An Update on Easter in Tremithousa - 26th April 2007

Great Friday or Good Friday (Μεγάλη Παρασκευή)

First you need to know a bit about the construction of a Greek Orthodox church.
They follow a cruciform (cross-shaped) plan and are oriented west to east with a raised altar at the eastern end. The altar is separated and obscured from the main body of the church by a screen called an iconostasis that is decorated with large brightly painted icons. There is a door in the centre of the screen called the Beautiful Gate through which only the priest may pass. During Lent the icons on the screen are hidden behind black material.

The iconostasis with the Beautiful Gate in the centre
This picture shows an iconostasis from the small church outside the monastery at Stavrovouni.

The Easter Friday (here it is called Great Friday) service is long. Very long. 19:30 - 22:00. The priest is dressed in black vestments and can just be seen through the door in the iconostasis. The entire service is in the form of chants with the disembodied voice of the priest singing behind the screen and acolytes chanting their responses.
The congregation is divided with the women on one side and men on the other. Although the women outnumber the men by a large majority. The women and young girls are all dressed in black. Everyone is dressed in their Easter best outfits. I feel like I have stumbled into a Goths convention or a mismatched outing of group of dark haired dark eyed houris and the opening scene from Macbeth.
The service has a familiar feel. It is like a 45 year time warp for Catholicism where you sit through an entire service in a language that you do not understand. At least here you get to stand instead of groveling on your knees. All during the service there is a constant barrage of fireworks set off by the young men and boys who are guarding the bonfire which is about 20 meters from the church door.
In the centre of the church is what appears to be a funeral bier with a white shroud laid on it. The bier is crowned with 12 candles. During the service young girls are invited to come forward to throw flowers over this bier. When the service is over the candles are taken down. The entire congregation comes forward to kiss the shroud on the bier. They then have their hand sprinkled with water in a ritual cleansing before receiving a single bloom from the priest. This being Cyprus of course the men come first and the women after.
The bier is then lifted and carried aloft around part of the village accompanied by singing and chanting all the way. IThe procession stops at regular intervals to allow the ex-pats to gawp from their windows.
When it arrives back at the church there is one lap of honour around the church before the final event. The 12 candles are broken up and thrown to the congregation. It is believed to bring good fortune if you firstly manage to get hold of a piece of candle and secondly manage to keep it at home or in your car for an entire year. As in all things Cypriot it is not what you know but who you know. Otto, who assists at the church, has saved me a piece of candle and I do not have to scramble and fight for it.

Great Saturday or Easter Saturday (Μεγάλο Σάββατο)

This is altogether a jollier occasion. The service starts in Otto's coffee shop with a couple of warmers to fortify us for the coming night. The church service starts at 23:00 and goes on till 00:30.

Everyone brings their own candle except for heathens and ne'er-do-wells such as myself who take a candle from a box by the church door. People have been making and decorating these candles over the previous weeks especially for this occasion. They are beautifully wound around with ribbons and flowers and with little wind protectors near the wick.
Except for the ones in the box which look like a stick. Holding one of these is like wearing National Health Service glasses. (A stigma that I believe is similar to Welfare coupons in the US)
Today the priest is in white vestments and the black covers have been removed from the iconostasis. Once again the service is accompanied by a gathering crescendo of fireworks on the doorstep. Last year there was insufficient space outside and the lads were forced to bring them inside the church. The priest was not amused and set about them. I certainly would not want to get on the wrong side of this priest. He is a small and powerfully built man and he lives with his wife and family at one end of the village. He is a farmer and is frequently to be seen driving around the village in his tractor with a plough or harrow at the back. I mention this merely to compare it with the strange life led by priests of the Catholic church who live an entirely unnatural and isolated existence. Here it seems a priest can live a normal human life.

At midnight the lights in the church are turned out and the priest comes through the Beautiful Gate with a single lighted candle. This symbolizes the Light of the World. This candle is then used to light all the candles held by the congregation symbolizing the Light spreading around the World. Once again it is believed to be lucky if you can take your candle home and draw three little crosses above your front door with the soot from your candle. My candle does even get as far as the church door before it needs relighting. Then there is a candlelight procession around the church with the church icons held high and leading the way. At one point the church icon are held aloft to forma bridge and the congregation walk under. All this is to the thunderous explosions of hundreds of fireworks on each side so that you cannot hear yourself think.

People drift away home with their candles. As we walk back to the coffee shop a lady drives by in her car and around the corner where we are standing. The passenger window is rolled down and in one hand she holds a mobile phone in the other she holds a lighted candle. Its OK you can do that sort of thing here.

The bonfire has been lit by the church and the village lads have started the barbeque. You should know by now that every celebration in Cyprus is incomplete without a barbeque. When we get back to the church after more fortification at the coffee shop we find the food is ready. A couple of police cars are there and the policemen stand around eating and drinking. After about thirty minutes they decide that the drinks and barbeque are up to standard and leave presumably to find the next barbeque.

The priest sits at the middle of a long tressel table surrounded by villagers. A rival barbeque has been set up by another group of lads about 20 metres away. The rival barbeques entertain themselves by throwing fireworks at each other. The priest is not immune to this. His own side frequently drop fireworks under his chair though he seems not to notice and barely blinks an eye. The joke never fails to lose its appeal even after the twentieth firework and he ignores them all.

The food and drink flows freely. I have no idea who provided it all but someone is always ready to fill up my plate or my glass. The bonfire is roaring and every few minutes there is a huge explosion as one of the homemade fireworks explode. These are serious pieces of ordinance which are detonated a little way away. A piece of shrapnel from one of these would do serious injury.

This little beauty (the one on the right!) exploded about 30 feet away from us.

(That's a metal pipe by the way)

At three thirty Andreas, one of the group, takes the priest home in his pickup truck and returns with his shotgun. He then starts the celebratory shots in the air over the church roof. The fireworks, shooting and feasting continues.

At five o'clock I feel I have done my bit having stayed longer than the other ex-pats and decide it call it a night. Surely nothing else can happen and so I leave them to it. Just as I am departing the group remember that they have not played with the church bell all night. I go off to sleep with the frenzied clanging of the church bell in the background.

The next day the fireworks continue. It is unanimously agreed it was a good evening. Two people were arrested after I departed. Andreas for shooting his shotgun and not having a licence and Costas for shouting at the policemen down at the station while trying to get Andreas released. Costas was allowed out that day and Andreas on Easter Monday.

I don't know about you but church was never this entertaining for me when I was growing up. You never know I might still be going if it had.

Ouch - 24th April 2007

OK I did not realize so many people would be so keen to know. However I can't just give you the answer that would be too easy. Instead here are a few lines of a song that is significant to me and will also help to get the answer of what is inside the monastery.

Now if you make a pilgrimage I hope you find your grail
Be loyal to the ones you leave with even if you fail
Be chivalrous to strangers you meet along the road
As you take that holy ride yourselves to know
You take that holy ride yourselves to know WZ

The answer is in the song. Come on you are all internet users it is easy now.

Epistle from Cyprus XII - 22 April 2007

A Pilgrimage

This all started several months ago when we went to Larnaka airport to pick up D. On the way back I noticed what appeared to be a fortress or castle on a high mountain and I made a half-hearted decision to visit the place but not knowing the name of the place it would be difficult and so I put it out of my mind.
This particular day however started as a pilgrimage to Bethlehem in search of a miracle cure. At least a trip to the HP service centre on Bethlehem Street, Nicosia with a laptop with a broken LCD. If anyone asks what you do for a living tell them you collect the 20 cent coins in the public toilets. When was the last time you asked one of those people for help with a problem with your own toilet? Nobody bothers them with work related questions. Can you look at this printer? Can you check my mobile phone?
Having left the patient in the care of the HP laptop hospital (and if you ever read this HP support people I am still waiting for that email you said you would send) I turned back on the 140 kilometre trip home.
Hunger diverted me from the motorway and my stomach directed me along the smaller side roads between Nicosia and Larnaca. It complained bitterly as each small restaurant we found was closed because it was out of season. As I was driving I noticed several tourist signs for a monastery called Stavrovouni but at this point my stomach was still holding the steering wheel.
Generally Mr. Stomach has the timing of a Swiss chronograph and the direction of a GPS but it soon became apparent that there were no restaurants or coffee shops open in this area so we called it quits and tried to head back to the motorway hoping to find the next large town.
Now things started to get strange. No matter which direction I drove I could not find the road back. The tourist map that I had was as meaningful as a Jackson Pollock. The only consistent road sign were the brown tourist signs towards the monastery. Rome, it seems, had been transported to Stavrovouni.


Eventually I was on a road head up a steep mountain and being drawn like a moth to a flame. Mr. Stomach had abandoned all hope of ever being fed again and given himself to his fate of a slow and painful starvation. After 30 minutes I arrived at a car park outside the monastery at the top of the mountain. I bowed to the inevitable and decide to have a look. Just my luck it is just after 1 o’clock in the afternoon and the monastery is closed between 11am and 2pm. Even the monks out here take a siesta.

I decided to wait and have a look around which is not a problem. This car park has the best views in the whole of the south of Cyprus and possibly the entire island. The monastery sits on the very peak of the mountain and dominates the area. I can see from the oil terminal at Limassol in the west, across the salt lakes and the airport at Larnaca and to the very south east tip of the island at Cape Greco. To the north it looks over a central plain to the Pentadaktylos mountains of Nicosia. (Pente - five, daktylos - finger) Thank heavens there are five instead of one of two.

I am so high that I can look down on a light aircraft performing acrobatics in one of the valleys to the north. The plane is swooping down into a valley and trying to chase its own shadow on a mountainside. To the northwest I can see into the heart of the Troodos mountains and the dome of the tracking station on the peak of mount Olympus that looks like a giant golfball. There is snow up there in Troodos.

There I sat in the cool shade of the monastery gates and I could hear the monks chanting inside so it wasn't a siesta. From this vantage it is easy to imagine that you can see across the Mediterranean as far as Egypt and Libya to the south and Lebanon to the east.

Stavrovouni Monastery. There is a footpath but I advise you to take the road.

Eventually the clock crawled around to 2pm and one of the monks opened a small door to the side of the large gates. He was not my vision of a typical monk. He was about as far from the Friar Tuck image as it is to get. He was very tall and elderly with a scratchy grey beard and wore a pair of overalls and an overcoat. An overcoat in this weather! He scrutinized me and asked that I take my camera back to the car as photographs are not allowed inside the monastery. I was then free to around the monastery gardens and up to the central monastery itself. Good job he did not notice the mobile phone. I spent most of the time while looking around, worrying that the phone would ring while I was in one of the quietest and most sacred of their rooms. I did not want to get it out and turn it off lest they caught me and threw me from the precipice for being a god-forsaken heathen.

What was inside the monastery? Well half of the people reading this will never get to find out. Women are not allowed inside the monastery. This is a bit strange because the place was founded by Helena the mother of eastern Emperor Constantine. As for the other half of the readers…well you will just have to come and see it for yourselves. It is worth it just for the view.

Footnote 1
The title of this blog “The Three States…” and the monastery of Stavrovouni are linked. The Emporer Constantine’s mother Helena was forced to land on the island by a storm. Cyprus had been suffering from a 50 year drought and was overrun with snakes. As well as founding the monastery as a gesture of thanks to the island she sent a boatload of cats which were freed to exterminate the snakes. I am not sure exactly how many cats make up a ‘boatload’ but I can vouch that the cats are still here and they are still working.

Footnote 2
I did eventually hear back from HP Support Team. Well after I rang them back again they contacted me. They had sent me an email to the wrong address. Sound familiar. Anyway the patient is back with its owner and I am about £400 poorer for the experience. By the way K. what about my garden hoe? I never got that back.

Footnote 3
The very second I was outside the monastery gate that damn phone rang. Is that divine intervention or what?

Some updates - 10th April 2007

A slice of good luck

One of my Romanian friends is Nicu. The other Romanians tease him because he comes from an rural area of Romania that is between Transylvania and Moldavia. The Moldavians have a reputation in Romania for their simple and bucolic life. He has the distinction of being the only person I know who fell asleep while riding his motorcycle. This happened late one night and the other Romanians say it is because he forgot he was on a motorcycle and thought he was back home on his horse. He takes all the teasing with good grace.
A few nights ago Nicu had a visit from another Romanian husband and wife. There had been some slight between them and in the ensuing fracas the woman stabbed Nicu in the arm with a broken glass and severely wounded him. The apartment was soaked in blood across the floors and up the walls. Nicu had to be taken to hospital for sutures and had lost a couple of pints of blood. When asked about it later he said he had been lucky. He was quizzed by what he meant. He said that the guy had brought a chainsaw with him and it was lucky that he could not start it.

More spirit activity

Hilary and I were in a restaurant in the next village with two friends and, as the fates would have it, the lady 'psychic, palmist and angel reader' was also there . See(http://thethreestatesofcypriotcats.blogspot.com/2007/03/from-home-of-xenon-of-kition-27th-march.html)
A further coincidence was that our two friends happened to know the psychic lady very well. Perhaps not such a coincidence was that the lady was once again in free touch with the spirits. When she noticed our two friends she came over to our table to declare her undying affection for them both. At that very moment there was a knocking sound on the underside of our table.
Unfortunately the lady was on another plane and missed the message but I received a kick under the table.

Birdwatching in Cyprus

At this time of year there are many more birds around. During the hotter summer months they are not to be seen and I suspect they either migrate of move to cooler locations higher in the mountains of the island. Encouraged by a friend I have started a very amateurish interest in birdwatching. It is a hobby that I find immensely frustrating. My modus operandi is as follows

1. Adopt relaxed position in chair on the veranda
2. Wait for a bird to appear on a bush or neighbouring rooftop
3. Use binoculars and attempt to memorize the subject (size, colouring)
4. Rush to the computer and lookup subject on the internet.
   

Even with the entire global resources of the internet at my disposal I have failed to identify anything that was not a sparrow of a pigeon. I have decided that the answer is to adopt the Japanese scientific approach to tghis kind of research. Find it, shoot it, eat it then make a decision about what it was.

"Bang...."
"Mmmmm... that duck was delicious"
"That wasn't a duck it did not have any feathers. It was enormous and grey. It had a tail and lived in the sea. I think it was a whale"
"Are you sure? Ducks have tails and live in water"
"Yeah you are right....and it was delicious"
"Tell you what lets shoot another one and eat it just to check"
"Bang...."
"Mmmmm... that duck was delicious"

Epistle from Cyprus XI - 5th April 2007

The Easter Build-up

It was early this morning and I was in the shower and I could hear a groups of kids coming down the road as they were making so much noise. Suddenly there was a beating at the door and ringing of the door bell sufficient to raise the dead. My immediate thought was that it was one of the traditions were children visit all the houses in the neighbourhood and extort goodies and money with an implied threat of violence or vandalism. This is much in the mould of the child's Christmas wish list that closely resembles a list of hijackers demands (suitcase with $2 million in unmarked notes, plane ready fuelled with pilot...oh and a Playstation and a new bike).

When we lived in Sweden they had a similar Easter tradition were children would dress as the Påsk Kärring (Poask Sherring) or Easter Witch and take a basket from door to door to gather sweets, eggs and other goodies.

Mr Grumpy eventually stepped from the shower and quickly dressed so as to avoid embarrassment and possible arrest. Of course by the time I got to the door the children were already several streets distant so I prepared for the worst and opened the front door to inspect the damage.
There on the doorstep was a small bundle with a decorated cellophane wrapper. Inside bundle was a small loaf of Tsoureki (Easter Bread) and 2 Kokkina Paschalina Avga (red painted Easter eggs).

Then there was the slow realisation that here the children are actually delivering gifts instead than demanding money with menaces.

My Easter Easter Bread and Red Eggs

I mentioned in a previous note that Easter rather Christmas is the big Greek Orthodox celebration. The preparations have been going on since the beginning of Lent on what is called Cleansing Monday. Each Sunday a large load of wood is delivered to outside the church in preparation for a large bonfire and fireworks celebration on Easter Saturday night. The wood is usually in the form of a tree trunk complete with roots. These are frequently dragged along the roads or on the back of pickup trucks and made into large piles.

On the way to Agiou Georgiou Church

Each church will have their own bonfire and it is a matter of some pride as to which village church has the largest bonfire. This leads to a deal of intrigue. Raids on other village bonfires are quite common. This is either to supplement your own bonfire or for commercial reasons. Firewood of any description is valuable here in Cyprus where they do not yet have their own supplies of coal, oil or natural gas.

The stash of one of the local rivals

These raids serve as a good excuse for the village boys to form vigilante groups to guard their own bonfire. They camp out in the evening next to the bonfire with the barbecue and associated party and loud music that goes with it. With such revelry it is not surprising that nights are punctuated with the sound of explosions as the boys let off steam and fireworks. Hilary has not been impressed with the consequent lack of sleep.

Well the Easter build-up has been so good I for one am looking forward to the main event.

Glad Påsk

Καλό Πάσχα

Paşte Fericit

Happy Easter