Cypriot tradition is not kept in museums. It is kept in a thread tied round a child’s wrist in March, in an egg cracked against someone else’s on Easter Sunday, and in a coin baked into a cake at midnight on New Year’s Eve.
The Martoui
Shared with Greece and parts of the Balkans, the Martoui is a bracelet of twisted red and white thread — red for love and beauty, white for purity. Children make theirs on the last day of February and wear them through March. Tradition holds that it protects against the first strong sun of spring.
Easter
Easter is the largest festival in the Orthodox calendar. The fifty days before Easter Sunday are a fast from meat and animal products, preceded by Apokries — the carnival in celebration of meat before Lent, marked across the island and biggest in Limassol, where participants parade the streets in costume.
On Good Friday, mourners decorate the Epitaphios — a wooden tabernacle bearing an icon of the dead Christ, representing his grave — with flowers. That evening it is carried through the streets behind the clergy, the faithful following with candles and hymns while the bells ring the funeral toll.
On Easter Saturday people return for the resurrection. Leaving the church they greet one another with ‘Christos Anesti’ — Christ has risen — and are answered ‘Alithos Anesti’, truly he has risen. Most gather at midnight for avgolemoni soup with family. Eggs are dyed red, and cracked one against another to see whose survives; flaounes, the rich savoury pastry of cheese and eggs baked on Good Friday, break the fast on Sunday.
Spring, wine and independence
The first of May is among the most attractive traditions on the island: Cypriots make wreaths of flowers and hang them on their front doors to welcome spring indoors.
The Wine Festival descends from ancient events honouring Dionysos and Aphrodite. Since 1961 it has been one of Limassol’s signature occasions — twelve days in the Municipal Gardens with a traditional wine press demonstrated, wines to taste, and food, music and dancing alongside. Limassol is considered the capital of Cypriot wine.
The first of October marks independence from Britain in 1960, with festivals and a military parade in Nicosia joined by the National Guard, Greek Forces in Cyprus, the Police and the Fire Service.
Christmas and the New Year
Streets go up in lights, and children in costume go door to door singing kalanda. In the villages there is Ai Vasili Vasilia: an olive leaf tossed into the fire while you ask Saint Basil to show whether the person in your mind loves you. If the leaf jumps, they do. If not, you may try again.
Melomakarona are baked through the season — no eggs, so they are permitted during the Christmas fast — alongside kourabiethes. On Christmas Day, after the morning service, families gather to cook lunch together.
Melomakarona contain no eggs, which is precisely why they can be eaten during the Christmas fast.
The Vasilopita is the New Year cake, named for Saint Basil — Ai Vasilis, the Greek Santa Claus. Recipes differ from family to family; what does not change is the coin baked inside. At midnight the cake is blessed with three crosses cut into the top, then divided: the first piece for the house, the family or Christ, then the rest by age from eldest to youngest, and the last for the poor and for anyone who could not come. Whoever finds the coin has good fortune for the year, provided they keep it in their wallet. Gifts are exchanged on New Year’s Day rather than at Christmas.
Theofania and the Kallikanzaroi
On 6 January, Theofania commemorates the baptism of Christ. At the blessing of the waters the priest throws a cross into the sea near the shore, and swimmers of every age race to retrieve it; whoever does is held to be especially blessed for the year.