Celebrating Greek Orthodox Easter

So seeing as it's the Holy Week, I thought I would take a minute to explain why we Greeks (Orthodox) celebrate differently to the rest of the world. Some people think that Orthodox Easter is about lamb on the spit and a different Easter date. But why do we do things "differently"?

While Easter is a 40 day event (Sarakosti), it all comes down to Holy Week, the week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. This is the week leading up to and celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Even though I don't attend church that often, I find that the ceremonies I attend are beautiful.

We also fast either for 40 days, or Holy Week. This means once you have fish as your only protein on Palm Sunday, the rest of the week we abstain from meat, dairy, alcohol and sex. With so many yummy Greek recipes, and vegan, too, there's no end to options. Lenten fasting is over after the Paschal Divine Liturgy on Saturday. To break the fast, a dish of Magiritsa is served, followed by the cracking of red eggs. The red eggs symbolise the blood of Christ and rebirth. The eggs are cracked together with another person's egg, the cracker says "Christos Anesti" (Christ Has Risen) and the other person responds "Alithos Anesti" (Truly He Has Risen). This greeting is also used for the 40 days following Easter. One thing that people do that is annoying is replying "Alithos, mate". To me, that takes away the meaning behind it.

Right, so after midnight, you've gone to sleep with a tummy full of gut soup and eggs, what do you get for lunch? That's right, lamb on the spit! The day is filled with family, friends and most importantly FOOD!

So why do we celebrate on a different date? The Eastern Orthodox Church follows the Gregorian calendar, in most years Western Christian churches and Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate Easter on different dates. In 2013, for example, Easter will be celebrated on March 31 by Western churches and May 5 by Orthodox churches. But in 2011, the two celebrations occurred on the same date, April 24. The formula for Easter- the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox" - is identical for both Western and Orthodox Easters, but the churches base the dates on different calendars: Western churches use the Gregorian calendar, the standard calendar for much of the world, and Orthodox churches use the older, Julian calendar.

I wanted to write more but I couldn't think of anything else. Maybe this should be a small Paschal series?