We had Easter eggs like Americans did: brightly dyed in cups of water colored by little pellets and lifted out with a wire contraption that came with the pellets.
We also had Easter eggs given us by the priest on Easter Sunday. Sharing hardboiled eggs came to our Christian church from the Jewish tradition of sharing eggs when sitting shiva, the eggs a symbol of the circle of life, of eternal life. We would line up and receive an egg dyed a deep, Christ-blood red. The priest would say to each of us, ‘Christos anesti’ and we would respond, ‘Alethos anesti’ Christ is risen! Surely, he is risen!
Throughout that day, in a tradition carried out by Greeks the world over and for countless generations, we would play a little game with the eggs, both the one from the church and others that we had made ourselves. One person would hold his egg pointy side up and another would strike the point of his egg downward, point to point. Before striking, the striker would say, ‘Christos anesti’ and the person holding the egg would reply ‘Alethos anesti’. Or, in the language of the Americans, ‘Christ is risen’ and the response, expressing wonder at the possible, ‘Surely, he is risen’.
Usually, only one egg would crack. The winner, the holder of the unbroken egg, would then proceed to challenge others. Each time the ritual was the same. ‘Christos anesti’ ‘Alethos anesti’. Crack!! Our extended family was quite large and we frequently had almost fifty relatives in our home on Easter Sunday.
During one of these gatherings, when I was nine or ten, my egg just couldn’t be beaten. I had selected and prepared it with special care and even had scraped a little dye from the point to boast of the number of eggs it had defeated. Time after time it was ‘Christos anesti’…..’Alethos anesti’, crack, and another egg would bite the dust.
As the day wore on and folks began to leave, I was filled with awe, with wonder that an unbeatable egg, a truly eternal egg, might be sitting in the palm of my hand and that all things, for eggs and for me, might be possible.
A younger cousin approached with her egg, holding it before her, pointy side up. I raised my egg and cried, with joy, ‘Christos anesti’ and she responded, with similar joy, ‘Alethos anesti’. And then, crack!