This year’s Easter Sunday is unique in that Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox Christians will celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ on the same day – April 20, 2025. It’s a convergence that only occurs about once every four years, due to the ecclesiastical differences between the Gregorian and Julian calendars, which differ in their calculation of Easter.

Unlike Western Christian denominations, Orthodox Christians follow the older Julian calendar and observe additional guidelines, such as ensuring Easter always falls after Jewish Passover, to preserve the biblical sequence of events. Yet despite Easter Sunday falling on the same day this year, one needn’t look too hard to spot the stark differences between Orthodox Easter traditions and the Easter traditions celebrated by other Christian groups in America. It’s gotten to the point where Greek-Americans have started calling their Easter “Greek Easter” in recent years to differentiate it from its Western counterpart.

While Orthodox Easter is characterized by joyous proclamations of “Christos Anesti!” capped off by a day-long celebration with lamb on the souvla and the cracking of red eggs – symbolizing the blood of Christ and the opening of His tomb at the Resurrection – modern secular interpretations are often distinguished by chocolate bunnies, hidden multi-color eggs and the emergence of Peeps sold at clearance prices. Call it an oversimplification if you like, but there is a clear divide between how Easter is traditionally meant to be celebrated and how it’s commonly perceived by most Americans today. In fact, only 42% of American adults correctly identified Christ’s resurrection as the core reason for the holiday in 2010, according to a study by Barna Group.

Much like Christmas, Easter has suffered from heavy commercialization, which has only deepened the public’s confusion about its true meaning. The good news is that Greeks in the Diaspora have preserved an array of unique traditions that keep the spiritual essence of Easter alive. These customs serve as a kind of cultural safeguard, helping to protect and reaffirm the sacredness of the holiday.

Consider that 47% of Greeks reported fasting during Holy Week in 2024, compared to 40% of American Catholics and 17% of American Protestants. Moreover, Orthodox Lenten tradition strongly encourages physical discipline, making its fasting practices more rigorous than those of many Western denominations. Abstaining from meat, dairy, eggs, oil, and even fish with backbones remains a tangible way to redirect our focus in alignment with Christ’s enduring sacrifice on the cross.

The purpose of highlighting these details is not to plunge into a “we’re holier than those other groups” diatribe, which is judgmental and reeks of pridefulness. Rather, it is to point to a cultural and religious emphasis the Greeks continue to place on their Easter traditions.

When you think of Greek Easter, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? That’s right: lamb. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that lamb is to Greeks on Easter what Turkey is to Americans on Thanksgiving. Just speaking from experience, I confess that after fasting for over 40 days, I’m more than a little eager to volunteer myself for souvla duty (along with probably every other Pappou in attendance).

For Greeks in the Diaspora, preparing lamb at Easter is a deeply symbolic act representing Christ as the sacrificial lamb who gave His life to save mankind. It’s a tradition steeped with meaning, yet simple enough for even young children to grasp the core message of Easter. However, you won’t find lamb served at many non-Orthodox Easter picnics held across America.

It is customary for Orthodox Christians to crack red eggs on Easter Sunday to commemorate the blood Christ shed on the cross, and His eventual breaking free from the tomb, bringing new life and hope.

The same goes for the tradition of cracking red eggs, which further underscores how Orthodox Easter has become synonymous with Greek traditions, rather than American ones. Even most non-religious Greek-Americans are familiar with the standard call-and-response that accompanies this tradition: “Christos Anesti!” – “Christ is Risen!” followed by “Alithos Anesti!” – Truly, He is Risen!” Once again, reinforcing the central message of the Resurrection.

It also helps that by the time Orthodox Easter rolls around, the consumer frenzy for Easter products has usually subsided – Orthodox Easter can land up to five weeks after Western Easter. This, in turn, protects and insulates the holiday as a religious occasion, making it easier for Diaspora Greeks to bypass the advertising and commercialization that have increasingly come to define Western Easter. The holiday produced $22.4 billion in consumer spending last year and is projected to surpass $23 billion in 2025, according to the National Retail Federation.

Now for a bit of fun. You know, as a Greek-American, my upbringing was filled with reminders of my split identity, and Easter was no exception. In fact, for the majority of my childhood, my brothers and I would wake up late in the morning after surviving the midnight Liturgy and hunt for dozens of candy-filled eggs (I usually won), but it never really felt like Easter until we arrived at our godbrother’s house to cook the lamb. Plus, whenever I was tearing through the house to find the most Easter eggs, I definitely wasn’t thinking about Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

By contrast, I couldn’t have avoided the religious implications of Orthodox Easter even if I tried. The fact that our most famous hymn boldly asserts that “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and to those in the tombs, granting life” left an indelible mark on my cultural and religious consciousness from a very young age. Now in my early twenties, I can see how the very fact that we say “Christos Anesti” in Greek – rather than English – provides a subtle yet powerful link to our cultural and spiritual heritage. Whenever I say those words or respond with the customary “Alithos Anesti,” it brings me back to a sense of joy at belonging to the Greek Diaspora.

This is why it’s so important not to “Americanize” Orthodox Easter from our seats in Western society – these are sacred traditions that have been kept alive for thousands of years. Our presence in America should never dilute or discount what our ancestors have cherished and preserved through the generations.

Χριστός ἀνέστη!