Sarah's+Podcast+3+-+Greek+Easter  



Good afternoon everyone! In this podcast, I will be talking about what happens during the holiday, Greek Easter, also known as Eastern Orthodox Easter. I decided to have a podcast dedicated to this because I am Greek and we recently celebrated this wonderful holiday! One of the main differences between Greek Easter and "American Easter" as we Greeks like to call is, it that it is held on a different date. The reason for this is that the Eastern Orthodox religion follows the original calendar of the original Roman Catholic Church. The Eastern Orthodox and Catholic religion used to be the same before they spilt and as Catholicism modernized, the Eastern Orthodoxs remained the same. The reason our Easter is different than American Easter is because we celebrate Easter after Passover. This is because Jesus originally went to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover so it wouldn't make sense to celebrate Easter before Passover. However, according to the Catholic calender, Easter sometimes falls before Passover...but not for the Greeks! Anyway, celebrating Greek Easter means clearing your schedule for the week of services. One Wednesday, we have the Holy Wednesday service. At this service, the Priest uses oils to do the sign of the cross on everyone's palms, the backs of their hands, their cheeks, chin and forehead. This signifys healing for the individual. On Holy Thursday the service consists of reading all twelve of the Holy Gospels. Friday night is one of my favorite services and it is the service for mourning the death of Jesus. We do this by walking up to the Epitaphio, which represents the body of Christ. We walk up to it, do our cross and then kiss it. It is decorated with thousands of beautiful flowers, roses and smells like incense. At one point of the service, the Epitaphio is carried outside around the church by the Parish council members of the church, while everyone follows. It is somber and quiet as we follow the Epitaphio, in candlelight while we sing beautiful laments. The Friday night service is a very morning one. Saturday night is my favorite service of the week. This service is called Pascha, which means Easter. The service begins at 11:00 p. A few minuets before midnight, the Priest turns out all the lights in the church. He then lights his candle which he gives to the altar boys to light their candles. They then walk around the entire church and light everyone else's candles until the entire church is lit only by the light of our candles. Once the clock strikes midnight, the Priest calls out "Christos Anesti!" which means Christ has Risen! The congregation replies "Alithos Anesit" which means Truly He has Risen! The service continues until 2:00 am. at this time, the entire congregation comes up to take communion, which consists of bread and wine (the body and blood of Christ). At this time everyone also receives their Easter eggs which are dyed a deep red color. We have a tradition with these Eggs where one person will hold their egg bottom side up while another person holds theirs with the smaller end up. They crack the ends against each other's and say "Christos Anesti and Alithos Anesti"! Whosever egg does not break will have good luck the rest of the year! Now, at 2:00 am it is time for the feast to begin! Everyone goes into the next room and eats Greek salad, lamb, Greek rice and rolls! After everyone is full, it is time to go home. It is quite a site to see a family driving home on the highway at 3:00 am with lit candles in their car! We bring home out lit candles so we can bless our house with the holy candle. The next day, on Easter Sunday, my family gets up to go to my Nouna's (Godmother's) house for Easter brunch. Here my family gathers together to eat and crack our eggs! Our meal consists of salad, lamb, soup, and delicious Greek pastries! After the party is over, it marks the end of the Greek Easter celebrations. Overall Greek Easter is a beautiful week and it is definitely one of my favorite holidays! I hope everyone has enjoyed this podcast on the events of Greek Easter! This has been a Sarah Whaley podcast! See you next time and thanks for listening!