„I had experienced many Easters as a child, then as a youth and anadult. But none of them equaled the beauty and emotion of that Easter
night in the village in Crete. I felt bound in some irrevocable way to
the villagers. The church, candles, incense, the beloved face of my
uncle and the stern countenance of the young priest, all fused with my
past. I felt, as well, the mystical presence of the night that loomed
around us, sky, earth, and water linking the present to the mythic
past.
At midnight when the lights were extinguished and the church
was hurled into darkness, I waited, trembling with an excitement and
anticipation I had not felt since childhood. Father Joseph emerged
from the sanctuary holding the first candle, its frail light glinting across
his white beard. From that solitary candle other candles were lighted
and flared into flame until several hundred candles gleamed like stars
on the waves of night.
When it came time to express the salutation, ‘’Christos Anesti!”
“Christ is Risen!”
I felt the words bursting from my soul, “Christos Anesti!”
I cried to Barba Leontis. “Alithos Anesti!”
“Truly, He is Risen!” his hoarse voice cried in
response. When we emerged from the
church at the end of the liturgy, the night glittered with numerous fires
as villagers in surrounding mountain villages burned great bonfires
engulfing effigies of Judas. The night also cracked and echoed with
the thunder of hundreds of guns being fired in celebration.
We ascended the steps toward the upper village, Antonia and
the girls holding their flickering candles. In the house we sat down
to the festive Easter dinner that concluded the forty days of fasting.“
(Harry Mark Petrakis)