Each day of Holy Week offers us something meaningful for our spiritual life and the cultivation of our soul. However, as the Apostle Paul says, “If Christ has not been raised, then our faith is in vain.”

With only a few hours left until the Resurrection, Proto Thema takes you on a journey through monasteries and churches all across Greece, from where the powerful message of the Resurrection will be heard. From Olympos in Karpathos, where customs date back to the Byzantine era, to Vrontados in Chios with its two “rival” parishes and the famous rocket war, and to the Cave of the Apocalypse in Patmos, where pilgrims receive the Holy Light to the sound of the semantron.

We also travel just outside Leonidio, to the Holy Monastery of Elona, built on the steep cliff of Mount Parnon at the very spot where, in 1300 AD, two hermits saw a divine light and, approaching it, beheld the icon of the Virgin Mary. Speaking to Proto Thema, Archpriest of the Leonidio region, Father Konstantinos Kourmpelis — who has served as a priest at the Holy Monastery of Elona for the past 48 years — stated: “The icon is a work of the Evangelist Luke. I would say it is a living presence of God at this moment within the church.” The icon was stolen from the monastery in 2006 but was returned after 38 days, and this event continues to be commemorated to this day.

Leonidio is also famously known for its unique tradition on Holy Saturday, when hundreds of illuminated balloons rise into the night sky. As the playwright Dimitris Psathas once wrote, “Carnival in Patras and Easter only in Leonidio.”

“God has not burdened us with difficult things. In essence, He asks only two things of us: our repentance and our love and support for our fellow human beings. It is on these two that we will be called to give account, and by which God will judge us. Nothing else,”
— Elder Germanos, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Agathonos.

“If a person truly wants to experience the Resurrection, they must approach the event inwardly and live it from within,”
— Elder Seraphim, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of the Transfiguration of the Savior – Agia, Kamena Vourla.

“Easter is the greatest celebration of Christianity. It is the feast of our departed loved ones, because Christ trampled death and brought life into the tombs,”
— Father Damaskinos, Hieromonk of the Holy Monastery of the Transfiguration of the Savior – Agia, Kamena Vourla.

“When we pass beyond death, as Christ did, and reach our own Holy Saturday, we will be eternally, unceasingly, endlessly in the presence of Christ,”
— Archimandrite Palamas, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Panagia Kallipetra, Imathia.

“The Resurrection is renewal — all the more so for the monk, who lives precisely a life of the Crucified,”
— Archimandrite Porphyrios, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Saint John the Forerunner, Skete of Veria.

“The goal is to follow in Christ’s footsteps, to ascend our own Golgotha — a Golgotha we face daily. The Resurrection didn’t happen just once; it happens every year and for every person. And Golgotha wasn’t raised only then; it exists for each person who must carry their cross. That is what Christ said,”
— Father Eleftherios Demenagas, Archpriest of Kea & Makronisos.

“Our joy is the Resurrection, which foretells our own resurrection as well. That is the message it carries. As Christ said, ‘If you follow Me, the path you take will not be only the Crucifixion, but also the Resurrection,’”
— Archpriest of the Leonidio Region, Father Konstantinos Kourmpelis.