"You should come once to Corfu for Easter", I was advised by my friend Janis, an authority on this largest Ionian island. "So rich in tradition, so powerful in religious feeling and the all-present cheerfulness of this most important Christian holiday that you can hardly see anywhere else".
Though the Resurrection in all of Orthodox Greece is marked in a very festive way, some unique customs that have developed on the island owing to centuries of mixing with various influences make it absolutely special. The celebration of Easter on Corfu attracts a huge number of believers every year as well as local people and foreign tourists. All flights and hotels are booked for weeks in advance, and it is through sheer luck that one finds accommodation at the last moment.
The island, after a long and rainy winter, is unusually vivid. Along with the sun and the awakening of nature, life also returns to towns’ walkways and villages’ squares. Young Corfiots who left the island to work or study arrive home from Athens and other larger cities. They come to spend Easter Holiday with their parents, at home. Numerous relatives and friends from other parts of the country often join them, and there is almost no house without the clamour and noise of newly arrived guests.
Easter Festival on Corfu is very rich in events and it begins a whole week earlier, on the Palm Sunday, when a long procession carries the relics of St. Spyridon, commemorating a miracle that the Patron of the Island performed. Legend has it that he saved it from hunger and plague. In houses and taverns a special dish is made on this day that is made of dried fish and potatoes, and is seasoned with garlic and lemon. The name of this specialty, "stakofisi", is of English origin (stockfish) and is part of the island’s tradition from the time when it was under the rule of the British Empire.
From Good Monday preparations for Easter begin. Houses are cleaned and put in order, necessary provisions bought and Easter’s cakes prepared. During the all of Passion Week religious services are performed in about 800 churches and monasteries across the island. On Thursday women take yarns to church and during long hours of liturgy they braid ribbons that will later be tied around the wrists of babies so that God guards and protects them from every evil. In cities this custom died out, but it can be still found in rural areas and is mostly observed by older women. On the same day, in the Catholic Cathedral, the Duomo, in the city of Corfu, the congregation lights 12 candles and blow them out one by one after the reading of each Gospel.
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The last three days of Passion Week are filled with various events. On Good Friday the shroud is exposed for the symbolic burial of Christ. Young girls begin decorating the Shrouds from early morning to make them ready by noon when they are displayed before believers, who kiss them, and then in the solemn procession they walk through the city’s streets. From 2.00 p.m. to 10.00 p.m. processions set out from numerous churches in the city every half hour. Processions circumambulate the narrow streets of the old city core, between endless lines of believers and past Venetian palaces. The Shrouds decorated with flowers are carried by soldiers, sailors, secondary school pupils, scouts and numerous members of the clergy. They are accompanied by philharmonic orchestras and church choirs performing the mournful solemn compositions. It is customary, for example, for the Old Philharmonic Orchestra, wearing red costumes, to perform Albinoni’s Adagio, while the "Mantzaros", in blue uniforms perform Verdi’s Funeral March. All the litanies pass by Liston, the main city’s promenade, with its colonnade illuminated violet only on this day, in a sign of mourning.
 Only the shroud from the Church of St. Spyridon is carried on Holy Saturday. This custom dates from 1574 when the Venetian authorities banned all litanies on Good Friday. The Corfiots, however, merged the procession of the Shroud and the procession of the relics of St. Spyridon to Saturday because it was too deeply rooted in tradition and therefore could not be banned as easily as other customs. The bells ringing at 11:00 am announce the Resurrection, the festivity of throwing jars. From hundreds of windows and balconies decorated with crimson flags, jars full of water are thrown, causing strong explosions when smashing on the pavement. This custom is a great attraction and draws tens of thousands of onlookers, both locals and tourists, who from the early morning gather in one of the city’s squares waiting for this moment. Ceramic jars especially made and decorated for this purpose are called botides and can be up to one metre long. The event lasts only a few minutes and then a real fight starts for their fragments, especially for those painted red as they allegedly bring luck. This custom, according to some, has a religious character and refers to a citation in the Holy Bible that announces the Resurrection of our Lord and the merciless war against evil: according to other interpretations, the jarthrowing custom is connected with the condemnation of Jude’s betrayal or to the crucifixion of Christ. However, there are some interpretations that this is actually an old pagan custom that announced the arrival of spring and, consequently, the new harvest that will be gathered in new jugs.
After this, orchestras come out to streets playing the cheerful march Greeks, Fear Not, and the crowd of onlookers pour in the direction of Pinia, at the square Vrahlioti, where another picturesque custom called mastela takes place. For this purpose, a barrel is placed on the square into which everybody throws coins: when the bells ring, the first who jumps inside has right to collect the bounty.
 The very act of welcoming Easter Holiday is the most marvelous ceremony of Passion Week. Half an hour before midnight, from the Church of St. Paraskevi, sets out the Great Easter Procession heading to the central city’s square Esplanada. Tens of thousands believers fill this huge space to the last place, which is considered the largest square in the Balkans. At midnight sharp, when the huge inscription Hristos Anesti (Christ is raised!) is illuminated at the Old Fortress and the crimson cross turns white, a real spectacle begins. From all churches and monasteries the holy flame Agio fos is taken out and passed from man to man until everyone present has their candles lighted. This sight of thousands of lighted candles across the whole Esplanada, as well as at all the windows and balconies of nearby buildings, leaves an unforgettable impression. When the religious service ends, the magnificent fireworks begins and the Philharmonic orchestras start marching through the streets of Old Town playing cheerful marches. People wish each other a happy holiday and roll red Easter eggs. Thus begins the Easter Holiday festivity that lasts to the early morning.
The custom is to cook magirits, a dish of lamb tripe that traditionally marks the end of Lent.
 It is interesting to mention that apart from the central festival in the city, every village on the island of Corfu, and there are 120 of them, celebrates Easter in a similar way and with customary fireworks. On Easter Sunday, as of seven in the morning, there is a procession of the icon of the Resurrection that, as it is the custom with shrouds, sets out from every church to walk around the city. On this day, the island’s tradition is to serve avgolemon, a strong soup made of various kinds of meat with a very sour egg-lemon sauce, which is considered perfect for the organism after the long period of the exhausting fast. To serve barbecued lamb is a typical dish for the land of Greece, but only the following day when the stomach is already prepared for stronger food. Members of the household roll red eggs and place their shells at the doorposts of the entrance for luck, or scatter them over the fields for a good harvest. The smell of Easter cakes spread through streets of which the most popular are fogatsa, by origin Venetian sweet bread, flavoured with Mastika, and columbines, the rolls in the shape of doves.
The week after Easter is called enia, meaning new, so the days of this week are called New Monday, New Tuesday, etc. This is a very important and holy period when numerous manifestations, litanies and folk feasts accompanied by local songs and dances take place throughout the island. | 
