Easter’s date is fixed in the same way as in other Christian countries, being the first Sunday on or after the first full moon after the spring equinox. Due to the fact that there is a large Christian but non-orthodox expatriate community in Cyprus both Catholic and Orthodox Easters are celebrated, but on different dates. This is because the Orthodox Church follows the older Julian calendar while Catholic Easter is celebrated according to the Gregorian calendar.
Easter in Cyprus encompasses more than one day, in fact the full cycle of liturgy and attendant customs run to about seven weeks. This period begins fifty days before Easter Sunday on a day traditionally called Smoky Thursday. The name came from the smoke and aromas of lamb and pastries being cooked on charcoal fires all over the island. The appetising smells waft in Carnival week, a last fling of eating, drinking and music playing before the austere Lenten fast begins.
Though Carnival festivities and parties are held island-wide, Limassol town jealously guards Carnival week as its own heritage. It would be unthinkable for any other town in Cyprus to upstage the citizens of Limassol for Carnival splendour. On the first Sunday of the Carnival, hundreds of children stage an imaginative fancy dress parade to celebrate the triumphant entry of the giant figure of King Carnival into the city.
The last Sunday of Carnival attracts tens of thousands of visitors to Limassol for a gigantic parade which seems to get more spectacular every year. Enormous parade floats brilliantly coloured, playing music, with large groups of parade participants dancing and singing.
The parade is then followed with mass party-going of people dressed in outrageous and funny costumes singing and dancing until the early hours.
Monday, this is clean Monday, then marks the end of Carnival days. Lent looms closer. On this day, the long¬suffering body is “cleansed” for the fast. Families take to the fields and hillsides, with basketsful of raw vegetables; lettuce, onions, cabbage, celery, artichokes, cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, but no meat. An abundance of wine and brandy is essential to the “cleaning process” and the vegetarian picnics turn into quite a party. Carnival week ends as it began - with a hangover.
Then for the seven weeks before Easter, all is quiet and subdued. Every Friday afternoon a special service is held in the churches in honour of the Virgin Mary and the chanting of the priests echoing from speakers maintains the spirit of the season. This custom dates from the reputedly miraculous deliverance of Byzantium from a barbarian assault in the seventh century when the attackers’ ships mysteriously sank in the Hellespont.
