14th September

 An important day in Greece.  

In the Orthodox, and other churches, it is the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.  This is a day of fasting but we are allowed to eat salt cod and garlic sauce.  Bacaliaros skorthalia.  It is also a feast day for those named Stavros or Stavroula.  I've been to a many a name day celebration where the main dish is an over flowing platter of fried cod. It's always served with a big dish of garlic sauce. Soaked bread mixed with loads of crushed garlic, olive oil and vinegar.

Church goers today bring a bouquet of basil to the church.  The basil is blessed and taken home to make the year's sourdough sponge.  The basil is placed in water for 3 days and then the herb is discarded and the water  mixed with flour.  Of course for the starter to bubble and rise the housewife should have been to confession and if its the wrong time of the month for her then she'll have to wait for next year and borrow some of her neighbour's sourdough starter.

14th September is also the commemoration of the Genocide of the Greeks of  Asia Minor.  In a drive by Turkey to create a Turkey for the Turks they slaughtered hundreds of thousands of  Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians.

14 September 2020 is also the day schools across Greece finally open up for lessons in the classroom.  My grandchildren went to school in masks to be blessed by the local Priests and find out what's happening in the classrooms and playgrounds this school year.