The Best Good Friday

Good Friday is the best holiday of the Easter cycle. The Resurrection- pinnacle of the season- is for most of us fleeting- we join the crowd filling the streets around the church, receive the light, break eggs, and kiss a lot of cheeks. It's joyous, but so brief. Mageiritsa is waiting.

Good Friday is- technically- not joyous, and certainly not brief. Bells of mourning have been pealing at measured intervals all day. The stores open around noon so everyone has time to kiss the epitahio. After sundown, the church fills up again- to kiss the epitaphio if you haven't already- and then to file out of the church to join the procession around the neighborhood.

For a couple of hours, the city transforms. Decked out altar boys-

priests with megaphones under the golden streetlights-

and the blossom covered Epitaphio followed by the congregation make their way through the streets, 

navigating through the parked cars. 

At the lager churches, a military marching band joins the procession, and so do the scouts-

Everyone's holding candles, also form the balconies above, and as solemn an occasion as it is, there is joyous anticipation. The flags are at half mast now-

But we will all be back here tomorrow night for the church's most joyous, light-filled moment of the year

to say Χριστός ανέστη (Christ has risen), and Κάλο Πάσχα (Happy Easter), take the light back with us into our homes, and feast with joy.