Greek Easter in Chios

Easter on the small Greek island of Chios means one thing - a massive firework battle, with over 50,000 rockets raining down on two small towns.

The origins of the projectile fight are somewhat murky, but it likely originated in the late 19th century when the island was occupied by the Ottomans.

The Symbolism of Cracking Red Eggs at Easter

By Anastasios Papapostolou

On the first hours of Easter Sunday and right after “Christ has risen” we crack red eggs during dinner. This tradition-while fun as a game-has the symbolism of resurrection and new life. The egg is seen by followers of Christianity as a symbol of resurrection: while being dormant it contains a new life sealed within it.

Easter eggs are dyed red to represent the blood of Christ, shed on the Cross, and the hard shell of the egg symbolizes the sealed Tomb of Christ—the cracking of which symbolizes his resurrection from the dead.

Why We Dye Eggs Red for Easter?

By Stella Tsolakidou 

For Orthodox Christians, the egg symbolizes the empty rock tomb from which Jesus Christ arose after Ηis Crucifixion. It is a universal means of greeting and presentation for Christian believers, while it also foretells the eternal life experience awaiting true believers after death.

A symbol of fertility and immortality among all nations and eras of the human civilization, the egg appears to be empty within, but life spreads out of it when a bird hatches from it. According to heathen cosmogonies, the original chaos of the world was contained in an egg, which broke into two halves, the one forming the sky and the other the earth.

But why dye the eggs red during Easter?

Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday

This is the Blessed Sabbath. The "Great and Holy Sabbath" is the day which connects Good Friday, the commemoration of the Cross, with the day of His Resurrection. To many the real nature and the meaning of this "connection", or "middle day", remains obscure. For a good majority of churchgoers, the "important" days of Holy Week are Friday and Sunday, the Cross and the Resurrection. These two days, however, remain somehow "disconnected." There is a day of sorrow, and then, there is the day of joy. In this sequence, sorrow is simply replaced by joy, but according to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, expressed in Her Liturgical tradition, the nature of this sequence is not that of a simple replacement. The Church proclaims that Christ has "trampled death by death."

It means that even before the Resurrection, an event takes place, in which the sorrow is not simply replaced by joy, but is itself transformed into joy. Great Saturday is precisely this day of transformation, the day when victory grows from inside the defeat, when before the Resurrection, we are given to contemplate the death of death itself. All this is expressed, and even more, all this really takes place every year in this marvelous morning service, in this liturgical commemoration which becomes for us a saving and transforming present.