Hestia Group News

Easter is the most important religious event in the Greek Orthodox calendar and if you are on holiday in cyprus or out and about in your Car, you will notice the huge effigies of rabbits, chicks and eggs that decorate most major roundabouts!

The season actually begins 50 days earlier on Green Monday, when Cypriot families head for the countryside to picnic on vegetarian food as they enter the period of fasting which will be broken at midnight on Easter Saturday. Green Monday, or as it’s also known, ‘Clean Monday’ also has a tradition for flying Kites…

Orthodox Easter, is a moveable feast, the same as the Christian Easter, however the date is always set on the first Sunday after the full moon following the spring equinox.

The concentration of activity occurs in Holy Week, when housewives bake seasonal specialities in preparation for the feast on Easter Day.  The fasting enters an even stricter vegan phase during this week, when even olive oil is forbidden.  baking takes place with a strictly ‘no tasting’ rule which must be very hard indeed.  The most favourite delicacy is ‘Flaounes’, a pastry filled with a special cheese, eggs and mint.

Spring cleaning is also rife during this week as everything must be made clean and new to celebrate the Resurrection on Easter Sunday.  Houses are whitewashed and scrubbed from top to bottom and new clothes and shoes are an absolute must!

During Holy Week, the general mood becomes more solemn, especially on Good Friday as the death of Christ is mourned.  On this day, flowers are taken to the church to decorate the Holy Sepulcher.  Late Saturday evening, church bells will call the congregation to Mass which everyone in the village will attend and all will carry an unlit candle.  The priest will hold one lighted candle and deliver the sermon.  At midnight it will be declared “Christos anesti” (Christ has risen) and the congregation will reply “Alitho anesti” (Indeed He has risen).  Everyone then lights their candle from the priest’s and the celebrations begin.  Usually a bonfire will be built in the church yard and fireworks will be let off.  Hard boiled eggs that have been dyed red to represent the blood of Christ will be cracked open and eaten, but the real feasting begins on Sunday when Souvla (skewered barbecued pork or chicken) and whole roast lamb or goat will be enjoyed.  The celebrations generally continue for 3 days – yes, there is Easter Tuesday in cyprus!

If you want to experience Cypriot Easter for yourself, head for a rural village where you can witness traditions and celebrations which haven’t changed much in hundreds of years…

Easter is certainly a great time to visit cyprus on holiday, although certain shops and offices will be closed for the bank holidays, you will thoroughly enjoy the experience and want to return next year!

What’s in a name? In cyprus – and Greece - the answer is a great deal.

Unlike the UK, where naming a new-born child may be the result of a whim or a fashion statement according to which pop star is in the ascendancy, in cyprus and Greece it is a serious business rooted in social conventions and family traditions which may go back hundreds of years. Whereas the legacy of Britney Spears and Kylie Minogue or even Prince Harry in decades to come may be many namesakes unrelated to them, in Greece and cyprus, different rules apply!

In Greece (especially Crete) and cyprus (which closely follows the conventions) name days are celebrated in a similar way to birthdays in other cultures. According to the Orthodox Church, every day of the year has been dedicated to the memory of a saint or a martyr from the Holy Bible and Holy Tradition. If someone is named after a saint, then there is a big celebration on his or her name day. Gifts are given, festive meals and desserts are prepared, and (in some parts of Greece) special preparations are made for an open house. Usually, name days are on the same date, every year; these are the non-floating name days. There are some floating name days based on the Orthodox holiday calendar that are on a different date each year.

Naming conventions in Greece and cyprus are still followed quite strictly, with the result that certain names are used for many individuals in a generation. In each generation, the eldest grandson in each family will be named after the grandfather, and the eldest granddaughter will be named after the grandmother. If someone had three children, and they all produce a male grandchild, all three of those cousins will have the same name. To top it all off, all those with the same first name will celebrate the same saint’s Name Day.

The endings of surnames change when used as surnames and differ when applied to men and women. On marriage a man does not change his name; a woman takes:
her husband’s personal name as her middle name; and generally, his father’s personal name as her surname. She could, unusually, use his grandfather’s personal name as her surname. If a man who is using his grandfather’s personal name as a surname marries, his wife sometimes has a different surname.

Many Greeks and Greek Cypriots permanently settled in the UK have adopted a static surname system, in which case the father’s personal name is included as the middle name.

In Greece, you get two birthdays. In Greece, everyone celebrates the “Name Day” of the saint that bears the same name. This usually has no relation to a person’s actual birthday except by coincidence.

Greek names reflect a long history. Because of the naming rules, in some cases the same names have been used in an unbroken line for hundreds of years in a single family, if not longer. Often, these names came into use because of a local association with a saint. For example, on the south coast of Crete, where St. Paul is said to have been shipwrecked nearly two thousand years ago, Pavlos is an extremely common name even among unrelated families. But in the rest of Greece, it’s not often encountered.

The complete celebration of Name Days includes a party. In past times, this was open to literally anyone passing on the street, but most parties these days are by invitation. Obviously, people of the same name will usually know where all the celebrations are. Small gifts are exchanged.

Since the Saint is also having a celebration, everyone will visit any local church named for that same saint, make an offering, and light a candle. The bigger churches will put on the larger festivals, often with free food and drink, but even the smallest of chapels will commemorate their saint’s special day in some way. Many of the little chapels you see in the fields or in remote locations will only be open once a year on the day of their saint. And if the village itself is named for the saint, travellers can count on a terrific party on that day.

The major religion of the Greek Cypriot population is Greek Orthodox.

There are also the smaller religious groups of Muslims, the Anglicans, Roman and Latin Christians, Maronites, Armenian Orthodox, Greek Evangelics, Jews and others including New Life International Church cyprus (Community of Hope), Seventh-Day Adventist Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Religion – as epitomised by the Orthodox Church across many centuries - is very firmly woven into the fabric of cyprus society reflecting its power, influence and dominance in the life of the country. This contrasts with the UK, where diverse religious creeds are arguably in greater competition with each other for the religious affiliations of its people.

The religious practices of the Cypriot Orthodox Church compare and contrast significantly to those found within the diverse communities of the broadly Christian type churches of the UK. The service does not use a choir. The balcony, or choir loft, found in most churches is reserved for women and is called the ginekonitis. On the ground level of the church, men usually also sit on one side and women on the other.

The Church of cyprus is an autocephalous church in the Orthodox tradition using the liturgy of mainland Greece. It recognized the seniority and prestige of the ecumenical patriarch in Constantinople, while retaining complete administrative autonomy under its own archbishop. The Great Schism, as the split between Catholic and Orthodox became known, had major consequences for the Church of cyprus. Under Lusignan and Venetian rule, the Church of cyprus was pressured to recognize the authority of the Roman pope. The imposed Roman hierarchy attempted to remould the Church of cyprus in the image of the Western church. Under the Muslim Ottomans, Cypriots were no longer considered schismatics, but merely unbelievers and followers of an inferior religion.

As such they were allowed considerable autonomy, and the archbishop was the officially recognized secular as well as religious leader of his community

Under British rule there was an attempt to secularize all public institutions, but this move was bitterly opposed by church authorities, who used the conflict with the state to gain leadership of the Greek nationalist movement against colonial rule. At independence Archbishop Makarios III, a young, Western-educated former monk, was elected president of the Republic, holding this position until his death in 1977. His successor, Archbishop Chrysostomos, was still head of the Church of cyprus at the beginning of the 1990s. He was a conservative leader, both in religious and political matters, well-suited for a church that had never undergone reforms similar to those instituted by the Second Vatican Council for the Roman Catholic Church.

The church had long been composed of four episcopal sees: the archbishopric of Nicosia, and the Metropolitanates of Paphos, Kition, and Kyrenia. New Metropolitanates were created by Makarios in 1973 for Limassol and Morphou, with a suffragan (or assistant) bishop in Salamis under the archbishop. A bishop had to be a graduate of the Orthodox theological seminary in Greece and be at least thirty years of age. Since Orthodox bishops were sworn to a vow of celibacy and parish clergy were usually married, bishops were recruits from monasteries rather than parish churches. Bishops were not appointed by the archbishop, but, like him, were elected through a system granting representation to laymen, other bishops, abbots, and regular clergy.

Individual churches, monasteries, dioceses, and charitable educational institutions organized by the Church of cyprus were independent legal persons enjoying such rights and obligations as holding property. In exchange for many church lands acquired by the government, the government assumed responsibility for church salaries. Parish clergy, traditionally married men chosen by their fellow villagers, were sent for brief training before ordination. In the twentieth century, modernisers, most notably Archbishop Makarios, were instrumental in strengthening the quality and training of priests at the Cypriot seminary in Nicosia

The monasteries of cyprus had always been very important to the Church of cyprus. By the twentieth century many had long lain in ruins, but their properties were among the most important holdings of the church, the island’s largest landowner. Although the number of monks decreased in the postwar era, in the early 1990s there were at least ten active monasteries in the government-controlled areas

In the Orthodox church, ritual was to a great extent the centre of the church’s activity, for Orthodox doctrine emphasises ‘the mystery of God’s grace rather than salvation through works and knowledge’. Seven sacraments are recognized: baptism in infancy, followed by confirmation with consecrated oil, penance, the Eucharist, matrimony, ordination, and unction in times of sickness or when near death.

Formal services are lengthy and colourful, with singing, incense, and elaborate vestments according to the occasion for the presiding priest. Statues are forbidden, but the veneration of icons, located on the church’s walls and often covered with offerings of the faithful, is highly developed. Easter is the focus of the church year, closing the Lenten fasting with an Easter Eve vigil and procession. marriage is a highly ritualized occasion. Formal divorce proceedings are required for broken engagements that have been ratified by the church. The wedding sponsors play an important role in the family, for they usually act as godparents of all children born of that marriage union.

religious observance varies. In traditional rural villages, women attend services more frequently than men, and elderly family members are usually responsible for fulfilling religious duties on behalf of the whole family. Church attendance is less frequent in urban areas and among educated Cypriots. For much of the population, religion focuses on rituals at home, veneration of icons, and observance of certain feast days of the Orthodox calendar.

Details of non-Orthodox church services are published in the English-language newspaper The cyprus Mail / Sunday Mail.