Exodus ”By All Means” to Celebrate Easter

Athens.- City dwellers used all available means to flee to the province to celebrate Easter. However, some problems rose in the both national roads with heavy traffic culminating mostly in the Athens-Corinth national road and Maliakos Gulf. At the same time, long vehicles and heavy trucks (over 1.5 tons) have been from using the national roads in the morning hours on Good Friday, Holy Saturday and in the evening hours on Wednesday.

President Papoulias and PM Karamanlis will celebrate Easter in Ioannina. President of the Republic Karolos Papoulias arrived in the village of Fragades in Ioannina, northwestern Greece, on Wednesday for the Christian Orthodox Easter.

President Papoulias will celebrate Easter Sunday with Greek soldiers on the Greek-Albanian borders at the Sagiada army outpost and the Filiates Army Camp in the prefecture of Thesprotia.

Prime minister Costas Karamanlis and his family also arrived in Ioannina on Thursday and celebrate Easter in the village of Dolo, Pogoni region.

Good Friday is traditionally a time of fasting and penance, commemorating the anniversary of Christʼs crucifixion and death. Thousands of worshipers across Greece visited churches to attend the Epitaph procession.

For Christians, Good Friday commemorates not just a historical event, but the sacrificial death of Christ, which with the resurrection, comprises the heart of the Christian faith.

EASTER MESSAGES
The Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Ieronymos, as well as the Archbishop of Tirana, Dures and All Albania Anastasios issued messages on Wednesday on the occasion of the Christian Orthodox Easter on Sunday.

“Feeling confident that the sacrificed and triumphant love of God can give happiness and hope, wherever darkness and grief may still be prevailing, I am make an appeal in every direction, to those close and to those far away, wishing to all and to each one personally the Easter greeting: Christ has Risen,” Archbishop Ieronymos said in his message.

“The Church has nothing less than light to offer to you. It has nothing more important than the Resurrection to proclaim. Come to our common home, the House of God, where there is nothing more valuable than Light and Resurrection for us to share,” he added.

Archbishop Anastasios said in his message that “the hope of resurrection cannot be imposed. It is conveyed. Let us convey it to our wounded society with our speech and our lives,” adding that “we can face the tough reality of our lives with the hope which transforms even the most tragic of conditions, giving them a sense of redemption.”