Greece's Epiphany - Water and Light after Twelfth Night

Epiphany is Greece's purest religious holiday. Christmas is happily subdued; Easter's secular aspect runs amok, often on 12 cm heels. Glorious days mark the Orthodox calendar, but none so literally cleansing as this most bracing of holidays.

We are expecting a cold snap now- sometime over twelfth night the temperatures are expected to plunge into freezing, making the morning's ritual more testing. Commemorating the baptism of Christ, all the waters- every bay, open sea, lake, and river will be blessed. That involves throwing in a cross, and someone bringing it back. Our house is by the sea, and all of the neighborhood's congregations will form colorful processions to the waterfront starting around 10:30, led by priests and richly robed altar boys. Young men of the congregations board boats with the priest. He will throw a cross far into the water and after a breathless hush - a fraction of a second - the young men will dive after it and we all gasp, even though we know what we're expecting. It's a thrilling moment- a display of bravery and strength, vanquishing the brutal elements on behalf of us all.

We return to the church, the mood a little boisterous. Inside, the line moves quickly as we approach the altar for our blessing, a brisk bask of a great bundle of basil fresh and damp with holy water to the forehead and each shoulder. the air is sweet with the scent of it. Outside the church, holy water flows though spigots from huge vessels and we fill the containers we have brought from home. We sip some, and bring it back for anyone still at home to to take. We give some to out pets, and pour a little into each of our plants, blessing home and its every living thing.

Celebrating today are names that have to do with light and the heavens and Divine joy, like Fotis and Foteini, Urania, and Theoharis.

Anything you do with water today should be particularly blessed. (It's even a good day to bathe your dog.)

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The Fragrance of Easter

Greek Easter is a season, not a day. Clean Monday- the beginning of Lent- starts the long build-up from the the season of naked branches to the season of leaves the size of children's hands. The last of the apples, a little withered, give way to the first strawberries, as nature illustrates the spiritual rebirth. The most solemn week of the Christian calendar is, in truth, brimming with joyous anticipation.

Palm Sunday brings the welcome taste of fish- those who have been observing the Orthodox fast have had nothing of creatures with blood- no meat, dairy, eggs, or fish, eating only seafoods, vegetables, olives, oil and bread.

Holy week, the fast resumes, with many from Wednesday on taking no oil, and some from Good Friday fasting altogether. Of course, alongside the fast, joyous preparations begin.

Tsoureki fresh this morning at our neighborhood bakery "Thoma"

The Easter treat is tsoureki- a sweet, eggy bread rich with butter- not unlike challah or babka or kulich.  Depending on the region and the household, it will be flavored various ways- mahlepi, the inner seed kenel of the pit of a certain cherry (like noix from the pits of apricots) is classic- it is said to taste like cherries and bitter almond, but to me it smells much more mysterious- and a little musty- like incense. Others use mastika, the dried resin of a wild pistachio tree that grows only on the island of Chios (the source of our verb masticate)- it looks like a crystal and tastes like a forest.

Clockwise from 7 o'clock- mahlepi, cardamon, and rocks of mastika.

You can buy great tsoureki, but then your house will not be filled with the scent of Easter. The dough is satisfying to knead and fun to braid and twist into shapes. A child, covered with flour and standing on a chair next to a patient grandmother, can usually be called on to help with this. Tsoureki bake astonishingly quickly- a moment too long and they are dry. Tsoureki should be moist and pull apart into long strands, the mark of thorough kneading. I would gladly share a recipe with you, but I am still searching for the right one.

Ingredients for tsoureki, including a special flour

The same day, commemorating the crucifixion, we dye eggs truly deep blood red- a color you can only buy in markets that sell things to Orthodox communities. No amount of food coloring will get the effect. The eggs will be polished lightly with oil, and whatever are not braided into the tsourekia will be displayed on the table, to be brought to Church for the resurrection on Saturday night. The dye needs lots of vinegar- simmering with the dye it fills the air. Like the smell of tsoureki baking, you can tell it's Easter with your eyes closed.

Good Friday on an island must be wonderful- friends tell me that when they were girls they would gather the day before to decorate the Epitaphio with flowers. I don't know who prepares the Epitaphio in the city but, they are covered too, flowers woven all over the frame and canopy. In the evening, people gather at every church to follow the epitaphio though the streets in a procession. All along the way people come out onto their balconies with candles. Sometimes two processions meet- In Thessaloniki, the Epitaphia of Grigoriou Palama and Agia Sophia meet at the intersection of Agias sophias and Tsimiski. The altar boys are little guys; they get bored waiting- once two of  them ended up on the ground, horsing around in their elaborate robes. The nun was cross.

The next day is madness- all last minute gift shopping and hair salons, mageiritsa cooking, and buying lambadas- candles to receive the light of the resurrection. What's mageiritsa? You'll probably know there is usually a whole lamb (or goat) roast on the spit for Easter Sunday. the organs are wrapped into tight bundles with the scrubbed-clean entrails to make this traditional Easter Soup- these bundles simmered in an egg-lemon broth green with fresh herbs. This is the soup to break the fast after the resurrection.

Sometime after 11, the churches and and grounds and streets around them fill. We're all dressed up, and some of us not necessarily modestly (after church is mageiritsa, and after mageiritsa- bouzoukia). Around midnight the bells toll and the light of the resurrection spreads from the church through the crowd, the scent of flames and melting beeswax fill the air as one candle lights another, a joyous moment.

Technically it's not the mageiritsa that breaks the fast- that is the first meal. But the first thing we eat? The eggs- we have all brought red eggs from our homes. and not just any red eggs- everyone has chosen their own egg, the one they think has the best chances against the other eggs- we crack them against one another, end to end, the aim that your egg stays intact. And now it's mageiritsa, the whole family around the table. No one will be in bed before 1:30 or 2 tonight, not even the children, and many of us will not go to bed before the sun rises on Easter morning.

More on Easter:

Imam Biyaldi- perfect for Holy Week

Marble Eggs from onion skins

Ricotta Pie Esperdy (for a taste of Easter in Manhattan)

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Fear and Grace in Archangel

Note- this post has some images of church frescoes you might find brutal and unnerving- I certainly did.

Nothing has prepared me for entering the monastery of Archangel Mihail in the village of the same name high in the mountains of Almopeia. The outside is painted, unique to the churches we had visited, but in a style in keeping with the charming folkloric mood we had seen in other churches of the area on this marvelous trip.*

We go in- the mood turns from folkloric simplicity to unbridled abandon. Color everywhere, and passion with it, Our tour guide, Nikos Zacharakis, refers to the frescoes as naive, and truly they are- no individual characteristics distinguish one face from another human proportions oddly rendered, an approach to color and line that is exuberant and actually zany. 

Spirals on the columns are crooked and uneven- they lend liveliness and spontaneity.

Then I see the frescoes on the outer walls. The scenes were shocking. Scenes of martyrdom in an Orthodox church are common, especially in the fore chambers. Often the martyrdom is not being enacted, but just alluded to- some arrows on the ground near an unharmed St. Sebastian, lions licking St. Ignatius. even when the martyrdom is shown, it is never with the zeal depicted here. I grew up with Buddist God-parents, Jewish friends, and Catholic holidays. Also centuries of Catholic imagery- The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, 

The martyrdom of St. Sebastian.

I've seen fantastic horrors of hell in Bosch paintings, graphic visceral death in Grunewald paintings. Nothing prepared me for the demented zeal of these images- Demons prying the soul from the mouth of an unrighteous man

in another, impassive depraved men cooperate with a huge saw

You'll notice I'm not the only one who finds these  upsetting. The faces of the soldiers and the demons have been scratched out, as well as the more gruesome evidence of harm.

I find it worrisome. Were I alone I would have  left. Our host the monk arrives, and everyone gathers around for a prayer. Amidst the demented images, it's not very comforting. I stay towards the back. 

Only when we go back outside to examine the main fresco do I feel more at ease. It's not the fresco- depicting our afterlife journey it is filled with demons and torture

It's the priest, wise, kind, and frankly looking a lot like Richard Gere (I take no credit for this observation- one of my travelling companions noticed). Rather than seeing the descent into hell, I see the possibility Pater Illarion shares that through our prayers here on earth, we better the lot of souls departed. Not damnation- potential. Then he draws our attention to the corners-

Angels are rolling out a scroll of the heavens themselves, glittering with stars, and where once was dread is now wonder.

He invites us to the reception hall to get to know us better- a personal encounter such as I have never had. He hears our ideas, and shares his own- a piece of wisdom so elegant in its directness and easily employed. It is simply that words have meaning, psychological meaning. Change your words, change your soul.  He has eliminated the words "must/have to" from his vocabulary, replacing them with "want to," in essence, replacing obligation with joy. Try it in your mind right now and see if it doesn't make the day and its tasks a lot more agreeable. When I find myself burdened, I return to Pater Illarion's advice, and I am the better for it.

He walks us to the Monastery's gate

I wonder if his wisdom and kindness has made the frescoes somehow less frightening, and slip away from the group to check. It hasn't. But if anything, their brutality sharpens the relevance of his wise and practical measures in pursuing Grace, and helping us to do so likewise, this week, and hopefully always. His inspiration has lasting relevance. 

Happy Holy Week!

*Clleagues and I have been invited to the region of Almopeia for a familiarization trip under the auspices of the program Living History/Living Nature. Their generosity has no bearing on opinions expressed- it was an incredible experience, and a joy to share it.

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