POST-PASCAL BLUES

 I am loathe to admit, but I feel rather down post-Easter, even though it is the most joyous occasion in the traditional Greek Australian’s calendar. A friend, who is a doctor, ascribes my melancholy wont to the cessation of fasting which modern science holds creates negative moods and the potential for nutrient deficiencies, in everyone that is except those who hail from Epirus, who report an improvement in psychological symptoms, especially the first generation communist ones who pride themselves on never entering a church but fast during Sarakosti anyway, for medicinal reasons, as they assure me. 

Some of the latest reviews of fasting have revealed that people who fast have lower anxiety and depression scores than control groups who did not fast, most probably because they are relieved from the psychological burden of making bad dietary choices, if not personal ones, while other studies suggest that fasting can create positive experiences, like a sense of accomplishment and control. This would explain the manifest joy exhibited by a Greek Australian denizen of the café I frequent near my office in Toorak, who, resplendent in activeware and pouchon in tow, ordered a cappuccino from the waiter, informing him that she was not seeking her usual soy chai latte as she was giving up soy for lent.  

“That guy over there is also fasting,” the waiter indicated my form, hunched up over the Neos Kosmos death notices. 

“Oi!” a deep gravely voice called from across the table. “Are you νηστέψειing?” 

“Yeah,” I replied curtly, turning the Neos Kosmos over to read up on the artist formerly known as papa-Lefteris latest exploits. 

“Oh my God, what a pisser! We must be the only people νηστέψειing in Toorak, re! What are you νηστέψειing from?” she gushed exuberantly. 

“The usual dairy and meat,” I responded, disconcerted at having lost the thread of papa-Lefteris’ argument. 

 “Oh, you’re old school,” she frowned. “There’s no way I could do that. I can’t live without my Saturday souvlaki in Oakleigh. You’re not Greek otherwise.” 

For the rest of Sarakosti, Soula would greet me every morning ebulliently, enquiring: “How’s the νηστέψειing going?” as if I were training for a marathon, in which, if one reads the Holy Fathers, she is not so far off the mark. Her friend Joanna, on the other hand, is pious and fasts “retro-style” like me, although she eats tuna, and this because while roaming the aisles at Woolworths this year, she discovered a sign reading “Perfect for Lent,” in the canned fish section. She also indulges in Pascall Marshmallows because they are in keeping with the overall Pascal theme, a pursuit that I consider ingenious as well as eminently legitimate given that their ingredients (I googled them) comply with our fasting canons. 

My friend Maria, who is studying Theology in Thessaloniki, messaged me on the first of April, ostensibly to remind me that according to the canons of the Church, when the feast of the Annunciation falls within Sarakosti, the customary eating of fish on Palm Sunday is not permissible, thus rendering to nought any plans I had in relation to the conceptual gigantic snapper which I had not yet caught. After three hours of despondency, I finally realised the extent to which my credulity had led me astray and messaged her back, quoting the thirty fifth canon of the Thirteenth Council of Kalamaria, which provides for the instant excommunication of those who have the temerity to make jokes during this most solemn time. 

Fasting, I’ve discovered, is a great way to silence disputation. My friend Marios, whose baptismal name was Spiros before he changed it in honour of the Theotokos after being born again, tries to convince me during Sarakosti that the entire hierarchy, those who consort with them, and indeed everyone in the entire world except an obscure cleric who performs his liturgies from his garage in suburban Melbourne and does not appear to be in communion with anyone else, are heretics who are doomed to perish in the End Times. He attempts to cite St Kosmas the Aetolian’s purported pronouncement about the Pope in order to bolster his contention, at which time I gently inform him that because I am fasting, I am unable to engage in argument with him. The conversation turns to his second object of Marian adoration, Maria Sakkari, instead. 

I apply the same approach to my friend’s cousin’s koumbara who always during this period, informs me that we, the Orthodox are anti-social, anti-global and behind the times because we celebrate Easter after the rest of the world. Not before, mind, but after, indicating that we are institutionally incapable of leadership. It is for this reason, she informs me, that she and her progeny celebrate Easter with the Catholics. She wants to teach her children to lead, not to follow. Her sister on the other hand, refuses to permit her offspring to celebrate Easter at all, considering services such as the Kathelosis, “the unnailing” of Christ from the Cross, or the dyeing of blood-red eggs to be triggering and the whole event to be a massive death cult. They look to me to comment and Francis Urquhart like, I opined that they may very well think that, but I could not possibly comment, for I am fasting and unable to engage in discussion.  

The story that I have been able to obtain impossible adjournments of court hearings for clients on the same basis, is purely apocryphal, especially considering how many court registrars and judge’s associates in Melbourne are of Greek extraction. All of us it seems, prefer to conduct our disputation after having fuelled the body and mind with at least one week’s consumption of meat. 

One is not supposed to judge one’s brother while fasting but the enemy always provides situational tripwires designed to lure the unwary away from the path of righteousness into the cesspit of perdition. Thus, there is a school of thought that contends that Greek Australian residents of Balwyn who express eagerness at the prospect of seeing their kids crack chocolate Easter eggs purchased from Aldi over the Paschal table while lisping “Christ has Risen,” with the appropriate response being “Same to You,” must necessarily be effaced from the Earth and relegated to the outer darkness wherein only suffering reigns and there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth, as are those who prefer to serve Cream of Mushroom soup rather than Mageiritsa after Anastasi. 

As Holy Week arrives, much discussion revolves around lamb on the spit, with Bunnings getting their advertisements for Anglo-sized mini-spits in early, eliciting the scorn of the hard-core suburban souvla-kings when middle class professionals with pretensions to paradosi, admit to having purchased one which they still haven’t figured out how to put together, rather than having welded together with their bare hands, a supersized one from oil drums purloined from the back of a factory. 

Holy Week also marks the resurrection of Petros Gaitanos, whose classic chanting of the various hymns of the Passion is on constant loop at my parent’s house throughout, only to be buried deep within the bowels of the CD drawer as soon as the Week is over. At our place of abode, we listen to Fairouz, who, while her hair is less lustrous and coiffured, her eyebrows less plucked and her pronunciation of Greek less punctuated by passion, still is able to act as the personification of dignified grief, a proper paradigm of charmolypi, the joyful sorrow that permeates Holy Week, in the anticipation of the Resurrection. My friend Chris, a theologian, prefers to listen to Heavy Metal instead,  notably Songs of Death and Resurrection by Demon Hunter. This pains me on various aesthetic levels. 

On Good Friday,  a Greek Australian client called me for legal assistance regarding conflict arising out of the chocolate Easter Egg hunt she was organising for her syllogo, prefacing her phone call by declaring:  “Christos Anesti.” 

“If you say so,” I replied. 

“What do you mean?” she asked. 

«Ο πελάτης έχει πάντα δίκιο,» I informed her, before expressing delight at the imminent emergence of the Pascal Mar Lago Stifado, Trump's latest dish of choice. 

This year, our Pascal feast was prefaced by a host insisting that we perform a welcome to country ceremony prior to commencing festivities. Unfortunately, he did not know the name of the local tribe that once inhabited Truganina, nor could  google search assist in providing the names of its elders past, present and emerging. We settled for a general salutation and a polite reminder to the land developers within the environs that sovereignty was never ceded. 

A week later, satiated in culinary carnality, I am pensive and wistful. I miss pre-Pascha. 

DEAN KALIMNIOU 

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 22 April 2023