Twice risen: An atheist’s Pascha

The large absurdity is I accidental that I bash not judge successful God – yet arsenic I age, I take greater joyousness successful Pascha (Passover, oregon Pecha), Eastern Orthodox Easter. Jesus rises twice successful our location — past weekend helium roseate arsenic a Catholic, and this Sunday astatine 12am helium will emergence again adjacent Sunday astatine 12am.

A location divided, a tradition shared

“It’s not conscionable you guys that person Easter,” my wife said connected Friday, digging astatine our Greek superiority complex. But we cognize that really, we’re the first, and we person not changed for 2000 years. (I mean Saul, oregon Paul, had to write to the Corinthians, Thessalonians and Ephesians—if the Greeks didn’t take up the caller creed, a benignant of Judaism-lite for gentiles, the Romans ne'er would have.)

Anyway, the Spaniards devour connected Good Friday, potaje – chickpea and bacalao (codfish) soup, followed by torrijas – Spanish-style French toast.

On ‘Megali Pempti’ I dye eggs red, and my sister makes koulouria. Photo: Depositphotos

My very dead, communist begetter had nary clip for the religion oregon its clerics; “tools of the state. They ever broadside with power,” he’d say. Yet Pascha had meaning adjacent for him. His name, Anastasios, means resurrection, and Easter Sunday is his sanction day.

“Jesus was a extremist rabbi and a socialist,” he’d say, “he fought against Rome,” and he’d add, “don’t perceive to your grandmother, the Romans killed him, not the Jews.”

My mother, an agnostic, took the precocious 1960s “love is all” view. “Jesus is astir love; helium was similar John Lennon.” So, arsenic a kid, I associated Lennon and Lenin with Jesus.

My son, centre, successful a striped shirt, and our friends will be Anastasi, who is present from past year astatine The Annunciation of Our Lady successful East Melbourne. Photo: Supplied

Inheritance of representation and war

My parents, arsenic kids, lived done the Nazis’ carnival of fearfulness successful Greece, and then arsenic teens, the bloody fratricide of the Greek Civil War.

“Where was God when the Nazis burned churches filled with civilians, oregon when the royalists hung partisans … each these dormant were Jesus,” my begetter would say, large capable for my grandma to perceive and fume. She’d telephone him “Atheos” oregon atheist, 1 without God.

My grandma sought to “save” my sister and maine from my father’s “bad ideas.”

To bounds the tension, arsenic a young big I would punctual him however the Archbishop of Athens Damaskinos saved thousands of Greek Jews by Christianising them. So, pissed were the Germans that the vicious SS-Oberführer Jürgen Stroop threatened the archbishop with the firing squad, to which the cleric reminded him, “It is traditional to bent clerics successful the Greek church.” The Nazi near successful a rage.

On Easter Sunday, smoke from charcoal spits will ascent from backyards crossed Melbourne arsenic Greeks feast connected Pascha. Photo: Supplied

As a kid the 40 days of fasting – nary meat, nary milk, nary butter, some fish, and by Holy Week, nary carnal soma oregon carnal products – killed me. “What … nary Coco Pops!” I’d freak. So, Mum – who people loved maine so overmuch – secretly fed maine beverage and Coco Pops successful the morning. I could person wasted distant arsenic a chubby kid successful aboriginal 1970s Adelaide if not for Mum.

I present try to accelerated for my Greek Holy Week … astatine slightest not to devour meat.

On ‘Megali Pempti’ I dye eggs red, and my sister makes koulouria. On Saturday nighttime conscionable earlier midnight, my son and I, and a fewer others, will be Anastasi. We’ll get conscionable successful time, 11.45pm, equipped with ample candles oregon lambathes wrapped successful foil windbreakers to person the “holy light.” We’ll articulation voices successful a Byzantine chant to sing “Christos Anesti” oregon “Christ has risen.” My son, Anastasios, is my aged man’s resurrection. He’s ne'er met my father, who died astatine the property of 62. Residents kick astir the noise, traffic, and each the “weird wog shit,” arsenic someone erstwhile shouted retired astatine us.

I bash this so my son knows that we are not Western. Our religion is arsenic overmuch astir individuality arsenic it is astir belief. We are Hellenes and Orthodox, tethered to something ancient, intangible, and unique.

After church, we caput to someone’s house, household and friends, to interruption the fast. We will devour avgolemono soup – ovum and citrus soup. Us with chicken; others, much traditional, will devour magiritsa – not keen connected offal.

We will vie astatine breaking each other’s red-dyed eggs. We’ll portion wine, devour halva (the tahini sweet crossed the Middle East), koulouria (traditional Greek Easter shortbread), and tsoureki – a sweet breadstuff with mahlab, similar the Jewish challah.

On Easter Sunday, smoke from charcoal spits will ascent from backyards crossed Melbourne arsenic Greeks feast connected Pascha. Interestingly, the Easter foods ovum and citrus soup, sweet breadstuff and much were brought into Greece by Sephardic Jews fleeing persecution successful Spain successful 1492. They made Thessaloniki the largest Sephardic Jewish assemblage successful the Balkans. Up to 90 percent were slaughtered successful Nazi decease camps erstwhile the Nazis invaded Greece.

The Annunciation of Our Lady, East Melbourne, during the past Anastasi. Photo: Supplied

Ritual without belief, individuality without apology

Thankfully, present the slaughter of the lambs, besides a Passover tradition, is distant successful abattoirs. I was 13 when my uncle, Harry, brought location a lamb for Easter. All the cousins thought it was a large pet, and successful the monolithic backyard of his Adelaide home, Lamby (as we called him) frolicked. One time successful Holy Week, Lamby was nary longer there. He had to “go backmost to the farm,” my uncle said. But we each knew Lamby was turning implicit charcoal connected a spit for Easter.

Why does an atheist bash this? Ethnicity? History? Tradition? Family? Yeah, successful part. But much to tear the cloth of modern beingness for a time. It is an otherworldly acquisition – cantors sing Byzantine melismatic chants that blend with Eastern incense, and the murmurs of parishioners each meld successful a religion that has remained unchanged for 2000 years. Whether successful Melbourne, Athens, a Peloponnesian village, Addis Ababa, oregon Constantinople/Istanbul, our Orthodox religion remains a liminal space, time-out-of-time, and it links us all.