Cyprus Pascha 2009 Blog
Before the Cross
Hello there! You thought I'd given up writing about our pilgrimage to Cyprus, hadn't you?
The last week has been a whirlwind of activities—we've visited monasteries, churches and holy sites and seen incredible works of art and relics. I'm still planning on posting more about this trip and the piety and holiness we've experienced in so many people here, but as we're packing up the car, preparing for many, many hours of travel to get back to our home in the states, I thought I'd put up one post about our incredible, last minute pilgrimage to venerate a piece of the True Cross.
When Jake was researching this trip, he read there was a piece of the Cross at a remote monastery that only allowed male visitors. As the weeks wore on, it looked doubtful he would make it and I was admittedly disappointed that Audrey and I would not get to see something so wonderful.
Last night, while I was putting Audrey to bed, he was reading a source book about Byzantine sites in Cyprus and discovered there was a small monastery not twenty minutes from our village that also housed a piece of the cross. After lunch, we climbed in our car for our last pilgrim drive, not sure what to expect. This week we've seen the richness of Kykkos monastery, the Island's most famous, and also visited one of the oldest Christian sites in Cyprus, the catacombs where Paul and Barnabus catechized some of the first converts.
Most of this monastery's land had been sold to the Trevi Golf Club and we had to ask directions at the pro shop. With a look of concern, the woman behind the counter warned me there was only one priest at the monastery and he might be away. We followed her directions, driving off the paved road and parking in front of simple, but open gates. As Audrey woke from her nap, I carried her into the garden where the hieromonk was watering the flowers. Before I could even ask for his blessing, he had pulled a bright pink geranium from the nearest pot and handed it to my shy little girl. He asked our names and directed us to the little Church, then picked right up singing and directing a plastic green hose of water into the garden.
When we entered the Church, it was simple yet beautiful, home to none of the gleaming brass or silver worked icons we'd come to recognize all over Cyprus. Audrey dropped her Euro in the box and there was no clink—this was a site rarely visited. After venerating an old and weathered icon of St. Constantine and St. Helena, we walked up to the iconstasis. There, just to our left of the alter, was a large silver cross with a 2 inch square of wood near the base. It was weathered and smooth, simple just like the Church.
On this trip, we've seen spare and rich, ornate and simple. There have been many things that have taken my breath away or elicited long conversations about the beauty of what we've just seen. Our little family venerated the Holy Cross and slowly walked back to the car. For a long stretch, no one said anything.
There is nothing so simple and so essential to our faith than the Cross. How fitting it was to finally see it in a place of holy simplicity, generosity and piety.
Christ is Risen! Xristos Anesti!
litany of “Mommy go to Pascha and Daddy go to Pascha and Audrey go to Pascha,” but when it came time to slip out of jammies and into an Easter dress I'd been saving for the last two years, she was having none of it. Looking back on this week of exhausting services, I saw how often I'd behaved like this little child, wishing I could just relax instead of doing the sometimes grueling work of the liturgy. But, just like her mother, once Audrey realized the true excitement of the situation (and had her pink candle with a bear (!!) on it) she was ready for whatever the service might hold.
I don't know an elegant way to put this—Pascha in Cyprus is a celebration like nothing I've
ever seen. Jake, Audrey and I made our way to the Church that was quickly filling. When the toddler fell back asleep, despite the loud banging of firecrackers outside, someone gave me a chair and we watched as more and more people crowded into the little church. Jake stepped outside to snap photos of the 40 foot bonfire setting Judas ablaze with teenage boys celebrating in their own fashion. Soon, it was time for the lights to go out and I woke Audrey so she could light her pink candle. Following the tide of people, we washed out of the church into a courtyard packed with nearly 500 people. Simply put, Cypriot Pascha puts American Independence Day to shame. Just above our heads, firecrackers exploded in what Audrey dubbed “sparkle rain” and we shouted Xristos Anesti with everyone from the village.
As the priest and some of the parishioners went back into the Church, the majority headed for dinners of lemon soup and eggs. We stayed in the Church for a few minutes but between the wiggly toddler and the emptiness of the service, we decided to follow local traditions and head home. Wired from the celebration, we stayed awake late into the night, remarking on what we had just seen and listening to the sound of firecrackers still exploding in the distance.
The next morning, we cracked open our red eggs and sang “Christ is Risen” in English. My Greek is absolutely awful but I'm getting better at responding “Alithos Anesti.” We spend our Sunday wandering along the waterfront in Paphos, enjoying ice cream and lamb for dinner.
Holy Saturday
This morning, Church bells called us around 7am to liturgy. I understand why many prefer the midmorning liturgies that seem to be pretty standard throughout North America, but I've always appriciated an earlier service. There is something incredibly refreshing about the first thing of my day being worship. In our house with a child (and even before she was around), Sunday mornings always seem to have a good deal of waiting around, wishing for breakfast and trying to figure out a way to keep her occupied from first light until it is finally time to go to Church. Here, this is not a problem. We heard the bells, woke the baby and Jake was out the door with Audrey and I following shortly after walking up the street over the olive branches that were covering the ground, in honor of the visiting Bishop.
In a country where Orthodox Christianity makes up 78% of the population, there are few adult baptisms or conversions. Our village service didn't include a baptism, but this was one of the first times when I felt like I was truly following along in the service. We moved from the Old Testament readings to the baptism hymn—the tone was finally recognizable. Just as things seemed to be settling in—wham! The Bishop flew out the doors, the alter servers ripped off the cloths covering the icons and everyone in the church began banging the seats on their chairs. It's hard to describe the little booths with individual seats that cram the churches. The folding seat makes it possible to both sit and stand in the same little place, and the arm rests are at an appropriate height for a Cypriot to lean on. Jake 
and I, being small giants here, are simply awkward in these booths, but up to this point I'd managed to avoid letting the chair portion fall and slam in the middle of the service. At this moment however, as leaves and flowers were flying through the air in the Bishop's race around the narthex, everyone was slamming their seats up and down, a cacophony of clapping wood mixed with the ringing of bells and a shower of firework bombs.
I suppose the church measures something like 20'x80' with a small 20 foot balcony on the second level. This morning, there were nearly 150 people jammed into the space and everyone was rejoicing in Christ's victory in Hades. When it came time for the eucharist, the Bishop presented his sermon while the deacon served from the Chalice. 
The rush of people was so different than our orderly little line at home, but these people were hungry for the gifts. As Audrey and I stood in line, women and men pushed us forward—children go first they said. Audrey opened her mouth and earned a “Bravo” from the deacon. The flood of people spilled into the courtyard and we were greeted in English by several parishioners. Apparently, in the winter, the village shrinks a little, but when families reunite for Pascha and the summer, every Sunday is as packed as this service.
With 12 hours until the Paschal celebration, we headed for the beach and some off road adventuring. Audrey did her best to find fishies in the Mediterranean Sea and I did my best to hold on for dear life while Jake bounced us over rutted dirt roads.
Gunpowder and Incense – Great and Holy Friday
The bier's flowers filled the empty room with fragrance that was quickly replaced by incense and the curious addition of gunpowder. In Cyprus, Pascha and the proceeding days are marked by a literal explosion of street fireworks. Young boys delight in setting off all sorts of “bangers” during the services and really, at all hours of the day or night. As the Church filled with hundreds of people, the booms increased in frequency and the chanting never skipped a beat.
Standing in the back of the balcony, unable to understand the language or even see more of the top of the iconstasis, I spent the evening Friday service trying my best to keep Audrey occupied and on the quiet end of the spectrum. The service flew past me, over my head and beyond my heart and I missed most of the moments that make this service so beautiful and powerful.
Yet, this is one of the beauties of the liturgical year. I will experience this service, over and over again for the rest of my life. Later, I will have the chance to focus on the chanted odes and watch
the pageantry. Tonight, my job is to watch my daughter make friends with the other children pattering around the dusty balcony. I show her the drying olive branches and point to the large cross we can see poking out over the bodies crammed against the railing. When she falls asleep, I hold her and gratefully accept a chair. Instead of following the bier through the village, I take her home, rocking her as the church bells peal and the firecrackers proclaim the funeral route.
Jake returns just after she's and I have fallen asleep and smells of incense and rosewater. We are exhausted by the week and wait for Pascha just around the corner.
Holy Thursday
She slept! She slept! I think we've finally conquered jet lag 'round these parts and it is glorious. Thursday's weather, on the other hand, was cold and gray but that didn't stop us. Now that we've got sleeping down, we can do anything. Once the rain cleared, we were invited to watch several different village women bake the traditional Easter breads in large outdoor ovens. Apparently, I took around 400 photos as we tried to document the centuries old tradition of making flaunas and other Paschal pastries.
At one house, Audrey learned her first bit of Greek—flauna and ya-ya, as two women showed her how to roll dough with a stick, then stuff it with cheese and raisins. The breads go into a stone oven, that is first heated with a wood fire. Once the insides of the oven turn white, it is hot enough to bake. Jake kept trying to find out how hot the oven was in Centigrade, but the answer was always the same—when it gets white, we clean the coals out and wash down every surface. They used a rag on a stick, dunking it in water and 
brushing the surface until it was ready for the doughy loaves. To make sure the oven was just right, a woman would throw in a handful of flour. If it turned black, it was too hot. Once the handful of flour roasted to a golden brown, they'd clean the oven again and quickly slide in all the breads on what looked like a pizza board. The oven was then closed up, and they checked on the bread in 20 minutes. If the color was good, they left the oven door off for a little while to let the oven cool, then sealed it up and let it bake for an hour. Besides the flaunas, there were meat pies and eggs wrapped in bread, all waiting to for Sunday.
Back in our little home, Audrey took a nap and I made dinner before heading off to the nearby village of Goudy for the Passion Gospels service. We went to the Church where the Romanian priest Jake met yesterday served. I let Audrey burn off energy during the first bit of the service and watched her run from giant colored egg to egg in the square outside. At least once a day, she wants to see the big Easter eggs that decorate every town and while she doesn't particularly like car rides, if she knows we're going to find eggs, she's game for anything. After playing with the eggs that were taller than she was, she asked to go back into the Church, as long as her little stuffed froggie could come.
One of the things that initially drew me to Orthodoxy was the Church's use of language. I loved the richness of the chants that burrow their way into a person's consciousness and the way that even the texts that make up the service are filled with language that both challenges and calls to a person, forcing focus but also allowing meditation. When I had a child, my ability to focus on the words of any given service was severely diminished. Last night, it didn't matter that the service was in Greek, my attention, like so many of the other mothers' there, was split between participating in the service and encouraging Audrey to do the same, or at least keep her from preventing those around us from hearing the readings.
I may have not heard or understood much of the words, but as soon as Christ was lifted onto the cross, tears filled my eyes. Language may have drawn me to the Church, but the visual power of the icons continue to bring me to my knees. In that little Church, the women around me doted on my little girl, offering her their keys and books, and encouraging me as I am still learning the balance between worship and parenting, and occasionally realizing that the two are often the same.
Venturing Out – Holy Wednesday
Several Disney films later, a cloudy dawn made an appearance with Church bells soon following. My husband, the hero that he is, took Audrey with him to the presanctified Liturgy and left me to get a shower (!) and some needed work done. He returned with a sleeping girl in his arms who woke up ready to hit the ground running.
Spring in Cyprus means a regular exchange between sun and rain, roasting heat and misty cool. Today was one of those cool days, so I fired up our little oven to roast vegetable and do the double duty of heating our flat's marble floors enclosed by two foot thick stone walls. Filled with the bounty of the early spring harvest, we loaded our crew into a small Mitsubishi SUV and made our way down the steepest paved road in Cyprus.
On the advice of our hosts, Jake had plotted a course for Pachyammos and the Church of Saint Raphael, where many miracles of healing have been reported.
Situated perhaps 200 meters from the sea, the Church is newly built to honor saints whose deaths had not been known until they appeared to many of the faithful in visions. Today, it's stone walls act as a buffer against the whipping wind and we walk through the courtyard covered with bits of melted wax into the quiet dimness of the holy place. Every surface is either painted or intricately carved and we follow the story of the three patron saint's martyrdom by the Turks on the ceiling. We are not far from a small enclave of occupied territory and I can't imagine how it must feel to worship in a place dedicated to those who were so recently tortured for their faith.
Instead of driving back down the coast, we play adventurers and drive cross country, winding our way through the Trodos mountains. When I say winding, I'm not simply playing with language, the narrow, one -lane road doubled back and back and back upon itself. At the price of a few queasy stomachs, we were afforded vistas out of Jurassic Park, just with goats and wild sheep instead of dinosaurs. The shear cliffs dropped to hills covered in pinion pines and cedars and yellow, blue and pale pink flowers blanketed every open nook. As we climbed, the soil shifted from the burnt sienna color I never used in the crayon box to a chalky gray and then we were descending again.
We stopped in Polis so Jake could meet Father Joseph from Goudy, a Romanian priest who spoke better English than most people we've met. Apparently, there is a shortage of priests here and so many Romanians are serving in the Churches and making Cyprus their home.
Back in Droushia, I was determined to break the ugly cycle of time zone induced sleeplessness, so Jake went off to the Unction service and I put Audrey to bed at her normal bedtime back home. Check out his podcast to hear his reflections on that service and our day of adventures.
Looking Inside – Holy Tuesday
With the basics of travel now on their way to being sorted out, we spent Tuesday configuring Internet access, sipping coffee alongside a cobblestone street, and visiting the small Church of St. Nicholas in the old part of Polis, the nearest big town. There are some things I really love about travel and hot coffee with no where in particular to be has got to be near the top of my list. Speaking of food, it's neat to be in a place where there is a direct connection to regional and seasonal fare and the corresponding prices in the market. We stocked our little kitchen with all sorts of goodies but it was shocking to pay nearly 3 Euro for a small carton of soy milk and only 63 cents for a big deli container of olives. I know we shouldn't have been surprised that the hummus was a quarter of the price of what I pay at home, but I'm thrilled to have artichokes and olives and all the lovely Mediterranean food actually be less expensive than some packaged alternative.
Leaving Grandma with a sleeping toddler, that evening Jake and I attended the Bridegroom Matins service at St. Andrew's Church in Polis—the painted one he had toured on Monday. While there is something beautiful about worshiping in the little Church in our village of Droushia, this was certainly awe inspiring. Surrounded by icons from floor to ceiling, we listened to not only beautiful chanting, but an entire congregation who sang out the hymns by heart.
So much is assumed about the faithful in Orthodox countries, especially by us converts who have little to no connection with those who have been practicing their faith in this way since birth. No matter what sweeping generalizations or unfortunate stereotypes may have plagued our perception, it was clear that this Church was filled with people who love God deeply. When it came time to sing about the treachery of Judas, despite the language barrier, I could hear the contempt held for the betrayer in the near shouts that echoed through the room. Yet, when it came time to beg that we would not fall into his sin, all around the Church you could see people whispering these words too, meaning every prayer.
We left the service and walked across the street to the supermarket (really super, not just in name) and picked up several extra packets of red dye. I'm looking forward to dyeing eggs on Thursday with Audrey for the first time. She's been entranced by the Pascha decorations popping up all over the place and is a big fan of the giant colored eggs that adorn various buildings. I know this will be one of the wonderfully practical and theologically rich activities that translates so well for small children. That, and the fact she gets to play with generally fragile things AND make a paint-related mess at the same time.
Holy Monday
How naive we were to think that jet lag would be easier on a little person than us! Yesterday (Monday) was spent looking for sleep at all the wrong hours with a few mini adventures thrown in. We made a morning exploration into the village, assuring Audrey that we were looking for the feral kitty she'd spotted the night before. Our base camp seems to be pretty well near the center of the village, and we pushed the stroller (buggy, pushchair, pram—we learned all the possible English terms when dealing with airport staff) up the windy, narrow roads. Clinging to the stone walls that flank the street, we avoided major traffic (2 cars in ½ hour) and managed to snap a few photos. We found a supermarket, defined as such by having more than eight aisles, and picked up the real genesis of our expedition—a pack of olives and some fresh bread. As we passed through the center of town, we waved to several people, a couple of stone workers, an old man, and headed for higher ground. The village is situated at about 800 meters above sea level and even though the day wasn't perfectly clear, we smiled at the sight of the Mediterranean Sea framed by the thousands of yellow flowers every single tourist website about Cypress had mentioned.
Later, Jake and his mom and sister headed to a larger town to exchange money and deal with the rental car business. He had the chance to take a tour of one of Cyprus' beautiful painted churches-the Church of St. Andrew in Polis- and venerate some relics. (See Photo Gallery)
After a dinner made from pasta, fresh tomatoes and the remaining olives from our morning shopping, we responded to the call of Church bells and walked up the street. We entered from the side, walking in on chanting. Audrey is two years old and when she enters a Church, she makes the sign of the cross like a mime trying to wave away bees. After lighting candles and venerating the icons, our little family split up. Jake stayed near the front with the rest of the men and I joined the ya-yas near the back. Before we left, a friend had bade me to expect men and women to stand on opposite sides of the church, but the construction of this narrow building meant that instead of being split right to left, there was more front/back differentiation. I cringed accordingly when Audrey's little voice warranted shushing from the nearby women and then rejoiced when she quickly fell asleep in my arms.
We brought along a Greek/English Holy Week services book, so we would be able to follow along with the service. Last night, when Jake went to the service alone, he said he was often more lost than not with the book, so I embraced the waves of Greek washing through the church, incomprehensible, yet so often familiar as the service followed a pattern that is taking hold in my heart and mind as I spend more time in the Church. My prayers, while sometimes matching with a recognizable “Kyrie Elieson,” thanked God for the small triumphs of the day—a very long nap while Grandma snuggled my daughter, bountiful cups of coffee and the opportunity to share in the traditions that the women around me have been celebrating for anywhere between 20 and 90 years.
Our night ended with Jake in the bedroom and me snuggled on a futon with a toddler who just learned how to climb out of her crib. After our first full night of sleep in 4 of 5 days, all of us are finally rested and ready to explore the surrounding area and respond again when the Church bells call us to continue our preparations for Pascha.
First Day in Cyprus
Just before dawn, the Cypriot air burst into a chorus of chirping. Now that the sun is peaking over the horizon, Jake is standing on the flat Mediterranean roof, snapping photos of sunrise over the sea and Audrey and I are watching Dumbo take his first flight on an old VHS tape. We've been up for several hours, but I'm hoping the jet lag will fade in the next few days.
Last night, while the toddler and I crashed, Jake followed the sound of Church bells up the street and attended the Bridegroom matins service. He's sharing his thoughts via podcast; make sure to check out his first recording of the Greek chanting here Download Audio.
Our plans for the day are simple. We'll go to a slightly larger town to change money and visit a supermarket. Our gracious hosts stocked our little kitchen for arrival, but I'm looking forward to making some Holy Week meals from the local produce we saw growing along the hillside as we drove into our tiny village.
Leavin' on a Jet Plane
I'm currently sitting in a very small, yet sleek and modern, Courtyard Marriott just near the Gatwick Airport in London. It's 3:45 am but we've been up for at least an hour, all thanks to the 8 hour time difference between here and California. I won't lie, that last 10 hour red-eye with a 2 year old was no fun. At all. Somewhere over Boston, I looked at the onboard flight map and thought there was no possible way we would survive 6 more hours--yet God is good and so are some flight attendants who made sure to not bump Audrey when she finally fell asleep.
Today we will fly from London to Paphos, moving 2 more timezones to the east in a 5 hour flight. After a few beautiful hours of sleep, I feel much better about another day of traveling. Audrey's big question lies in the color of our upcoming transportation. Will the plane be blue? Orange? Pink???
I can't wait to get through the necessary discomfort of travel and get settled in Cyprus. I'm sure the next weeks will make a few hours of claustrophobic air travel entirely worth it.
