Why Easter is Greek to Me: Xristos Anesti! Tom Hanks' wife explains

 

Holy Saturday 10-4-2015 - Holy Archhierarchical Liturgy - from the Church of Saint Gregory Palamas, Thessaloniki

Upcoming events - Holy and Great Friday 11-4-2015 at 6pm: Sequence of the Epitaph - from the Church of Saint Gregory Palamas, Thessaloniki - - LIVE STREAMS

Why Orthodox Easter falls 1 week after Catholic observance

Orthodox churches observe Holy Week; prepare to celebrate Easter

 

 Parishioners of St. George Greek Orthodox Church celebrate Pascha on Sunday

BBC: 'Easter - Firework battle' at Chios VIDEO

 

BBC refers to the annual rouketopolemos, calling it "Firework Battle", showing images from the spectacular traditional event.

Video - Jerusalem Miracle of Holy Light (Holy Fire) 2014 - Church Of The Holy Sepulcher In Jerusalem

 

JERUSALEM (AP) — The dark hall inside Christianity's holiest shrine was illuminated with the flames from thousands of candles on Saturday as worshippers participated in the holy fire ceremony, a momentous spiritual event in Orthodox Easter rites.

Kali Anastasi....Happy Easter....Schastlivoy Pashi (Счастливой Пасхи) - Happy Easter in many languages

 

The troparion was originally composed in Koine Greek, but it is usually sung either in the local liturgical language, or in the vernacular where it is not the same. In recent years, the custom has developed of chanting the Paschal troparion in a number of different languages.

Unusual Easter Traditions: Easter rocket war in Greece

This is an old tradition that routes back to the times when the Greeks were under the Turkish Dynasty. Every year on the evening before Orthodox Easter, the sky above Chios - a northern Greek island close to Turkey - is lit by hundreds of celebratory rockets fired between two rival parishes in a traditional good-natured rocket war known as "rouketopolemos." 

Villagers from rival parishes Aghios Markos and Panagia Ereithiani, in the Municipality of Vrontados, create the handmade rockets in their own homes and shops. The two rival villages compile the rockets into large salvos, which are then set off on the annual celebration marking the Resurrection of Christ, and aimed directly at each other's church bell towers. It is estimated that the yearly production of rockets produces some 70 thousand to 80 thousand small missiles. The winning village is the one which has managed to score the most direct hits on their rival's church, though it is often difficult to produce an accurate tally.

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   Rocket War Video: Greek churches celebrate Easter

   
   

   
   

   
   
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   Chios 2010 Rocket War

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   
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   Greek Rocket War

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   
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   Easter's tradition in Greece

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   
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   Easter rocket war in Greece 

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   
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   ROCKET WARS EASTER 2012 VRONTADOS CHIOS GREECE

   
   

GREECE: Get to Greece for an Orthodox Easter treat (PHOTO STORY)

 

Take advantage of the Greek orthodox calendar this bank holiday with some late Easter sun in Greece - plus all the latest airline, cruise and travel news Feel cheated by one of the chilliest Easters on record? The good news is you can celebrate Easter all over again - but in the sun......

Full story - Read More >>>

 

Christian symbol for Easter absent

6 days ago

6 days ago

I am a lifetime subscriber-reader of The Sun, and think you do a good job of representing the communities of Greater Lowell. One important exception comes to mind, however. 

In the not too-distant past, The Sun printed a religious symbol for Christmas and Easter of the front page of the paper to the left or right of "The Sun" on the day of the particular Holy Day. Just last week, the religious symbol for Passover appeared in this spot as did the menorah symbol in December for Hanukkah. Last year, on the Greek Orthodox Easter, a symbol of the tomb of Christ was printed with the white shroud of Jesus hanging over it. I expect that on May 5, the Orthodox Easter this year, you will print it again. All that is good and in keeping with your reputation as an inclusive publication. 

But as I sit here on Easter Sunday night and take time to write this letter, I see a big yellow chicken and decorated eggs over The Sun, masthead and no religious symbol where other faiths' symbols have appeared. Christians and Roman Catholics who celebrate Easter are no different than Orthodox Christians in our belief about Christ's resurrection, yet a symbol to honor our tradition is conspicuously absent. I think I speak for many other Christians and Catholics who wonder why we have been left out of the loop on our holy day. 

Please reconsider printing on the front page, as you have in years past, for Christmas and Easter, some symbol for the true meaning of our holy days. The Nativity scene and the empty tomb are excellent examples. I also seem to remember that on Good Fridays in the past, you printed the hill of Calvary with three crosses. 

I don't know why traditionally Christian and Catholic religious symbols have been missing. I only hope that you will put us back on the front page with a small, but meaningful, symbol on our holy days.


BARBARA (HOWES) DURIS
 Lowell
Editor's note: The reader makes a good point concerning the Easter Sunday masthead. The traditional Christian symbol was used in 2009 and 2010, when the Western and Eastern Orthodox Easters coincided. The Sun will use it for both holy days in the future.

FOOD: Recipe for a Greek Orthodox Easter (VIDEO)

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   Greek Potatoes: Recipe for a Greek Easter

    

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   Greek Salad: Recipe for a Greek Easter

    

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   Tzatziki: Recipe for a Greek Easter

    

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   Traditional Greek Easter Bread

    

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   Grilled Lamb and Asparagus: Recipe for Greek Easter

    

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   GREEK EASTER BISCUITS ( KOULOURAKIA )

    

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   How To Make Traditional Greek Easter Bread

    

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   Roasted red pepper and spinach in phyllo cups: Recipe for a Greek Easter

    

Albania: Orthodox Community disappeared - Orthodox in Albania are more than 24% of the population

Orthodox Church: Orthodox in Albania are more than 24% of the population

Red and Black Alliance has today submitted to the Office of the President a formal requestto remove the decoration Archbishop Dr Anastasios of Tirana.

"The Spirit of Dr Anastasios of Tirana is against Albanian territorial sovereignty. Under the Constitution, the church is separated from the state and politics. Archbishop Dr Anastasios of Tirana should be removed the "Order of Skanderbeg". Decorated the founder of the Albanian church, not anti Albanian occupants, "stated representatives of Red and Black Alliance.

source

Actress Rita Wilson’s big fat Greek Orthodox Easter

By Rita Wilson  |  07:50 PM ET, 04/14/2012 

Actress Rita Wilson, whose mother and father both were born in Greece, produced “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” Wilson and her actor husband Tom Hanks had their own “Big Fat Greek Wedding” in 1988. They have two children.

As the Eastern Orthodox, whose churches follow a different liturgical calendar than Christian churches in the West, observe Easter on Sunday, On Faith looks back at a favorite column from Greek Orthodox actress and producer Rita Wilson:

Here are some of the things that non-Greeks may not know about Greek Easter: We don’t do bunnies. We don’t do chocolate. We don’t do pastels.

We do lamb, sweet cookies, and deep red. The lamb is roasted and not chocolate, the sweet cookies are called Koulorakia and are twisted like a braid, and our Easter eggs are dyed one color only: blood red. There is no Easter Egg hunt. There is a game in which you crack your red egg against someone else’s red egg hoping to have the strongest egg, which would indicate you getting a lot of good luck.

Holy Week, for a Greek Orthodox, means you clear your calendar, you don’t make plans for that week at all because you will be in church every day, and you fast. Last year, in addition to not eating red meat and dairy before communion, my family also gave up sodas for the 40-day Lenten period.

During one particularly stressful moment, there were many phone calls amongst our kids as to whether or not a canned drink called TING, made with grapefruit juice and carbonated water was, in fact, a soda and not a juice, which our then 10-year-old decided it was, so we had a Ting-less Lent.

No matter where I find my self in the world I never miss Easter, or as we call it, Pascha. I have celebrated in Paris, London, New York City, Los Angeles, and in Salinas, California at a small humble church that was pure and simple.

When we were kids, our parents would take us, and now as parents ourselves we take our children to many of the Holy Week services including the Good Friday service where you mourn the death of Jesus by walking up to the Epitaphio, which reperesents the dead body of Christ, make your cross, kiss the Epitaphio, and marvel at how it was decorated with a thousand glorious flowers, rose petals and smells like incense.

Some very pious people will crawl under the Epitaphio. I have always been so moved to see this. There is no self- consciousness in this utter act of faith. There is no embarrassment to show symbolic sorrow at the death of our Saviour.

At a certain point in the Good Friday service, the Epitaphio is carried outside by the deacons of the church, as if they are pall bearers, followed by worshippers carrying lit candles protected from dripping on your clothes and on others by having a red plastic cup that sits below the flame to catch the wax drippings. Every Greek person knows all too well the smell of burning hair.

One time, in London, I smelled something and turned to look at where the smell might be coming from, only to be horrified that it was coming form me and my head was on fire. But I digress.

It is somber and quiet as we follow the Epitaphio, in candlelight, from the altar to the outdoors, in order for it to circle the church before it returns back to the altar. We sing beautiful lamentations that make your heart break with their pure expression of sadness and hope.

One of my favorite services during Easter is Holy Unction. This happens on the Wednesday of Holy Week. Holy Unction is a sacrament. It is for healing of our ills, physical and spiritual. It is preparing us for confession and communion. This sacrament has always been so humbling to me.

When you approach the priest for Holy Unction, you bow your head and as he says a prayer and asks you your Christian name, he takes a swab of blessed oil and makes the sign of the cross on your forehead, cheeks, chin, backs of your hands and palms. It is a powerful reminder of how, with faith, we can be healed in many ways.

The holy oil is then carefully dabbed with cotton balls provided by the church so you don’t leave there looking as if you’re ready to fry chicken with your face, and before you exit the church, you leave your cotton balls in a basket being held by altar boys, so as not to dispose of the holy oil in a less than holy place. The church burns the used cotton balls.

There have been times when I have left church with my cotton ball and have panicked when I am driving away. At home I take care of it. Imagine a grown woman burning cotton balls in her sink. But that is what I do.

Midnight Mass on Saturday night, going into Sunday morning is the Anastasi service. We will arrive at church at around 11 p.m., when it starts, and listen to the chanter as he chants in preparation for the service. My kids, dressed in their suits and having been awakened from a deep sleep to come to church, groggily sit and wait holding their candles with red cup wax catchers.

As the service progresses, the moment we have all been waiting for approaches. All the lights in the church are turned off. It is pitch black It is dead quiet. The priest takes one candle and lights his one candle from the one remaining lit altar candle, which represents the light of Christ’s love ( I believe).

From this one candle, the priest approaches the congregation and using his one candle he shares his light with a few people in the front pews. They in turn share their light with the people next to them and behind them. In quiet solemnity, we wait until the entire church is lit with only the light of candles, the light that has been created by one small flame has now created a room of shared light.

And at a moment that can only be described as glorious, the priest cries out, “Xristos Anesti!” “Christ is Risen!” We respond with “Alithos Anesti!” “Truly, He is Risen!” We sing our glorious Xristos Anesti song with the choir. That moment, which happens about an hour, to an hour and half into the service and seems as if the service is over, actually marks the beginning of the service. The service then continues for another hour and a half.

When I was a kid, after the service was over, we would go to the Anastasi Dinner that the church would throw in the church hall, where we would break our fast, drink Cokes at 2:30 in the morning, dance to a raucous Greek band and not go home until our stomachs were full of lamb, eggs, Koulouraki, and we saw the sun rise. Or was it the Son rise?

But usually now, after Midnight Mass, we drive home with our still-lit candles. I always love seeing the looks on peoples faces as they pull up to our car seeing a family with lit candles calmly moving at 65 m.p.h. down the highway. When we get home, we crack eggs, eat cookies, drink hot chocolate (so not Greek) and I burn a cross into our doorways with the carbon from the candle smoke to bless our house for the year.

There have been many times when painters touching up the house have wondered why there was this strange black cross burned into our doorways. The next day is usually followed by a late sleep in, then getting up and doing the same thing you just did but in the daytime at the Easter Picnic, usually held at a local park.

I have to say, the Greeks know how to do Easter. Make no mistake. This is the most important holiday in our church. It is a beautiful week. I haven’t even begun to touch on what the week is really like. This is a sampling of a sampling of what it is like. It is so much more deep, so much richer than I have written here.

But one thing is clear. It is a powerful, beautiful, mysterious, humbling, healing and moving week. It is filled with tradition and ritual. It is about renewal and faith. And even though it is still too early to say, Xristos Anesti! Alithos Anesti!

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