A flame lit in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem was flown on a Greek government aircraft to Athens on Easter Saturday, ahead of its distribution nationwide for midnight Easter church services.
In a ceremony repeated every year, it was welcomed at the airport with the honors accorded to a visiting head of state before beginning its journey to churches across the country.
Earlier, thousands of Christians gathered in the cavernous Jerusalem church built on the site where, according to tradition, Jesus was buried, to attend the centuries-old ceremony for lighting what’s traditionally known in Greece as the Holy Fire.
Holding unlit candles, they packed into the sprawling 12th-century basilica where in near-total darkness, the Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem emerged with two lit candles.
In the ceremony, the flame passed from one candle to the next, the light overcoming the darkness in the rotunda.
Eastern Orthodox Christians believe the light miraculously appears inside the Holy Edicule, while skeptics going back to the Middle Ages have dismissed it as a trick for the masses.
The flame is then transferred from Jerusalem to other Orthodox communities worldwide.
The Greek delegation bringing the Holy Fire from Jerusalem was headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Yiannis Loverdos who received it from Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem.
Also included in the delegation was the official representative of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem in Athens as well as a representative of the synod of the Church of Greece.
Aegean Airlines will transport the Holy Fire to Chios, Ioannina, Kavala, Kefalonia, Kos, Limnos, Mykonos, Samos, Thessaloniki, Volos, and Zakynthos, while Sky Express will transfer it to Alexandroupoli, Corfu, Iraklio, Hania, Mytilene, Rhodes and Santorini.
Aegean will also transport the flame to Cyprus on a flight expected to land in Larnaca at 5 p.m. [Kathimerini, AP]