The Assumption - another great two days of celebration

ALL over Greece, rooms are hard to find, tickets on ferries and hydrofoils almost impossible to get, buses and trains are on modified schedules, and fasting Greeks are spending two weeks in reverential deprivation to prepare for the Feast of the Dormition (also called Assumption) on August 15th. This date in the Greek Orthodox calendar marks the moment when the devout believe that Mary, the Theotokos, ascended into Heaven, however they have added an extra night on the 14th.

  It is the same of course in our village. Preparations are made days in advance, posters for two nights are spread out to advertise who will be performing in the platia on these two nights.
  A special sound stage is erected, one night at one end of the square and then at the other - either way you cannot escape the sound!!
  For this date they use the smaller of the two churches in the village. It is packed as families come together to mark the day. They usually come in their best outfits and bring with them the4 special loaves of bread, which they hand over, each with the family name pinned to it, for the priest of say his personal blessing. Many others bring wine or even olive oil. We have often wondered what they do with all the gifts, after all there is just so much bread you can eat. The bread are cut up and handed around to the packed audience inside and out of the church.
  Then, later in the evening off they go to sit at the platia, where extra tables and chairs are placed across the area. Cars have to find their way around the village and the music goes on through to the very early (or late) depending on your time-clock hours of the morning. This is all repeated again on the second night.
  In the small square behind the church a book-fair is erected and families sift through the offering to fill another space on their bookshelf.
  It's traditional to return to home villages, so even remote locations are busier than usual as the Greeks of the diaspora return to their homeland to connect with family, visit friends, and immerse themselves in the ancient rituals, culture, and practice of being Greek Orthodox.
  Churches throughout the country celebrate the feast with traditions which vary from place to place. Rural churches are jammed with not only worshippers, but offerings in the form of animals, property, and food; some churches even hold an auction of these offerings during the celebrations, though this custom -and livestock offerings- are less common today.
  Greeks of the Orthodox faith prepare themselves by fourteen days of fasting, from August 1st to the 14th, a fast which is joyfully broken on the 15th. The frenzied travel home that many Greeks undertake is also a kind of pilgrimage, to family, culture, faith, and country. It's a rich and wonderful, if crowded, time to be in Greece.This day, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, is not a day of mourning for her loss, but a celebration of joy for the union of the mother with her beloved son, the blossoming of nature, the flood of emotions, and the return of people to their native land.