but a must all the same , maybe we will manage to still bring some of the traditions of Cyprus to the house here in Grandy and I can download some Greek music and Chester can don his white thermals and his huge homer simpson slimppers and dance a zorbas or something around the back yard whilst he cooks some American style burgers ...ha ha ha ha ha
Best wishes everyone for the coming weekend , and lets keep the real reason for Easter in our hearts and be thankful for Christs ultimate scrifice of his son who died on the cross but rose again,
Kalo Pascha from both of us .
1 comment:
That was very interesting, thanks for posting!
(sorry I didn't reply to this sooner; meant to when I read it the other day)
Post a Comment