Christmas 2014 - Thessaloniki

One of the first events of my 2014 Christmas season was on Sunday, December 7 when I took part in a concert at the cathedral of St. Nicholas in Volos (two and a half hours from Thessaloniki – we made a day trip), along with the Philathonites choir under the direction of Demetri Manousis from the Church of Panagia Laodegetria in Thessaloniki (http://laodhghtria.blogspot.gr/). You can see an article (in Greek) and a video of the concert on the website of the Metropolis of Demetriados, which is where Volos is located: http://imd.gr/site/news/3/2234. The video is also on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=v4e86145U9M. That was a really good time, and I had fun on the bus both there and back, as well as during the hour or two that we had free to walk around Volos before the concert. I think we performed well.

A week later I went to a concert at the above-mentioned Panagia Laodegetria Church (in the parish auditorium down the street), where some of the same people were singing traditional Greek Christmas carols. There were four choirs, one of which was the παραδοσιακή χορωδία (traditional choir) of the parish, one from an ecclesiastical academy in Pylaia (a neighborhood of Thessaloniki), and two choirs from other cities. That concert was where I met the priest I mention below who invited me for Christmas dinner.

 

(A random picture from some time in December. I passed a parked car where there was a stuffed bear in the passenger seat, with a seatbelt on)

I expressed to some people this year that Christmas Day was much fuller than it normally is. I’m used to going to church, going home and eating something that has either dairy or meat in it (preferably both), and then going to my uncle’s house for dinner at 4 or 5pm, staying there until 9 or 10 and then going home and going to bed. That’s a full enough day, but compared to Christmas 2014 it’s nothing. Let me explain.

Apparently it’s the tradition in Greece to start church on Christmas morning at 5:00 am. Why? I don’t know. But normally on any other day of the year they start at 7:00 or 7:30. All the churches that I’ve seen, though, start at 5:00 on Christmas. Getting up at 4:00 am isn’t easy. So I went instead to a vigil with some of my friends at St. Haralambos, the dependency of Simonopetra where I go multiple times per week, including Sundays. It's basically my parish, and I love the vigils there. (We had done our Christmas Eve service (Orthros, Royal Hours, Vesperal Liturgy) at 5:30 am and finished around 9:30 am.)

The Old Testament Readings during the Vesperal Liturgy at St. Haralambos on Christmas Eve

(In the afternoon I went out with a friend and some other of her friends whom I met that day for the first time, and we all sang kalanda (Greek Christmas carols) on the porch in front of an apartment building for several hours – that’s the tradition on Christmas Eve in Greece, that young people sing kalanda – and I had called my friend and asked if I could join them. There were some instruments there too. It was fun!)

Closing those parentheses and continuing on with the main story: that night at St. Haralambos we did Small Compline with the Lity and Artoklasia at the end (after the prayer to the Guardian Angel) (interesting Typikon bit)...

The Lity (Entreaty) during the Christmas vigil at St. Haralambos Church

Then we began the Orthros and the Divine Liturgy of Christmas finishing around 1:30 am. It was amazing! I have it recorded up until the end of the Cherubic Hymn when my recorder suddenly stopped recording, unfortunately. There was an unbelievably long Communion line – I would say at least 20 minutes, probably more like 30, with one chalice. And the church is so small and there were so many people that it felt even longer.

During the middle of the vigil sometime, view from the left choir.

Picture taken right after Communion.

Also right after Communion. Looking out into the overflow courtyard.

When the vigil was over I walked around the city a bit with the three other Americans who were there (Vikentios, Chris C., and another one who was visiting), and then I was so tired that I walked home and went to bed around 3:00. I woke up on my own at 7:30 (my body is used to getting up early), and while I could have gone back to sleep I decided to go into the city and find Robert and Anya, my friends from America who were visiting with their baby, and I knew what church they were going to be at (it was easier for the baby to go in the morning than to come to the vigil). I got there around 8:15 I think, right before the Our Father.

A good crowd at Panagia Acheiropoietos on Christmas morning

After Liturgy there I walked with Robert, Anya and baby back to their temporary apartment and we stopped on the way to buy a tiropita for me, and some sweets that we ate back at the house, along with a little meat, cheese and bread that they had. Our other American friend who was staying with them and who had been at the vigil woke up right before we got back so we hung out and talked and ate cheese and snacks for a couple hours.

Anya and baby Joseph.

Joseph with both parents (picture taken the week before Christmas)

Daddy's turn! (picture taken on Christmas Day)

I then went home, napped from 12-2 (a little longer than I had wanted to), and hurriedly got ready to leave and meet up with my friends on the bus because my two hour nap had selfishly delayed us.

We had been invited by a priest we met at the concert a few weeks before (see above) to come to his house for Christmas dinner. He has nine kids, two of whom were our friends already, and we met four others on Christmas, some of whom are married. Three of the kids were not there but the three of us made up the difference. We also had another Russian friend who was there as well.

Father and one of his daughters, with the three of us guys, and our other friend from Russia

I did my best at being the translator because out of the other two Americans, Vikentios knows some Greek and Chris C knows none; and although some of the kids know English, it generally fell to me to translate.

Dinner at that family’s house was amazing!

They had lamb and I think one or two other kinds of meat. While I’m not usually a big meat eater I confess that this was really good. It was home-cooked obviously, by Presvytera (I’m not sure how it was cooked, but it was definitely delicious). They also served us their own homemade wine from their vineyard, plus they gave us each a bottle to take home.

The label on their wine bottles - an 11-seater bicycle, with "room" for nine kids and the parents!

All the other food was delicious as well! The atmosphere was really nice also. I was very happy to be there. After dinner some of us sang Kalanda and sat and visited a bit.

We left rather hurriedly. The family’s house is kind of close to Souroti, the village that has the monastery of St. John the Theologian where Elder Paisios is buried (http://xristianos.gr/forum/viewtopic.php?t=783). The monastery closes at 6:00 pm and we wanted to go and venerate there. So we left a little before 5:30 and one of the daughters drove us to the monastery. We got there in enough time to venerate the church and the tomb, and sit and talk a little bit with some of the sisters and some other visitors also. They were very nice and hospitable.

After we left the monastery and our friend was driving us back to the city, on a whim I called another American Orthodox family (Michael and Lisa Colburn) who had invited us for Christmas and whom we had turned down, and I asked if it was still ok if we stopped by to say hi. So our friend who was driving, dropped us off on her way to her yiayia’s house in the center. The three of us went inside and had homemade pumpkin pie that Lisa had made, and we talked to the Colburns for about an hour. Then we got a bus back to the center of town.

On the bus I called a couple other Americans whom I guessed would be independently downtown, and asked if they all wanted to meet up. We arranged a meeting place and time, and once we were all together we walked to a place with various tavernas and we sat down to eat. I was still full from dinner/lunch at the family’s house but some others were hungry so we basically had second dinner.

Second dinner

The menu was interestingly rendered in English.

Since when is feta "sort of" white cheese?

I'll have some fried inkstand with a side of sort of white cheese....whaaaa..?

We had a nice time visiting with each other.

(On the way to the taverna we ran across this sign)

I then went back to Robert and Anya's apartment to pick up something I had left there, brainstormed with Robert about the next day, and then walked home to Skype my family. I got home around midnight and skyped with my immediate family who were at my uncle’s house, along with an unexpected (to me) visitor there who happens to have the fullness of the priesthood of Christ.

A nice culmination to these few days was going on Sunday (December 28) to the Monastery of St. John the Forerunner in Serres, about an hour and a half from Thessaloniki (http://www.im-prodromou.gr/). It is a women’s monastery that has their spiritual father as Gheronda Ephraim in Arizona (one of three monasteries in Greece under his spiritual direction). Robert and Anya were going for a brief visit, and told me I could come along if I wanted because they had an extra seat in the car. I took them up on the offer in a heartbeat! It was really nice to go there, the sisters were so welcoming and I was really glad I went, even if it was just for a couple hours. I really would like to go back sometime, but it's hard to get anywhere when you don't have a car.

View of the countryside around the monastery, from the passenger seat.

Yeah, we had to come to a stop because the cows were blocking our way.

Robert in the monastery courtyard.

Monastery amid the mountains.

That’s it for now. I’m sure there’ll be more to blog about after the New Year begins. It’s always hard to believe the number of the year that we’re entering – 15? No way! Has it really been 15 years since the turn of the century?! I’m gettin’ old! ;)