ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Millions of Orthodox Christians across Eastern and Southern Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere in the world, have celebrated Easter, capping weeklong religious celebrations.
The most important holiday on the Orthodox religious calendar is essentially an outdoor celebration, with equally intense spiritual and pagan parts and religious services followed by feasts, familial and communal.
Customs such as eating spit-roasted lambs, knocking red-colored hard-boiled eggs together as a sort of contest and launching fireworks in celebration as soon as the priest intones “Christ has risen from the dead,” at midnight on Saturday, likely predate Christianity itself. But new customs, or variations of old ones, appear constantly.
In the neighborhood of Neos Kosmos, in Greece’s capital, Athens, younger parishioners have recently taken to throwing Molotov cocktails — the rioters’ weapon of choice — into open spaces. On the Greek island of Chios, two neighborhoods in the village of Vrontados wage a “rocket war” by throwing thousands of flares at each other, to the consternation of the quieter citizens who have seen houses set alight in years past. Municipal authorities are conflicted: The custom is welcome because it brings notoriety that attracts visitors, but they must also address safety concerns.
