Epitaphios

The year of Our Lord 2023 has been a roller-coaster for Orthodox Christians in Turkey. On August 15, it seems, Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios will celebrate an emotionally resonant liturgy at the Monastery of Panagia Soumela; permission was granted on July 24 after a report four days earlier that it had been refused.

People arrange flowers on the bier representing the burial of Christ at Kaisariani Monastery in Athens on the morning of Good Friday. Kaisariani's Epitaphios procession is the only one in the Greek capital that takes place during daylight hours and is particularly popular among the Greek Orthodox faithful.

Political leaders have attended Good Friday ceremonies and the Epitaphios processions.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, accompanied by his family, attended the ceremonies on Tinos.

Main opposition SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras participated in the ceremonies in a village on Corfu, where he is spending Easter with his family.

Police in central Athens removed animal rights activists from Syntagma Square as the Good Friday candlelit Epitaphios (funerary) procession was taking place.

As the procession entered the square, a small group of activists approached the clerics and held placards stating "There is no excuse for animal abuse" and chanted slogans "against the slaughter of animals".

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias will visit the island of Imvros in Turkey on Holy Friday.

The minister is scheduled to visit the Metropolitan Church of Imvros & Tenedos upon his arrival, before going to the village of Agoi Theodoroi where he will meet with Greek expatriates.

The gold-embroidered Epitaphios (liturgical vestment) dated to 1751 from the famous workshop of Mariora in Constantinople stands out among other exquisite works of art in a digital exhibition which draws on the collections of the Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens.

As Greece enters Holy Week, the most sacred time of year for Orthodox Christians and traditionally a period of public gatherings and religious services, authorities will be watching carefully to ensure that the restrictions designed to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic are being upheld. 

April 26, 2019, Good Friday. Pantanassa Church in the town of Patra, in the northern Peloponnese, is full of devotees waiting for the procession of the flower-decked Epitaphios to begin. Father Konstantinos Papadopoulos approaches the microphone and makes an unusual plea to the faithful.

An exhibition of embroidered and richly adorned cloths dating to the 18th and 19th centuries bearing the image of the dead body of Christ opens on Friday at the Silversmithing Museum in the castle of Ioannina in northwestern Greece.

The historic church of St. Voukolos (Agia Vukla) in Izmir held its first Holy Week services since 1922. Recently renovated, the church held its first Good Friday service and Epitaph procession through the streets of Izmir.