Lets Go Fly A Kite ... (Clean Monday)

Today is a very breezy day - perfect for kite flying, which is just as well as today is Clean Monday - the day that everyone takes to the outdoors to fly their kites here in Greece. It is also a public holiday so most shops will be closed.

Clean Monday refers to the first day of Lent and so devout Orthodox will have emptied their freezers of meat for the 40 days and 40 nights of the Easter period, on some days they will forgo dairy and oil by products also. Today unleavened bread will be cooked - known as Lagana and eaten.

The theme of Clean Monday is set by the Old Testament reading appointed to be read at the Sixth Hour on this day (Isaiah 1:1-20), which says in part:

Wash yourselves and ye shall be clean; put away the wicked ways from your souls before Mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well. Seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, consider the fatherless, and plead for the widow. Come then, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow; and though they be red like crimson, I will make them white as wool (v. 16-18).