Tsiknopempti / Τσικνοπέμπτη / "Fat Thursday"
Today is Fat Thursday, a celebration in preparation for lent, as is really most of Apokries. Tsiknopempti comes from the words "tsikna" which means "the smoke that comes from burning meat fat" and "Pempti" which is Thursday.
The entire city often smells like smoke and in typical Carnaval fashion, food is in excess.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
GEETING READY FOR LENT
The whole Apokries period is set up in a way to start giving up items and getting ready for lent, gradually.
Sunday marks the beginning of the cheese week, aka Tirinis, when we give up meat until Easter Sunday. Since meat consumption isn't allowed on Wednesdays and Fridays according to the Greek Orthodox Church, Thursday is the best day to go all out. Thus, Tsiknopempti!! Happy roasting! ⠀
PsychoSaturday (Ψυχοσάββατο) which really means, soul Saturday.
Soul Saturday is once again a pagan remnant (see my previous posts on the second day and third days of Anthestiria) and it now is practiced as the day of the dead.
Today is the day we offer kolyva to the dead, to appease them and to honor them. We also take this day to rest, we don’t bathe or clean, in order to not disturb the dead. This is their day.
In Orthodox Christianity, today is the day when the church holds memorial services for the ones who perished at sea, in a foreign land, at war or other disasters, essentially the ones who were denied their final rites due to a higher power.
There are specific hymns sung at church to honor the lost souls and, in this way, offer them their burial rites.
THE CLOSENESS OF FIRE
The idea behind all this is that, if you don’t get the proper blessing upon death, your soul will be roaming the other realms aimlessly because your path wasn’t shown to you. Putting it very crudely!
In a region of Northern Greece, Kozani, there is a separate celebration of Carnaval/Apokries known as Kozanitiki Apokria. It just so happens to be celebrated around the same time as the rest of the country does, and it really works out great for travelers. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I chose to talk about this because I love the community focus this celebration has.
It lasts for 12 days, starting on Fat Thursday and ends on the equivalent of Mardi-Gras or Clean Monday, like it does for the rest of Greece. For the duration of the holiday, each neighborhood takes turns lighting its own bonfire each night, named Fanos/Torch. Everyone gathers in the part of town whose turn it is to stoke the pyre and the wild partying ensues. People dance around the fire in an effort to banish demons and inviting the powers of good to bring prosperity, fertility, and abundance to the land. They share stories of the land, the ancestors, myth, satire and comedy. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
On the last night before Clean Monday, all neighborhoods light their Fanoi at once, so the whole town seems to be on fire and the partying goes well into the wee hours of the morning. This practice is ancient (duh) and was able to remain active during all the years of Ottoman rule and beyond.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The fire is one of our most sacred elements, given to humans alone, by a demi-god who is still being punished for offering us that power. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The fire is where the stories are shared, where we go for warmth, for connection, for community, for belonging, for safety. It banishes loneliness and fear and it offers protection and warmth. We bring the fire into our homes in the shape of the hearth or the fireplace.
In the past 60+ years, we brought the fire in the form of TVs. Let's think about how we can reconnect to the fire rites and in extent to each other.
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