September 14 is an important feast day in Greece. It is the Orthodox celebration of the discovery of the True Cross in 326AD by St. Helen (the mother of St. Constantine, who made Christianity the official Roman religion and founded Constantinople and what we call the Byzantine Empire). It is the name day of anyone with the name Stavros or Stavroula–the word for cross in Greek is Stavros (Σταυρός) with the stress on the last syllable ‘o’ and the name is stressed on first syllable “av”. In addition, there are many festivals all over Greece celebrating this day—and many on the Cycladic and Dodecanese Islands. If the church celebrating is far from town, as on the island of Amorgos, festivities begin the day before with a pilgrimage to the church and camping out overnight there. Most festivals involve cooking large amounts of food in huge caldrons by the locals and is served to everybody in attendance after services on the 14th. Some festivals keep the tradition that this is a fasting feast—in other words, food is vegan, as on the island of Paros, where a special chickpea dish is made. Other islands, such as Nisyros, serve their goat specialty, which is usually made in tomato sauce with orzo or potatoes. Afterwards, there is live local music, much wine and dancing!
The herb basil or vasiliko (kingly or regal in Greek) is symbolic to this day as it is said that the scent of basil led St. Helen to the spot where the True Cross was found, after which she named the herb vasiliko—and they also say it was growing on Christ’s tomb, so it is generally quite a special herb for the Orthodox and you see it growing around most churches and monasteries. After the liturgy of the feast, basil is handed out and is either put into holy water, which is used to make starter to make special bread throughout the year or some just cross the starter with the basil before making bread. The basil is then left to root in water and planted.
Local musicians on Karpathos playing the tsabouna—a Greek style bagpipe made from goat.
The festival on the island of Nisyros.
