Celebrating Greek Easter

Tomorrow is Greek Easter. This usually entails large and joyous gatherings of family and friends, which of course this year are prohibited. Easter is the most important religious holiday of the year in Greece, so here is a reblog of a post I wrote a few years ago, describing the traditions of a normal year.

Letters from Athens

Celebrated by even the most secular of Greeks, Easter is for us the biggest holiday of the year. Yes, even bigger than Christmas. Everyone joins in the church rituals and there are lots of other traditions as well. To top it all, this year Greek Easter falls on the first of May, which is, in itself, another popular holiday.

I thought I’d begin by explaining why Easter is a ‘mobile’ holiday: the determination of the date of Easter is governed by a computation based on the vernal equinox (the point at which the ecliptic and the celestial equators intersect) and the phase of the moon. According to the ruling of the First Ecumenical Synod in 325, Easter should fall on the Sunday which follows the first full moon after the vernal equinox (invariably, March 21). If the full moon happens to fall on a Sunday, Easter is observed the…

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