Easter traditions (3rd interview)

We start the 3rd interview and with us are Ms Anna Libanioy and Mr. Peter Antonoglou all being permanent residents of Halki to speak to us about lore and customs especially during the Easter period like it is now.

• Anna, do you think that young people today, of your age, are still following these traditions?
  These traditions have existed for many years, perhaps centuries and some are kept during   our own living days. For example in terms of the church ceremonies, the hours of ceremony during the Holy Week, is different from the rest of Greece. On Good Friday, at 4pm, we enter the church, where we say the praise and 4.30  the epitaph comes out of the church. Then, on Holy Saturday ar 4 am really on a Sunday morning, the little resurrection takes place after noon and the church ceremony starts. Then we burn the Franc, the Judah (local custom). We pick on something related to the time, we name the franc and we burn it after that.
  The last Saturday of Lazarus, come out of school children and dress a boy who plays Lazarus and gather daisies, say carols and throwing daisies in homes means.

• Peter, do you remember how it was?
  Fasting began since the first day of Lent.Our co-patriots used to fast throughout the holy week in order to receive the Holy Communion.
  On Good Friday, the children came out of school in the village, holding discs and gathered flowers from the housewives and said the phrase Loulougia for the epitaph. Housewives, kept these flowers to give them to their children to decorate the epitaph.
  Then a single girl, whose name was Chryssovergi shepherdess, on Holy Thursday was always leaving for St. George’s creek, a distance of about two hours to go there and as much time to come back from, brought the wild flowers, and also brought the Immortal yellow color flower, and decorated the epitaph.
  On Holy Saturday the lamb was not slaughtered, before the priest rang the church bell. The lamb is called ofto in this place. We put the lambs inbig ovens in thge afternoon of Holy Saturday. To open the  ovens on Easter day the priest  had to hit the bell again. Today, pretty much the same applies, except that the ofta may be put  nowdays in  electric ovens.
• Anna: The people that originate from  Chalki but staying elsewhere have altered these customs. I remember the song titled “Today with the black sky” ….. Nowdays we do  not say that song anymore. It is my fault too and I do not say that i am not to blame, but many should be blamed for this.
• Peter: On Holy Thursday every woman, from homes that had lost someone in the sponges business or elsewhere, the church ceremonies ended, right after the crucifixion, these women would go beneath the crucifix, they removed their head towels and began to mourn.
• Anna: Themournful feeling of the day has been gone, the fact that we lost Christ – is not alive anymore. We do not fast anymore. My grandmother ould go furious  if we did not go to church. Young children now have no such hearing or experience.
• Peter: I remember when guarding the epitaph and until the bell was rang, we said mournful songs: Today the sky is black, the day today is black, today the King of everything was crucified. These songs bonded us much more with the manners and customs of the island. We made also the Lazarakia, buns where we put nuts, because fasting would  begin in the Holy Week and we gave them to family and friends. Many people in households were making bagels, many kilos of them, 30 or 40 kilost hat is of buns with butter from Chalki and sent them to relatives outside of Halki. And I was a baker back then, once we  were finishing baking we then started drinking some booze. It was all handmade. After that the women were finishing baking in the ovens of the neighborhood. After that the women were making the avgoules, the egg pies that is, and put up some 15, 20 eggs and these avgoules were saved for their loved ones being abroad.