Easter, or as the Greeks call it ‘Pascha’, is the most important religious festival in the Greek Orthodox Calendar.
In the Orthodox religion, every Sunday is dedicated to the resurrection of the Lord, but 100 days are dedicated to Easter; 50 days before the festival and 50 after it to commemorate the glory of God.
Easter is therefore considered the ‘Feast of Feasts’.
On the Saturday before Holy Week, the Resurrection of Lazarus is celebrated. Lazarus of Bethany or Lazarus of the Four Days was a believer in Jesus, whom, according to the Gospel of John, Jesus raised from the dead. On Lazarus’ Saturday, children are given traditional bread rolls, called 'lazarakia', which have the shape of a man wrapped in a shroud—the fore runner of the gingerbread man.
The miracle of the raising of Lazarus, the longest coherent narrative in John aside from the Passion, is the climax of John's "signs". It explains the crowds seeking Jesus on Palm Sunday, and leads directly to the decision of Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin to kill Jesus.
This day, together with Palm Sunday, holds a unique position in the church year, as days of joy and triumph between the penitence of Great Lent and the mourning of Holy Week.
During the preceding week, the hymns in the Lenten Triodion track the sickness and then the death of Lazarus, and Christ's journey from beyond Jordan to Bethany. The scripture readings and hymns for Lazarus Saturday focus on the resurrection of Lazarus as a foreshadowing of the Resurrection of Christ, and a promise of the General Resurrection.
On Palm Sunday the churches are decorated with palm and bay branches. Sometimes the palm leaves are shaped into a cross, or the crest of the moon, or a star. They are placed into the icon stand of the house for luck.
People believe in the power of life and fertility that the palm tree passes on to women, animals and plants.