Ritual and Togetherness
Yesterday Greece and the Orthodox Christian world celebrated Easter, although “celebrated” is a bit of a stretch at these unprecedented lockdown times. For the Greeks, the Easter cycle of rituals and celebrations begin with the first Monday in Lent (2 March this year) and conclude on Easter Sunday. On every Friday throughout Lent, the mass of Salutations to the Holy Virgin (Chairetismoi) is conducted in crowded churches; during the Holy Week there are masses every day, with the highlights of the Twelve Gospel Extracts (Dodeka Evangelia) on Maundy Thursday, and the ritual of Chirst’s death on the cross on Good Friday.
Good Friday is a strange day, different from any other. Shops remain closed during the morning, while a wooden image of Christ on the cross hangs in the middle of every church. The church bells toll mournfully throughout the day until, at noon, Christ is taken down from the cross and placed on a portable wooden pavilion the Epitaphios. The women of the parish decorate this with spring flowers, and after sunset all the congregation walks behind the body of Christ carried on this stretcher, in a mimetic representation of a funeral procession. With lit candles, they stop at crossroads to offer salutations, and set off again around the neighbourhood before returning to the church.
On the following night, Saturday at 11 pm the Easter Mass begins, reaching a peak at midnight, when Christ rises and holy light is disseminated from the holy of holies inside the church to the congregation that often overflows the church and spills in the forecourt and the street. On Easter Day, families and friends gather round spit-roasted lamb and abundant wine to celebrate this highlight of the Orthodox Christian calendar, the most splendid feast for the Greeks, surpassing even Christmas and New Year.
For the first time in living memory, Easter was not celebrated in the way we have come to love and expect. Greeks were asked to “celebrate” quietly, only with the members of their immediate family, not to spit-roast lamb, not to visit their parents. Nothing felt like Easter because this togetherness was not there, that expansive sense of loved ones getting together, and everything is as it should be at the time of the earth’s rebirth.
When this crisis is over, may this become a memory of a unique, but never to be repeated, Greek Easter!
© Sofia A Koutlaki 2020
written during The Writers’ Hour, organised by The London Writers Salon https://londonwriterssalon.com
