Easter Saturday

 On Saturday, after a lazy start to the day, I met my two Slovenian friends and did a super walk. We started at Hora, down to the church and graveyard, then the reservoir. Then we took a road which became a  track, I have never been on it before. I have no idea why. It heads towards Kallitsos, but before you take the track up the side of the mountain, you turn back towards Hora. There were amazing views, as we looked back towards Hora, Livadi and of course the reservoir. The fields were full of colour. The reservoir was croaking with the sound of Serifos frogs, who are very loud! On the return path, we met a few people, French and Greek. When we got back to Hora, I drove us back to Livadi, where we had a well deserved ice cream at Grans. Coincidentally the younger girl, who serves there, is a relative of one of the older guys who comes to the Coffee Shop. Marinos was proudly telling everyone this morning, that  I was at the church Friday night.

The first service we went to was at Koutalous, the church is by the beach and everyone parked on the beach like sun seekers do in the summer. There is a terraced area in front of the church were everyone was gathered with candles. The service was well underway and not long after we arrived the singer came out, with the priest and others. The service continued outside, and at the end the bell tolled, everyone sang together and the priest did a speech like he did last night. My friend translated a bit of it for me. This priest has two more services to do on the island tonight. I knew the singer, from the Coffee Shop. There were others I knew, all greeting each other with a “Christos anesti “ which means Christ has arisen. Everyone lit their candle using one that had been lit from a candle inside the church. 

There were no fireworks after the service. My friends on Sifnos have said some people have been known to set off dynamite, a bit of overkill! I drove around the other way back to Hora, it’s almost equidistant, and you avoid the bottleneck of Livadi. It was peaceful on the road, my window down and the lovely fresh air blowing through it.  

Later on I walked to the church on the Town Hall square and went in. Again people came in, got a candle, lit it and put it in the glass box with sand to secure the candles. People also had the white candle, which is what you have today. A lot of them also had wind cheater, to stop the flame being blown out outside in the wind. There was no ark in the centre of the church this time. A single man, the same guy from last night started reading, not singing. People again came and went, some staying. Not long after the priest appeared, the same guy from Koutalous. He did some of the service and then the lights went out! He then appeared carrying, what looked like a wooden cross, with a candle on it, which was lit. Gradually people lit their white candles from it, people then lighting theirs from those. The lights went on and we went outside, with our candles. The church bells then started tolling and fireworks were set off.

Outside after the fireworks, the priest led a singing group on the steps of the Town Hall. We are all wishing each other Happy Easter, and the two kisses. I saw Marinos and his wife and gave them Easter greetings too. The priest went back in the church, apparently the service was resuming and could go on until two or three in the morning. My friends who I met in Koutalous said they had seen a similar candle lighting experience in America, where the church was bigger and the candle lighting was more organised, so a wave of lit candles gradually appeared. I decided to call it a day, it was about midnight, and went to bed.