1st of March and Ash Monday celebration in Greece

The ancient Greeks used to celebrate the beginning of the most beautiful season of the year, the spring!
In modern Greece there are many habits related with the beginning of the spring. Their aim is to expel the winter, because it is related to “evil”.
The first day of March the kids use to make bracelets from white and red cotton thread, which is called “martis”, to beware of the intense sunlight. These bracelets use to keep with them till the morning of the Easter Sunday. Then, they use to hang them on a rose tree and they are waiting to see the first swallow which is the spring message.

Clean Monday, Kathari Theftera(Greek: Καθαρή Δευτέρα), is the Monday that begins the season of Great Lent in Eastern Orthodox Churches, which lasts forty days because of the forty days Jesus spent fasting the desert .
It is also known as Pure Monday, Ash Monday or Monday of Lent.
It is called “Clean Monday” because Christians are called upon to begin the holy season with “clean hearts and good intentions.” and it’s actually a preparation for the big celebration of the Easter.
Clean Monday is a public holiday in Greece, a day when families go to the countryside and beaches for picnics and kite-flying.
All Greeks are enjoying the traditional food of the day, including lagana, special bread that is eaten only on this day, prawns and octopus, cabbage leaves stuffed with rise, fish roe salad and halva with semolina.
( The Greek team)