`The third day he rose again from the dead, He ascended into Heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God." As a schoolboy I must have heard the story of the resurrection a dozen times at a dozen Easter services. Yet rack my brains as I will, I cannot recall more than those few words from the prayer book.
The simple truth is that I, like many in this modern age, am a casual Christian - a religious celebrant not by conviction but by consumer habit. For me the rites and rituals of Easter do not extend much beyond the garden gate, the limit of my family's annual hunt for chocolate eggs and bunnies wrapped in silver paper.
So when, travelling in the Peloponnese, I began noticing preparations for the Greek Orthodox Easter I paid scant attention. Our own Gregorian Easter, after all, was already some two weeks past. I had had my fill of chocolate. What more could a second Easter bring?
The first sign that it might bring a great deal more came on the Wednesday before Greek Easter in a bakery in the little Peloponnesian farming town of Petalidi. Where the day before the shelves had been piled high with great door-stoppers of warm, fragrant bread, they were now stocked with small and delicate brioche-like cakes. Baked into the top of each one was a hen egg, dyed bright red. Like everyone else in the shop, I bought one and enjoyed it for breakfast, thinking that was the end of it.
It was just the beginning. Not only did Easter brioches continue piling up in Petalidi bakeries, but Easter lambs began to pile up on Petalidi streets. There were bleating lambs tethered in the back of farmers' pick-up trucks. There were lambs sitting in woven straw panniers on the backs of peasants' donkeys. There were even fluffy white lambs riding through town as passengers in the back seats of cars.
Unfortunately, none were on their way to Easter parades. By Thursday afternoon there were dozens of slaughtered Pascal lambs hanging in serried ranks on hooks in butchers' windows. This is the biggest celebration of the year, so Greeks do not content themselves with buying a mere leg of lamb for Easter - they haul home an entire beast or two.
By Good Friday I had moved eastwards to the port of Githio. Away from the rural farms, Easter seemed a more urbane and worldly affair. Freshly shaven and scented, dressed in their best suits, Greek fathers strolled with their families along the evening harbour front. I sat at a busy taverna, enjoying the festive mood of the milling crowds. Suddenly, everyone began moving towards the basilica on a square behind the port. Abandoning ouzo and calamaries, I joined them.
Reflecting the basilica's gold-leaf-decorated Byzantine interior, the warm glow of a hundred candles spilled from the church. Over the massed heads of the crowd in the square, I could see the faithful of Githio filing in to kiss the image of the Virgin, recite a quick prayer, and collect a slim wax taper before filing out again.
Finally, when the square was ablaze with burning tapers, the reliquary of the basilica's patron saint, a large, ornate affair of bronze and jewels and coloured glass, was removed from behind the church's iconostasis and borne aloft on a palanquin of wood.
Never have I seen such an elaborate, dignified and emotional procession. Winding its way through the streets and along the waterfront, the half-mile column brought the town to a complete, silent halt, its collective gaze transfixed by the solemn splendour and ceremony of the Easter ritual.
First came a band dressed in red and blue uniforms and peaked hats, its drum beating a measured, doleful march. They were followed by men bearing intricately cut golden crosses on a forest of tall poles. Then came a large choir of women who, alternating with the band ahead of them, chanted slow, lugubrious dirges, at the same time stirring and sombre. Behind them, leaving clouds of billowing, fragrant smoke in his train, marched a solitary priest swinging a chained silver censor in long, vigorous arcs.
Through the haze of incense then emerged a gorgeously attired patriarch. Flanked on either side by two lesser prelates in black beards and black gowns - the better to show off his own magnificence - this eminence was dressed all in white. His long beard was snowy white. His head-dress, an ovoid the general shape and magnificence of a Faberge egg, was cream and silver. His long white gown and cape were shot through with gold thread. In one hand he bore a staff, in the other a massive silver cross which he unceasingly waved in blessing over the crowds lining the streets. Behind him followed more robed priests carrying sacred scriptures encased in heavy gold bindings.
Finally came the palanquin-borne reliquary itself. It was lined on either side by an honour guard of Greek soldiers in full combat gear, their weapons held across their chests. Generals and admirals in dress uniform, and town dignitaries in dark suits, completed the official entourage. Behind them, thousands of ordinary citizens, each bearing a glowing taper, trailed silently through the night.
I could not help but light my own taper and trail along, too. Showy it may have been, but who could not be moved by a ritual, 2,000 years old, that still contained such power and emotion?
Saturday night found me in Nafplio, the first capital of modern Greece. A Peloponnesian town of 19th century faded grandeur, it is today a playground for fashionable Athenian holiday-makers. But here, too, Easter was no less present.
Laid for dinner, tables sat in marbleflagged streets of chic jewellery stores and clothing boutiques. As elegant couples strolled about, spit lambs slowly turned on sidewalk grills over beds of glowing charcoal. I was ravenous. The hours passed, one after another, but no one sat down to eat.
As the first moments of the new Sunday approached, a staccato of firecrackers began exploding about the town, building to a deafening crescendo. At the stroke of midnight, bells began to peal from half a dozen churches and once again, priests blessed the crowds. Only then did the holiday-makers of Nafplio, myself included, settle down to earnest and exuberant feasting.
There was not a car on the road, not a soul stirring, as I drove into Athens the next day. Everyone was at home, enjoying friends, family and Easter lamb. Even in the one petrol station I found open, the attendants were busy behind the garage roasting their lunch. Athens itself, normally a nightmare of hooting traffic, was a silent, eerie ghost-town.
Only in one place did I find any life. Opposite a ferry terminal, at the steps of a large church, the poor of Piraeus were enjoying their own Easter lunch.
"Join us," they motioned to me as they danced and clapped about tables heaped with food. I had a boat to catch to the islands, and could not accept the generous charity of those who themselves had been shown charity - but I would have liked to. This was not like Easter anywhere else. I took aboard with me instead a large measure of their Greek Easter spirit.