Greek Easter is a multi-day phenomenon, bigger than in the U.S.
(In fact, what we call Holy Week is called Big Week here, which consists
of Big [Greek: μεγάλη, i.e. megaly]—not Ash—Wednesday, Big—not Holy or
Maundy—Thursday, Big—not Good—Friday, Big Saturday, and finally, Easter
Sunday.)
Though half the population of Greece now lives in Athens, about
80 percent of Athenians leave to celebrate Easter in their (or a friend’s)
ancestral village. If you can leave
Athens for Easter, you do. The saying is
“Christmas in Athens, Easter in the village.”
We are visiting with a friend’s family in the Peloponnese
area. Their farm is a few kilometers
from an urban center. Because we drove
here on Thursday, we didn’t witness Big Wednesday events. Our Orthodox friends explained that instead
of ashes, they are anointed with oil on the forehead, chin, cheeks, as well as palms
and backs of both hands. We were
astonished to think of how long this must take for a church full of people, but we are told that fewer and
fewer people actually do this any more—usually just the older generation who
may take their grandkids with them.
While still in Athens on Wednesday, we also passed on the street some folks who appeared to be Ethiopian;
they had small crosses on their foreheads that looked as though they had been
sketched with a charcoal pencil. (When
we asked about this, our Greek friends explained that the Ethiopian church,
which with they were not familiar, might have its own traditions.) Nor did we attend Thursday evening events, though
our friend’s mother attended the village church.
Friday, however, involves “obligatory” visits to family
graves—we came along for what turned out to be a two-hours (plus) roundtrip. While driving, we asked more questions about Greek
funerary practices. Our assumptions
about cremation (see earlier post) were wrong. Greeks
do not generally cremate and a lawyer acquaintance was not sure if it was yet
legal here. Those few who wish to do so do
have to send the bodies to Romania or some other nearby country; the ashes are
then shipped back.
When we asked about our earlier trip to the Athens cemetery
and the burial sites which didn’t seem large enough for all the names listed on
the marble coverings, we heard a couple of possible explanations. In some cases, the names were part of the
family record—but those who died in wars, for example, might be buried
elsewhere. (We forgot to ask about the criteria
for inclusion on the “family” marble—was it a particular degree of
consanguinity? Did it include both maternal and paternal forebears?)
Greeks also have a very practical approach to grave-sharing. A burial plot is provided free (“by the government”)—for
7 years. By the end of that time, the
body has decomposed and the coffin has disintegrated. (Our friend did not
understand the meaning of the word “embalming,” nor, when we explained, its purpose. Caskets are made of simple wood
which also disintegrates quickly. The idea
of thousands of dollars spent on a heavy-duty casket “built to last” was
completely incomprehensible to our friends.
Cf. Jessica Mitford’s The American Way of Death for a serious
treatment of the subject, and Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One, which was later made into a movie, for a
hysterically funny send-up of the US funeral industry and its fictionalized but
entirely recognizable icon, Forest Lawn.)
If someone else in
the family dies after 3 years (the time required for sufficient decomposition)
but before the entire 7 years are up, the
old bones are dug up and put into a smaller container which can be reburied
with the new “occupant.” Then 7 year
clock starts over. Clearly, timing is
everything, and thereby hangs the tale of the grave we visited.
Ordinarily, one doesn’t worry about the burial arrangements until
the need arises. This fellow had pre-purchased
his own marble plaque or slab (a covering lain over the grave, not what we might
think of a headstone) and pre-etched it with his and his wife’s birthdates—the
rest to be filled in when the dates were known.
(Our friends, who were his relatives, described this unusual behavior as
“creepy”).
However, his wife, who was younger than he, unexpectedly
died before him. She had been ill in the
last few years of her life and had been given lots of medicines (from the
story, we surmised they must have been antibiotics). As a result, when he died, even though the
minimum three years had passed, her body was insufficiently decomposed to be ready for sharing the space, and he had
to be buried elsewhere (so much for advance planning). Eventually, enough time passed that she could be "re-packaged" and was
ready for her husband to join her, which he finally did.
The “honoring” of the grave involved our friend bringing another photo of
the occupants to replace the one that a year’s weathering had faded
substantially (despite the heavy plastic covering), new plastic flowers, and a fresh flowers picked in her own garden.
The long-burning memorial candle was also replaced as well as the
paraffin in the quicker-burning lamp, both of which were inside the tiny doll-house
sized “chapel” at the head of the graveside (where we would expect a headstone
to be). Our friend struggled to get
everything safely lit inside the tiny space. (It’s considered bad form to burn down the graveyard as part of the
annual obligation.)
 |
| An unexpected detail we noticed (it was quite common, though
not universal): At the foot-end of the marble slab was etched a commercial—how to
contact the company that had made the slab. |
Below is a video taken the following day. Dimitra has finished honoring her father's grave (a ten minute walk from her mother's house in the village). After she finished lighting the lamp and so forth, she showed us where the "boxes" of old bones go, once they no longer are in the ground. Plus we got the inverse of that old commercial: "Parents! Do you know where your children are?"
