Filenews 21 October 2025 - by Michalis Chatzivasilis
The Ministry of Justice and the Church found them for the lampretzias and so they will be lit in the courtyard of the churches but with the hours desired by the church committees.
This development paves the way for the bill pending in the Legal Committee of the Parliament to proceed so that it reaches the Plenary Session for a vote. The bill regulating the custom of lambratzia went through forty waves after the Union of Municipalities and the Union of Communities had initially expressed their strong disagreement. After the appropriate changes were made, mainly regarding the responsibility of the local authorities, serious objections were raised by the Church of Cyprus.
In the Legal Committee, the secretary of the Holy Synod, Father George, had sent the lampratzias to the fire from outside, characterizing them as religious primitivism and barbarism and that is why the church does not accept the lighting of lamps inside the area of the temples. As he had mentioned, the custom of lambratzia has gone beyond the boundaries of ecclesiastical tradition and is not even presented as a valuable folklore data today. The custom, he added, as it evolves today, refers to times of religious demands of primitivism and desecrates and stifles the mystical character of the top event of the Orthodox Church, which is the Resurrection, with the repulsive explosions of firecrackers and fireworks.
After this position, the bill was "frozen" in the Committee and the Minister of Justice, Marios Hartsiotis, undertook to contact the Primate of the Church himself. The Archbishop made the request that in the event that the authority requesting the permission to light a lamp is the ecclesiastical Committee, then it should also have the authority to determine the time of its lighting. This request was accepted by the Minister of Justice and so the bill returns tomorrow, Wednesday, to the Parliament for discussion and promotion in the Plenary.
It is noted that based on the provision of the bill, a specific duration of time is determined when a lamp can be lit, while now in the event that a church requests permission, its Committee will determine the hours when it will be lit and will be very limited.
According to the bill, the approval of a request for the lighting of a lamp will be made after an inspection of the area by the Fire Service and after all measures for the protection of lives and property are observed. The local authorities that will grant the license will supervise, however, the control will be carried out by the Police whether everything provided for in the license is complied with. The bill was prepared to bring order to the anarchy that prevailed for so many years with a custom, where young people mainly lit fires wherever they wanted and mainly in the schoolyards without any supervision and without taking safety measures, resulting in mishaps.
