Greek Easter: A lot of people don’t know much about the traditional Greek celebration of Easter on Crete. We will tell you a little bit more about this celebration: nowhere else in the world does anyone celebrate the week leading to Easter such as the Greeks. The Cretan nature during this period is always very beautiful. Every day, starting on the Monday before Easter, is called “good”, as in “good Monday”, “good Tuesday”, etc. On all these “good” days you can watch the preparations for the Greek Easter celebrations. Almost every village is preparing their Easter fire, which is finally lit on “Good Saturday”. The younger population of the villages collect wood during the week. There is a bit of a rivalry between the villages as to who will have the biggest Easter fire. While collecting the wood, you will often see a lot of fireworks set off.

It is quite interesting to sit in a local Kafenion in a market square during the preparations. Elderly Greek women walk by with their Easter bread, which is baked in the oven of the local bakery. Eggs will be painted red for the celebration of Easter, in new and old fashioned ways. Eventually the whole egg will turn red inside and out! On “Good Friday” everybody will go the local church in the evening. Once inside the priest will walk upfront with the symbolic grave of Christ behind him.

The younger boys who carry this beautifully decorated grave generally those who will attend military service the next year. This is an unofficial rule in most villages. The boys will pass by every chapel and church of the village.

Elderly women bend under the grave, hoping for a miracle. After visiting the church, the crowds will return home to eat traditional Easter soup and salad. On “Good Saturday” the celebration of Easter begins. After 40 days of not eating meat or dairy, everybody is allowed to eat it again.

On Saturday night the local priest announces at 12 midnight that Christ has returned again. Please keep in mind that the priest is hardly understandable. If he walks outside of the church, the fireworks will burst into the sky, drowning out any voices! The sky will turn red from all the fireworks, issuing loud bangs every time one is set off. In the early years the Cretans used their pistols instead of fireworks.

Everybody will walk past the priest with a candle, to be lit with the “holy fire” of Jerusalem. Then everyone will go home with their burning candle. It is quite an experience to see people drive home with their burning candle in the car, so careful to make sure their candle stays lit. However, it is tradition to walk home with the burning candle in your hands. After returning home, you will burn a black cross with this candle above the front door for a good year. Have a look above various front doors if you are on holiday on Crete, you will see many black crosses above the front doors. It is tradition for the red painted eggs to be hit against each other. There are always dinner parties that last late into the night.

Easter Day on Crete, Greece: the tradition of Easter Day is still going strong: early in the morning the lamb will be put on the spit for grilling and a fire of olive and grape wood will be lit. It is quite a job the get the lamb correctly on the spit, and the lamb has to grill for at least 6 hours. The lamb will be put on the grill around eight o’clock in the morning. The first glass of wine will be drank this early in the day! Around two o’clock in the afternoon everybody will enjoy their Easter meal, you can hear Cretan music everywhere. On Monday this Easter celebration carries on until late at night.

If you are interested in a great Easter holiday on Crete, please This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ! We offer you a splendid and exciting Easter holiday in combination with accommodation in Crete.