Pafos Press 1 May 2024
Religious fervour as well as customs mark the Easter season and many communities in Paphos do their best to preserve the tradition and make the young partakers of morals and customs, which are not only about feasts and red eggs.
The Easter period in the entire district of Paphos, as well as in Cyprus in general, is the time when we can say with certainty that the customs of our island come closer to our everyday life and convey to us in the strongest way their value or the religious or folklore, said Anna Tselepou, who specializes in the study of tradition.
In all the villages of the district of Paphos, 101 in number, an effort is made to keep the tradition, such as in Geroskipou, Letymbou, Kelokedara, Phyti, Akourdaleia, Kr. Marottou, Kannaviou, Pentalia, Nata, Amargeti, Kathika, Lhasa, Drynia, Drymou, Simou and elsewhere.
"For the people of our country, Holy Week marks on the one hand the countdown to Easter and on the other the fasting," says Mrs. Tselepou to KYPE, adding that Holy Week will lead us to the triumph of the Resurrection but also at the end of winter and the beginning of Spring.
She added that every day of Holy Week had and still has its ritual, since every village and place in Cyprus had its own customs that had to be followed. Of course, these are stories of a bygone era and bakeries, patisseries and supermarkets are an alternative that more and more people are choosing.
Once upon a time, however, when agricultural work was dominant, on Holy Monday the housewives throughout the Paphos District began the festive preparations in their homes for the day of Lambri. Strong cleaning everywhere. In the villages, the yards of the houses will be whitewashed and cleaned. On this day, fasting also begins for those who do not observe the forty-day fast.
Holy Tuesday necessarily Easter cookies and the grating of cheeses for the preparation of the feast. The necessary supplies for the yeasts and Easter dishes.
Holy Wednesday, she continued, is dedicated to the churches where Cypriots reverently attend the church hymns.
Mrs. Tselepou noted that Maundy Thursday finds the housewives of Cyprus in the kitchen again. Dyeing the eggs is the start. This day is also called "Kotsinopeti", otherwise "Kotsini Pefti". Housewives used to dye eggs with "rice" a type of vegetable root with a bright deep red color. Also with onion leaves or yellow daisies (simmilouthkia). Necessarily, at the end of the vespers of Maundy Thursday, they carried home the holy water that the women themselves had in other times carried on their shoulders to be sanctified under the lectern where the priest recited the 12 Gospels.
With this consecration, in the early morning hours of Good Friday they would "innovate" their homemade sourdough and begin the celebratory Good Friday doughs, Ms. Tselepou narrates, such as afkotis (doughs with a red egg in the middle), galena (milk, butter, sugar), cross buns (yeasted pastries in the shape of a cross, the first of which had to be hung either on a wall, a beam of the house or an iconostasis), breads with the cross in the middle, flaunas with the famous Lambri cheese and fresh mint. Also, she continued, paskies or ambaskies with meat and plenty of onion as well as anthropouchties, pretzels which tradition associates with the souls of the dead.
Good Friday is a day of mourning and strict fasting is required. Lentils with vinegar in many houses, added Mrs. Tselepou, saying that at noon the epitaph decoration will follow and the young girls will cut their best flowers and take them to the church. Lilies and roses for Christ.
But also on Holy Saturday, the top Cypriot dough. The famous Cypriot flaunas with the most basic ingredient for their fragrant, fluffy and tasty cheese, the "foukos" as they usually call the filling of the flauna, fresh mint, raisins and in many regions kanabouri, the blanched sesame. Flauna, the Cypriot Easter custom is consumed after the Resurrection. And it is accompanied by the scrambling of eggs.
Necessarily visit the cemeteries on this day for flowers for the dead. In the evening the procession of the Epitaph. The burial of the Lord.
This is followed by Great Saturday and the first Resurrection in all the churches of Cyprus. The knocking of stools, the shaking of chandeliers, the throwing of flowers. The first Christ is Risen.
The housewives are now ready with the Easter dishes and are waiting, as he said, for midnight when they will be led with their children and holding candles to the churches for the Great Resurrection of the God-Man.
They will exchange wishes from the heart with the people around them and carry the Holy Light into their home by forming a cross with this candle at the front door of their home.
Of all these, Paphos was made more famous throughout Cyprus by the paskies.
Evangelia Drymiotou from Geroskipou explains to KYPE that paskies are made with goat meat together with onions, salt and pepper. Then, continue, the dough without however adding egg to the sheet as is done with the preparation of flauna. The dough in paskies is made with yeast, milk, cinnamon and then each housewife gives the shape she wants, round or triangular. She still remembers that several years ago her mother-in-law used rabbit for the preparation of paschias, however nowadays goat meat is mainly used. She also said that in some other villages of the Paphos district they may prepare a mixture of cheese together with the meat to make the paskias, however in some others they do not like to eat the meat and the cheese together and continue to prepare the flaunas with the cheese separately and paskies with meat. She also added that Paschia got its name from Easter. In the old days, they didn't even have refrigerators. Today there are housewives in Geroskipou who bake paskias in a wood-fired oven, but most people bake them in the kitchen oven.
Also, Sofia Kyriakou, from Letymbou, mentioned that she started preparing traditional dishes, noting that tradition "cannot be left behind". As Ms. Kyriakou mentioned, paskies with meat will not be missing from the table this year.
Their preparation, she noted, begins with browning the meat with oil, onion, cinnamon, spices and bay leaf as well as various spices. All this, she added, "is placed on two large sheets of dough. Also, the basic leavens, said Ms. Sofia, include breads with plums, pretzels, nuts, but also egg-based ones for babies and galena, the breads, as she explained, that are all leavened with milk and anari.
Besides, Anastasia Charalambous from Kelokedara mentioned that in her village the tradition is honoured both with flaunas, Easter cookies and galenas, as well as with Easter toys.
