[This
is the basic Easter hymn. Background: Easter is the biggest religious holiday
in Greece, much bigger than X-mas; also it is later than the Catholic Easter,
so the weather is good enough for the celebration to be outdoors. The liturgy
is at midnight, and everybody has a big candle. At some point the lights go
off, and the priest lights his candle from the lamp-that-never-goes-off and
then the priest lights the candles of the nearby persons and they give the
light to others and soon everybody has a lit candle and tries to avoid turning
into an auto-da-fe from the candles of the neighbors, and at exactly midnight
the priest starts singing the “Christos Anesti” hymn, the bells start ringing
like mad, fireworks go off, and everybody starts kissing everybody around him,
and then when people go home the head of the family uses the candle to make a
cross with smoke at the lintel of the front door (to keep evil from entering)
and lights the lamp in front of the icons with the same candle, and the lamp is
supposed to stay on till next year - I mean of course an oil lamp. And for the
next 40 days, the greeting is not Good morning or whatever, but “Christos
Anesti”, to which one issupposed to answer “Alithos Anesti” (Truly he has
risen)]
[WORDS:]
- “Christ is risen from the dead, having beaten Death by [his own] death and
having given the gift of life to those in the graves.”
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