Orthodox easter in santorini is the best week of the year on this island and almost no foreign visitor books it. The date moves, usually falling one to five weeks after the Western date: Epitaphios processions through the lanes on Good Friday, the whole village of Pyrgos outlined in fire on Holy Saturday, midnight fireworks over the caldera, and a lamb on every spit on the Sunday.
Orthodox Easter in Santorini
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Orthodox Ester customs in Sanrorini
You can experience local customs and traditions by taking a tour in Santorini.
On Holy Friday at Emporio, the signs are revived. The men of the village gather and strike anything metallic or wooden to make noise, passing through the churches of the village where they attend the Holly Mass. On their way out, the women give them raki and candies, because they think they are driving away evil spirits preparing for the Resurrection.
On Holy Friday evening at the Tower of Santorini a special event is taking place in a distinctive way. The epitaph sequence in the narrow streets of the village is made under the light of thousands of flaming vessels, placed on the rooftops, the pillars and the Venetian castle, creating a dazzling and impressive atmosphere.
As soon as the sun begins to turn on and during the epitaph course, locals and visitors think that the village has literally been burning. It is truly the most fascinating custom during Easter of Santorini and an opportunity to experience this unique events.
The Saturday of Lazarus Resurrection
Lazarus is celebrated on Saturdays in various villages of Santorini, but especially in Megalohori, the locals revive every year the custom of “Lazarus”. They set up a huge cross (reaching a height of 15-20 meters) in the middle of the village square wrapped in rosemary, symbolizing the Resurrection of Lazarus. They hire the most trustworthy professionals to keep the site clean. This custom symbolizes the resurrection of Lazarus, and the cross stays in this position until the Holy Saturday, then it is stripped off its decorations and remains until the day of Ascension.
The children make smaller crosses and go from door to door and sing Lazarus’ carols while they hit the bells of the churches that will come across their way. During the Holy Week, women make melitinia, a traditional sweet with honey, vanilla, mastic and mizithra.
The night of Resurrection in Pyrgos
On the night of the Resurrection you can visit the monastery of Prophet Elias, on the highest point of the island, where there is no barrow, but you will be delighted to see the fireworks that illuminate the whole of Santorini.
Also, another option for the day of Resurrection is the Metropolis of the island, where you can overlook the caldera and be very close to the main square of the island, which is filled with many restaurants and bars.
In the evening of the Resurrection the fireworks create a unique spectacle in all the parishes of the island.
Book now Santorini private transfers and especially a Pyrgos private transfer!
Easter Sunday in Santorini
On Easter Sunday after the holy mass of Love, another custom revives, the burning of Judas.
In most villages that revive the custom of “Burning Judas,” a dummy that looks like a big scarecrow and is stuffed with fireworks is hanging from a tall spot where they shoot it.
The Holy Week on the island is filled with smells and flavors, the bakeries are preparing continuously Easter breads, interstitial cookies and melitinia, the most passionate sweet of Santorini!
2 Things that you shouldn’t miss during the Orthodox Easter in Santorini
- Watch the first sunset of your vacation in peace by booking a Santorini sunset private tour.
- Walk the path that connects Imerovigli with Oia. The spring sweetens the rough sight of caldera, filling it with wildflowers. Book now a Santorini north part private tour.
See more about Santorini island:
- Holidays in Santorini: Summer vacations 2018
- Wedding proposals in Santorini
- Vow Renewals: Renew your vows in Santorini
- Christening in Santorini
Orthodox Easter in Santorini: The Short Answer
Orthodox Easter in santorini is the best week of the year on this island and almost no foreign visitor books it. The date moves — it follows the Julian calculation and usually falls one to five weeks after the Western date — so the first thing to do is check the year before you plan anything.
What you get is an island of fifteen thousand people doing something they take seriously, in villages with nobody watching. Epitaphios processions through the lanes on Good Friday, the flames of Pyrgos on Holy Saturday, midnight fireworks over the caldera, and a lamb on every spit on the Sunday.
The weather is spring: sixteen to twenty degrees, green hillsides, wild flowers on the terraces. The sea is too cold to swim in, half the beach infrastructure is still shut and the caldera is empty. That is the trade, and for most people who make it once it becomes the only time they come.
Orthodox Easter in Santorini, Day by Day
Palm Sunday. The start of Holy Week. Churches distribute palm and myrtle, and the island’s rhythm changes visibly from that morning.
Holy Monday to Wednesday. Evening services, the shops quieter, and the bakeries starting on the tsoureki — the sweet plaited bread with a red egg in it.
Holy Thursday. Eggs are dyed red, the first colour of the week, and the twelve gospels are read in the evening.
Good Friday. The Epitaphios, a flower-covered bier representing the tomb, carried in procession through every village after dark with the whole population behind it. The single most affecting evening of orthodox easter in santorini.
Holy Saturday, the biggest night of orthodox easter in santorini. The lighting of Pyrgos at dusk, then the Resurrection service at midnight with fireworks over the caldera, and magiritsa soup afterwards.
Easter Sunday. Orthodox easter in santorini ends with lamb and kokoretsi on spits from mid-morning, in courtyards and squares, all day.
Easter Monday. Quiet, hungover and entirely local. Nothing is expected of anybody.
Pyrgos on Holy Saturday: the Peak of Orthodox Easter in Santorini
What happens. The whole village is outlined in fire. Thousands of tin cans filled with oil-soaked rags are placed along every wall, roof, staircase and path from the base of the village to the castle at the summit, and lit at dusk.
Why. The tradition marks the Resurrection and is unique to Pyrgos on this island. It is done by the residents, for the residents, and has been for generations.
When to arrive. By six in the evening at the latest. The lighting begins around eight and the road up fills long before that.
Where to stand. The path up to the castle for the detail, the road below the village for the whole shape of it lit at once.
The service. At midnight in the church at the top, then the fireworks, then everybody walks down through the flames.
Parking. Effectively none. This is the one night of orthodox easter in santorini where a driver is not a luxury.
Photography. A tripod and a fast lens. It is dark, the flames are small and moving, and the crowd is dense.
The Epitaphios: Orthodox Easter in Santorini on Good Friday
If Pyrgos on Saturday is the spectacle, Good Friday evening is the part that stays with people. The Epitaphios is a wooden bier representing the tomb of Christ, decorated during the day by the women of each parish with thousands of fresh flowers, and carried out of the church after the evening service.
What follows is a procession through the village lanes, led by the priest and the cantors, with the congregation behind carrying candles, church bells tolling slowly, and every house on the route lit and open. In Fira several parish processions converge; in the smaller villages there is one, and it moves through streets where everybody knows everybody.
Visitors are welcome to walk with it, and the etiquette is simple: dress modestly, stand back at the church door, do not use flash, and follow rather than lead. Nobody will ask you to leave and nobody will explain what is happening either, because it is not staged for you — which is precisely what makes orthodox easter in santorini worth the flight.
Times vary by parish and are posted at the church door a day or two before. Around nine in the evening is typical, and the whole thing takes an hour to ninety minutes at walking pace.
Midnight on Holy Saturday at Orthodox Easter in Santorini
The Resurrection service is the centre of the Greek year and of orthodox easter in santorini. Churches fill from about eleven at night, and shortly before midnight every light is put out, leaving the building in complete darkness. The priest emerges from the sanctuary with a single flame and the words “Come, receive the light”, and it is passed candle to candle through the congregation until the whole church is lit.
At midnight exactly the bells ring, everybody says Christos Anesti — Christ is risen — and the fireworks start. On this island that means fireworks over the caldera from several villages simultaneously, seen from a rim that is otherwise entirely dark. Firecrackers go off in the streets, mostly thrown by teenagers, and it is loud in a way that surprises people.
Then the candles are carried home still lit — the tradition is to make a cross of soot above the door with the flame — and families sit down after midnight to magiritsa, a soup made from the lamb’s offal and greens that breaks the forty-day fast. Restaurants that stay open serve it too, and it is a great deal better than its description.
For a visitor at orthodox easter in santorini the practical version is: be in a village square by half past eleven, bring a candle or buy one at the door, and expect to be up until two.
What to Eat at Orthodox Easter in Santorini
Tsoureki, the bread of orthodox easter in santorini. The sweet plaited bread flavoured with mahleb and mastic, with a red-dyed egg baked into it. In every bakery from Holy Thursday.
Red eggs. Dyed on Holy Thursday and cracked against each other on Sunday — the one whose egg survives has luck for the year.
Magiritsa. The soup eaten after midnight on Saturday to break the fast.
Lamb on the spit. Turned slowly from mid-morning on Sunday, in courtyards and village squares across the island.
Kokoretsi. Offal wrapped in intestine and grilled on a spit alongside the lamb. Do not ask what is in it until afterwards.
Lent food. The forty days before are meat and dairy free, and the taverna cooking during them — pulses, greens, seafood, bread — is some of the best of the Greek year.
Local to this island. Fava, chloro cheese, capers and the small dense tomato appear at every Easter table here alongside the national dishes, which is what makes orthodox easter in santorini taste different from Easter anywhere else in Greece.
Why Orthodox Easter in Santorini Is Different
Greek Easter is the largest festival in the country and every region marks it in its own way — pots thrown from balconies in Corfu, rocket wars in Chios, a lamb in every village from Thrace to Crete. What makes orthodox easter in santorini distinct is a combination of geography and history that exists nowhere else.
The first factor shaping orthodox easter in santorini is the shape of the place. The villages are stacked down a cliff or built as fortified rings on hilltops, which means a procession here does not walk along a street; it winds down staircases, through covered lanes and around corners, appearing and disappearing with the candles visible from a long way off. The Epitaphios at Fira descends towards the caldera with the whole crater black behind it, which is a thing you cannot arrange anywhere flat.
The second is the Catholic minority. Santorini has had a Latin Catholic community since the Venetian period, and it still has a Catholic cathedral in Fira and a Dominican monastery. In most years the two Easters fall on different dates and the island celebrates twice, which is unusual in Greece and completely normal here. In the years when the dates coincide, the two processions have historically acknowledged each other.
The third is Pyrgos, and nobody is entirely sure when the tradition of lighting the whole village began. It is a village-scale act of coordination — every household placing and lighting the cans on its own walls at the same hour — and it has survived depopulation, the 1956 earthquake and the arrival of mass tourism, largely because it was never done for visitors in the first place.
The fourth thing that sets orthodox easter in santorini apart is the timing. Easter falls at the exact point when this island turns from a working rock into a resort, and for a week you see both at once: the vineyards in bud, the hotels opening their shutters, and fifteen thousand people doing something they would do whether anybody came or not.
Photographing Orthodox Easter in Santorini
The Epitaphios, Good Friday. Candlelight and movement. A fast lens, high ISO, no flash, and shoot from the side of the procession rather than in front of it.
Pyrgos at dusk. A tripod and a wide lens from the road below, then a fast prime once you are inside the village among the flames.
Midnight fireworks. From a caldera rim viewpoint, on a tripod, with a wide frame that includes a village for scale.
The lamb on Sunday. Close, warm light, smoke, hands. The most human pictures of orthodox easter in santorini are taken at lunch rather than in church.
The details. Red eggs, tsoureki on bakery shelves, flowers being tied to the bier on Friday afternoon, candles at the church door.
What not to do. Flash inside a church, standing on a wall above a procession, or photographing a family’s table without asking.
Ask first. Almost everybody says yes, and the picture is better afterwards.
When Orthodox Easter in Santorini Falls
The date is the first thing to establish and the thing most visitors get wrong. The Orthodox Church calculates Easter using the Julian calendar and the rule that it must follow the Jewish Passover, so it lands between early April and early May and is usually one to five weeks after the Western date. Occasionally the two coincide.
That matters practically. Flights and rooms for orthodox easter in santorini are booked by Greeks from Athens and by the diaspora, not by the international market, and they fill three to four months ahead — earlier than the equivalent week in July. Ferries from Piraeus run extra sailings and sell out. Prices rise for that week and fall again immediately afterwards.
It also matters for what else is open during orthodox easter in santorini. Easter usually falls at the point in April when the island is reopening for the season: most estates and restaurants are running, the caldera hotels are taking guests, the buses are back on a summer-ish timetable, and the beach infrastructure is half in place. You get a functioning island without the crowds, which is a combination available for about two weeks a year.
The other date to know is Clean Monday, seven weeks earlier, which marks the start of Lent: kites, outdoor lunches and lent food across the island. If your dates are flexible and Easter itself is full, that week is the quieter alternative.
Where to Stay for Orthodox Easter in Santorini
Pyrgos. The obvious choice for the Saturday and the hardest place to find a room. Book months ahead or stay near it.
Fira. Central, several parish processions, everything open, and twenty minutes from Pyrgos by road.
Megalochori or Emporio. Village Easter at its most local, with almost no visitors and a procession you will walk in rather than watch.
Imerovigli or Firostefani. The caldera view for the midnight fireworks, and a short drive to the villages.
Oia. Beautiful, reopening for the season, and further from the inland villages where most of the week actually happens.
Kamari or Perissa. Cheaper, quieter, and the wrong side of the island for the evenings.
The rule. Orthodox easter in santorini happens inland after dark, so stay where you can reach Pyrgos, Megalochori and Emporio without a long drive at midnight.
Etiquette at Orthodox Easter in Santorini
Dress modestly in church at orthodox easter in santorini. Covered shoulders and knees. Nobody will stop you at the door and everybody will notice.
No flash during services. Photograph the processions from the side, not from in front of the bier.
Stand at the back. The front rows belong to the parish.
Take a candle. Sold at every church door for a euro or two. Holding one is participation rather than intrusion.
Say Christos Anesti. After midnight, to everybody. The reply is Alithos Anesti — truly he is risen.
Do not clap. It is a service, not a performance, however spectacular the flames at Pyrgos are.
Accept what you are offered. Somebody will hand you tsoureki or a red egg during orthodox easter in santorini. Take it.
Planning a Trip for Orthodox Easter in Santorini
Length. Orthodox easter in santorini needs five nights, arriving Wednesday or Thursday and leaving Monday or Tuesday. Anything shorter and you miss either the Friday or the Sunday.
Flights. Athens connections run all week and fill early. Direct European routes are just restarting in April, so check both.
Ferries. Extra sailings from Piraeus for the holiday, and they sell out to Greek travellers weeks ahead.
Rooms. Book three to four months out. Pyrgos itself is the hardest and Fira the most practical.
Restaurants. Sunday lunch needs a reservation made weeks in advance. Many places do a fixed Easter menu.
Money. Prices sit at shoulder-season rates rather than August rates, which makes orthodox easter in santorini one of the best-value weeks of the year here.
What to pack. A jacket for the evenings, shoes for stone lanes at night, and something modest for church.
Combining Orthodox Easter in Santorini With the Island
The week has an unusual shape: the evenings are committed and the days are entirely free, which suits an island where most of the daytime sights are within twenty-five minutes of each other.
Put Akrotiri on the Wednesday or Thursday morning, before Holy Week reaches its intensity — it is roofed, cool and quiet in April, and it makes sense of everything else on the island. Put a winery afternoon on the Thursday, when the estates are open, the new vintage is being poured and nobody has arrived yet. Keep the Friday afternoon light and rest, because the Epitaphios is a late night.
Saturday is the day to do nothing much: a village in the morning, the rim path or a beach walk in the afternoon, an early dinner, and then Pyrgos from six. Sunday is lunch and only lunch, from about one o’clock onwards, and nobody who has done it properly attempts anything afterwards.
That leaves the Monday of orthodox easter in santorini for the boat, if the volcano trips have restarted, or for the drive round the south coast and the lighthouse. It is a well-balanced five days, and it is the one week of the year when orthodox easter in santorini gives you both the island and the thing the island is actually doing.
Who Orthodox Easter in Santorini Suits
Anybody who has been here in summer. The contrast between an August sunset crowd and a Good Friday procession is the whole argument.
People who like food. Lent cooking, then a spit roast in a village square. There is no better eating week in Greece.
Photographers. Fire, candlelight, processions and spring light, all in five days.
Couples and small groups. The week is sociable rather than romantic, and it works better with two or four than with one.
Families with older children. The late nights are the constraint; the fireworks and the flames are the reward.
Not beach holidays. The sea is sixteen degrees and half the beach infrastructure opens in May.
Not anybody wanting quiet. Orthodox easter in santorini is loud, late and crowded with Greeks, which is exactly the point.
The Days Around Orthodox Easter in Santorini
The evenings belong to the church and the days are yours, and April is one of the two best months of the year for everything else on this island.
The weather at orthodox easter in santorini. Sixteen to twenty-two degrees, long days, hillsides green from the winter rain and wild flowers across the terraces. The sea is fifteen or sixteen degrees, which is swimmable for about ninety seconds.
Akrotiri and Ancient Thera. Both open, both quiet, and Ancient Thera in particular is a far better climb in April than in July.
The wineries. Fully open for the season, bud break just past in the vineyards, and tasting rooms that have not yet filled with the summer crowd.
The rim path. Fira to Oia at twenty degrees on green ground with almost nobody on it. This is the month walkers should come.
The villages. Decorated, busy with locals preparing, and open in a way they are not in February.
The boats. The volcano trips restart around the beginning of April, weather permitting.
What is still shut. Some beach bars and the more seasonal restaurants, which open properly in May.
Orthodox Easter in Santorini: Frequently Asked Questions
When is orthodox easter in santorini? It moves each year, usually one to five weeks after Western Easter, between early April and early May.
What is the best day to be here? Holy Saturday for Pyrgos and the midnight fireworks, and Good Friday for the Epitaphios processions.
What happens at Pyrgos? The entire village is outlined in thousands of small fires at dusk on Holy Saturday, lit by the residents.
Can visitors attend the services? Yes, everywhere. Dress modestly, stand at the back and do not use flash.
Is everything open? Mostly. Easter falls as the island reopens, so estates, restaurants and hotels are running while the crowds are not.
How far ahead should you book? Three to four months. The week fills with Greek visitors before the international market notices.
What is the weather like? Spring: sixteen to twenty-two degrees, green, occasionally wet, with a sea too cold to swim in.
Do you need a car? The evenings happen inland after dark and parking at Pyrgos is impossible, so a driver is the practical answer.
What do people eat? Magiritsa after midnight, lamb and kokoretsi on Sunday, tsoureki and red eggs all week.
Is it suitable for children? Yes, and the late nights are the constraint rather than anything else.
Will there be fireworks? At midnight on Holy Saturday, from several villages at once, over the caldera.
Is it busy? Busy with Greeks and empty of tour groups, which is the entire point.
Orthodox Easter in Santorini: We Will Drive You Through Holy Week
We are a local operator running private tours and transfers in our own vehicles, and orthodox easter in santorini is the week when driving yourself stops working: the processions close village lanes, Pyrgos has no parking on the Saturday, and everything worth seeing happens between nine at night and one in the morning.
Tell us your dates and we will get you to the Epitaphios on the Friday, to Pyrgos before the road fills on the Saturday, back for the fireworks, and to a table on the Sunday where the lamb has been turning since ten.
Prices are per vehicle rather than per person, hotel pickup anywhere on the island is included, we guide in twelve languages, and an 80 EUR deposit confirms a date.
See the personalised tour, the private transfers, or contact us.
Every Village and Site on the Island
Any of these can be built into a private day. Each has its own page with what to see and how long to allow.
Caldera villages: Fira · Firostefani · Imerovigli · Oia · Finikia · Baxedes
Inland villages: Pyrgos · Megalochori · Emporio · Mesaria · Karterados · Vothonas · Vourvoulos · Exo Gonia · Mesa Gonia · Pigadia
Beaches: Perissa · Perivolos · Kamari · Vlychada · Monolithos · Red Beach · White Beach · Agios Georgios · Agia Paraskevi
Sites and landmarks: Akrotiri · Ancient Thira · Akrotiri Lighthouse · Nea Kameni · Palia Kameni · Thirasia · Athinios Port
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