Since time immemorial mankind has surrounded the coming of spring with mystical associations. The earth is wet and fertile after the winter rains, the grasses lush, the trees in bloom, the weather occasionally temperamental but usually gentle and beckoning people out of doors. The major celebration in Greece, religious or secular, is a time of reunions. Greeks abroad dream of coming home for Easter – and many do – while the majority of city – dwellers return to their own villages, or travel to the provinces and the islands.
The countryside, isolated in winter, comes to life with the return of children and grandchildren, relatives and friends, as well as strangers and tourists from larger towns and cities. The heads of households burst into activity with a new-found sense of importance —shopping for food is usually a male domain—and the bartering for the best spring lamb, essential to a proper Easter feast, begins as the holiday approaches. Villages ring with greetings and announcements of arrivals and the telephone operator becomes the centre of information on coming and goings.
Easter in Greece, to a greater extent than its counterpart in the Western world in terms of religious and social significance, is preceded by a prolonged period characterized by celebrations and traditions. It begins with apokries—similar to Mardi Gras but strung out over several weeks —progresses to Clean Monday, which marks the end of the revelry and heralds the forty days of Lent and another series of religious customs, and leads to Holy Week which culminates in the midnight service on Easter Eve.
The religious aspects of Holy Week are taken less seriously today although the pious in the cities and most people in the provinces still approach them with sobriety. All Greeks, however, lay claim to the traditions. Militant atheists will attend church services, and at least one active communist of our acquaintance is a psalm singer at a small church near his home. (He is very proud of the fact that he knows the entire liturgy by heart.) Holy Week is marked by the strictest fasting of the Lenten period, which includes abstaining even from the normally indispensable olive oil, and a multiple of services rich with poetry and music. Good Friday is a national day of mourning. Flags throughout the country are lowered to half mast, bells toll throughout the day, and churches are draped in black. Women and children arrive at the churches to decorate the heavily-carved Holy Table crowned by a dome-like construction. The icon of Christ in death—called the epitafios from which the procession takes its name—is placed on the sepulchre and that evening is carried though the streets in a sombre procession—accompanied by the highest ranking clergy, goverment officials, and an honour guard of soldiers, their rifles pointing to the ground.
The presence of soldiers and the pronounced militaristic tone of the major procession in Athens, which begins at the Cathedral and winds around Constitution Square, is disconcerting to many visitors. But, as we noted, Easter brings together a myriad of traditions and the military is a part of Greek tradition. The beautiful dirge-like hymn that is sung during the prosession begins with the words “All generations with a hymn to your burial praise thee my Christ”. (Today, the chanting is usually interrupted at intervals by military bands playing Beethoven’s Funeral March.)
Customs on Holy Saturday vary from area to area but in most parts of Greece people begin to gather at churches before midnight. Athenians visiting the provinces often arrive in a jubilant mood to the distress of local parishioners who consider a sober demeanour to be appropriate to the occasion as the churches are darkened and candles are snuffed out in anticipation of the resurrection.
How dramatic these moments are depends largely on the officiating priest’s sense of theatre, the timing of the elders responsible for dimming and raising the lights at the appropriate moment, and the mood of the congregation. At midnight the priest emerges from the dark recesses of the altar carrying three glowing tapers and chanting “Come receive light”, and the light is passed from candle to candle among the parishioners. The priest then leads everyone out of doors where by tradition the resurrection is celebrated. (Despite official decrees every year, this is still accompanied in most areas by the explosions of firecrackers.) Although a beautiful mass now begins, most people return home to break the fast with mageritsa—the traditional Easter soup. The lighted candles are carried with them to light the flame in the altars at home. Sunday is a day of feasting and by Monday most people begin the journey home, and the countryside grows once more quiet as villagers return to their normal routines.
Dog Days
WHEN we read that the Ministry of Agriculture had acquired several hundred “special” rifles and pistols which will knock unconscious or painlessly liquidate stray dogs, we promptly ran over to the home of our young friend the Canine Lover who has for some years now waged a relentless, private campaign to enlighten his fellow countrymen about kindness to animals.
Our concern was two-fold. We wondered first of all if the members of the “special service”, which according to the news reports will be created “to implement the program”, will be able to distinguish between strays, which might well be better off out of misery, and pets, which may have gotten loose from loving masters. Second, will members of this special force respond with equanimity to the sight of any dog, since dogs are universally feared in Greece as a result of careful indoctrination from childhood?
As any dog walker in Athens can confirm, the most civilized of individuals may become rabid in the presence of a dog, and it is not unusual to see the fiercest of men leap into a doorway or cringe with terror at the approach of a Chihuahua or take hysterical flight at the sight of a Doberman on a leash a block away. Weapon-toting, anti-stray-dog militiamen might well become a little jittery and trigger happy, perhaps even directing their fire at dog lovers such as our young friend, if they are not deprogrammed.
We never got a chance to discuss this and other weighty questions because when we arrived at his flat on Kolonaki Square we were told that our young friend had just set off with his two dogs for a stroll. We knew that a major target in his indoctrination campaign was one of the Kolonaki Square wat.chmen, on guard much of the day from early in the morning until after dusk.
We have never been quite clear as to what the watchman’s official duties are, or, indeed, if they are official. According to some, he’s actually a gardener. According to others, he is merely a self-proclaimed guard. From experience we know that most of Greece’s squares — platias— have an official or ex-officio caninephobe in vigilant attendance. The one at Kolonaki Square devotes most of his energies to berating dogs and their owners and driving them off with a flurry of threats. Indeed, the appearance of a dog and master approaching the square is enough to lure him away from his other avocation, philosophical discourses with the square’s regular habitues, the kiosk owners, or the oored cleaning women in attendance at the underground lavatories that grace Athens’ chicest platia.
Our young friend’s protracted dispute with the watchman — which has usually consisted of our friend explaining that dogs are man’s best friends and the watchman retorting that they were a threat to humanity and the grass — had nearly led to blows in the past, and so we were somewhat concerned when after an hour he failed to return.
We hastened down to the square but all was quiet there. In fact, peculiarly quiet. There was the usual movement of people cutting through the square, a group of students gathered across from the British Council, but no sign of our friend, his dogs, the watchman or the regular bench sitters. We hastened back to the flat and waited uneasily until our rnend finally returned looking somewhat shaken, and confirmed our fears.
He had been arrested. It seems that as he approached the square that day the watchman was temporarily absorbed in advising the photographer who periodically sets up his ancient camera on a tripod and for a fee photographs passersby, but not so absorbed that he did not spot the dogs prowling in the gardens. Descending on our friend with a volley of expletives, he ordered him to remove himself and his dogs from the park.
Our friend stoically chose to stand firm and begin his proselytizing, launching into what he described as a “reasoned, scientific” discourse about fertilizers and how dogs provide nutrition to plants. The watchman was unimpressed and replied tnai tney were filthy beasts spreading infection. Our friend pointedly noted that his dogs were inoculated against just about every disease known to canines and, furthermore, he emphasized, they were bathed at regular intervals. The watchman interpreted this last remark as a personal insult and became even more enraged, demanding to know who our friend thought he was, the Prime Minister?
By then the square’s regulars — dog haters to a man — had gathered around to observe. Our friend replied that his name was not Karamanlis, nor was it Papandreou but that he was an ordinary citizen with rights, too. Well, came the response to this bit of arrogance, are we to understand that you do not approve of the Prime Minister or the Opposition Leader? Compulsively addicted to the truth, our friend pondered this for a moment and then confessed that in fact he did not like either of them.
Before he could expound on his rather convoluted political views which would have won him the wrath of supporters of all parties from the Left to the Right, a commotion of indignation broke out and the police were sent for. Our friend and his dogs were led off to the local station, with the watchman and other witnesses bringing up the rear while muttering that it was high time young people were taught to show more respect.
At the police station, the officer in charge informed him that the penalty for insulting the authorities was six months in jail. His protests of innocence were drowned out by the chorus of approval from his accusers who, vigorously nodding their heads, gave full vent to their fecund imaginations, unwittingly saving our young friend’s skin: in the process of embellishing their accounts, they succeeded in giving birth to several contradictory accounts and began arguing with each other as to what precisely he had said.
After an hour of pandemonium during which the witnesses heatedly disputed each other, the officer in charge loudly announced that he would see that justice was done and that the young man would pay for his disrespect. Dismissing the witnesses, he led our friend to another room, and after a safe interval released him, admonishing him not to indulge in political discussions.
We were about to tell our young friend about the new regulations but decided to suppress the impulse. There was the danger that his next foray into the ranks of the anti-dog forces might lead to a major international incident.
