Kalymnos of the Dodecanese
A blasting Greek Easter
We invite you to a fascinating trip to the world of tastes and Easter traditions by crossing Greece from side to side, from Kalyvia of Attica to the island Kalymnos…
In spring, the nature revives and people celebrate brilliantly the Easter of Christianity…
By approaching Kalymnos, the island of sponge divers, they offer us human-shaped loaves named “Lazarus”. On Holy Thursday they make a Judas-doll from old clothes stuffed with cotton and greens, giving it a human form, and hang him from the bell tower, even nowadays. After the first resurrection the believers “play clapping” at noon of the Holy Saturday, as they say for applauding, after the priest chants “Anastito o theos” (meaning God shall rise). The connection of the people in Kalymnos with the God and the church is special. Immediately after that, they set the Judas-doll on fire and they use fireworks…
The customary Easter food, except from the “fylla”, the delicious local dolmades, is the stuffing lamb called the “moouri”. In the islands, they traditionally cook their lambs by stuffing and roasting them in wood fired ovens. Usually they call those lambriates. In Kalymnos, people use a casserole made of clay, known as “moouri”. The lamb is overstuffed and they cook it in the moouri, in the traditional ovens. It’d be ready for the Easter table. The local cheeses and salads would have their own role at the festive table.
A
fter the Resurrection and the Easter night, the island is having a blast from the dynamites and fireworks. In the mountains above Pothia, the inhabitants compete in power , since the next day the sponge divers leave for dangerous fishing… after Easter they had with their relatives. Therefore the next few days were and are very melancholic for the sponge divers’ families of the island… who stay behind and live in their anxieties. Their life is difficult with very few respites and joys.
