EASTER and LENT
  
Easter and along with it lent is the most important religious celebration in the Greek world and is determined by the Julian (named after Julius Caesar), and not the Gregorian calendar used in the western world since the 16th century, there is always a difference of one to six weeks between the western and the Orthodox Easter celebrations. Only rarely so they happen to fall on the same day.

For the Greeks and the Greek Orthodox faith, the resurrection of Jesus is his actual birth and the victory of eternal life over the mortal body. In the West, carnival ends with Ash Wednesday, the Greek Orthodox start the 48 days of lent on the Monday, the so-called Clean Monday (Monday of Purification).

Typically, the Greeks begin the period of fasting by driving into the countryside for a huge meat-less picnic (all blood-less sea food is allowed), to drink, make music, sing and dance.

 

A custom of this Monday are the kites that are flown by old and young, who have prayed for the right kind of wind, (this may be a relic of a pagan custom, a form of good luck to make the crops grow high.) Today not many Greeks observe the rules for fasting during the whole of lent (though more do so on Patmos than elsewhere). Everybody, however, uses Lent for spring-cleaning, and houses, walls and stairways are given fresh coats of whitewash, so that the villages and small towns are looking clean and fresh again after the winter rains.

HOLY WEEK
Patmos and its people experiences “ Great Week” according to Byzantine tradition. Numerous pilgrims travel here from all over the world. The closer the day of the Crucifixion approaches, the stricter the fasting becomes. Instead of their festive vestments, priests only wear black during their services as a sign of mourning.
SATURDAY OF LAZARUS
On Lazarus Saturday (the last day before Palm Sunday) children go from house to house and sing carols, for which they will be given spare change or small gifts. This is also known as the day of the first resurrection, namely that of the dead Lazarus whom Jesus restored to life.
PALM SUNDAY
On Palm Sunday, (the last Sunday before Easter), the streets are strewn with laurel and myrtle, and houses are decorated with a blessed cross-made of two palm fronds plaited together.
GOOD THURSDAY
The Thursday before Easter is also called “wash basin”(niptira). A ceremony of foot-washing, in memory of the performed by Jesus on his disciples during the last Supper, it is the most important event on this day for this re-enactment is done no where else in the world. Every year this scene is re-enacted from 11.00 hours onwards by the Abbot of the Monastery of St John and his monks. A woken platform is put up for this in Platia Losa in Hora. In the homes, Easter eggs are dyed red today, the colour symbolising the blood Jesus shed for mankind. 		 
Also, large plaited Easter buns, are made, shaped and baked with a red egg in the middle. During the night, many women go to church to help decorate the bier on which Christ’s’ dead body (in the form of an icon) will be born in procession. All church’s compete for the richest bier, and thousands of flowers are creatively combined in this often very attractive labour of love.
  GOOD FRIDAY
A day of mourning and complete self-restraint. Very strict believers take vinegar, in memory of Jesus on the cross. On this say the suffering of Jesus are relived intensely. Even the church bells ring only sparingly. National flags are all at half-mast. Whoever has deceased relatives will visit the grave on this day and decorate with an Easter candle, a raw egg, an Easter bun, as well as purple lavender, myrtle, and/or laurel. There are services in the Monastery of St John from 09.00 -12.00 hours, and from 15.00 - 16.30 hours and Lamentations from 22.00 - 02.00 hours.
The Entombment of Christ where the statue of Jesus is taken off the Cross, wrapped in a white cloth and laid on the altar, takes place in the Monastery of St John from 14.00 - 16.00 hours. The Good Friday procession is performed in Hora on Pltia Lesvia from 20.00 - 23.00 hours. A bier entirely covered with flowers in the centre of which lies the representation of the body of Christ (an icon, a crucifix) and covered thickly strewn with twigs of the Chaste tree. The believers accompany the bier carrying brown candles, which some women sprinkle with bitter orange water. Everybody follows the priest back to church, where the bier is taken into the inner chamber for forty days
EASTER SATURDAY
The previous day’s signs of mourning have been removed from the churches, which are now decorated with green laurel and chast-trees. An early resurrection-service is held from 09.00 - 11.30 hours in the main churches. The priest noisily drives away the Devil and demons which are trying to prevent the resurrection of Jesus. The bells are rung furiously, guns are fired, in some places little boys and big ones bang on metal lids from the offal of lambs, cooked with rice and flavoured with dill and a lemon-egg sauce.		  

In the evening from 21.00 hours onwards, the main resurrection service is celebrated in the churches, lasting until 02.00 hours. As a sign of joy, everybody has a white candle, sometimes elaborately dressed in ribbons and lace. At climax of the service all lights are turned off, only the eternal light remains. After a period of what should be silence, the priest, clad in golden vestments, steps out of the sanctuary. He holds a big white candle which he has lit from the eternal light and holds it out to the faithful, saying “Cristos anestis” (Christ has risen) and “parte to fos” (take the light). The people happily answer him, “Alithos anesti” (truly he has risen!) this beautiful greeting is exchanged whenever people meet the next few days, and should precede every meal for the next 40 days , until Whitsunday.
Meanwhile the members of the congregation near have lit their candles from his, and passed the light on to those behind them. In this way the light spreads more and more until the whole church is bright with it, the priest then foes outside to the forecourt of the church to announce the joyous news to the rest of the world, he blesses the people and the bells start to ring loudly . At this moment, deafening fireworks break out all around. When the people finally go back home they try to keep their candles alight so that they may use them to rekindle the red oil lamp with it that stands in front of the family icon, symbolising the sanctuary light.
Fasting is over now, and a big happy feast begins, often lasting until late at night. The red-dyed eggs are knocked against one another until one of the shells breaks, the winner will have a particularly lucky year and are eaten along with the mayiritsa soup. Young lambs and goats have been put on the spit to be grilled the next day. From now on there ore no limits to the celebration.

EASTER SUNDAY
This day is a day of love and happiness and all that goes with it. Whole lambs and kids are roasted outside over an open pit, or cuts of them in the kitchen. From 14.00 - 15.30 hours the so called Service of love is celebrated in Hora in the monastery of St John, where the abbot of the Monastery gives a red egg, a kiss, and a blessing to all present.
EASTER MONDAY
At the invitation of the islands’ mayor there is feasting in Skala at the big square to which all are welcome from 18.00 onwards with free food and drink and folk dancing.
EASTER TUESDAY
Between 09.00 and 11.00 hours all the house-icons and the island’s relics are carried in procession to Platia Lesvia in Hora, to give their blessing to all present, to animals plants and all of nature. They are then carried from one house to another in order to bless these too.
FRIDAY AFTER EASTER
This is the day when the small Nunnery of Zoodoho Pighi in Hora celebrates its feast-day, the day of the Virgin as the Fount of life, with services on the Thursday from 15.00 to 16.00 and on Friday from 08.00 to 10.30 hours.
7 DAYS AFTER EASTER DAY OF ST THOMAS
This celebration takes place on the first Sunday after and since the Monastery has one of the most precious relics of St Thomas( his skull) this is a very important day. St Thomas was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus who could not believe in the resurrection until he had seen for himself and touched the lords stigmata, which Jesus made possible for him eight days after his resurrection. From then on Thomas became one of the most fervent advocated of Christianity and died as a martyr from a spear thrust in India where he had been doing missionary work. From 08.00 - 10.30 hours a service is held in the Monastery of St John in Hora, during which St Thomas’ relic and icon are venerated.
1st OF MAY
From early morning on , whole families go out into the countryside with their friends to celebrate this day with a substantial picnic and folk-dances out in the open until late afternoon. During the journey back home and even before it, flowers of all kinds are collected to decorate the houses, Wreaths are made, hung on the front door or the wall of the house, and not taken down until midsummer night.
8th of MAY
St Johns day When St John’s followers opened up his grave in Ephesus (Asia Minor), they found only dust in it. With this dust, the faithful healed their wounds and started to worship the “resurrected one” as a saint. Important prayer services are held in the Monastery of St John and in the Cave of the apocalypse on the 7th of May from 19.00 - 02.00 hours and on the 8th of May from 08.00 to 10.00 hours.
40 DAYS AFTER EASTER
THE DESCENT OF THE HOLY GHOST (Whitsunday)
Held in all main churches 07.00 - 11.30 hours WHIEMONDAY Held in all main church’s 07.00 - 10.00 hours
60 DAYS AFTER EASTER
ALL SAINTS DAY 07.00 - 10.00 hours In the chapels of Aghion Pandon in the hermatage of Apollou and Koumana.
Afterwards there is a public festival in the Hermitage of Koumana with food, drink and dancing.