Clean Monday is the first Monday after Carnival. It means the end of Carnival and the beginning of Lent, the Easter fast of the Orthodox with a duration of 40 days, as many days as Christ fasted in the desert. It symbolizes purity, as the meat-eating during Shrove is followed by the great seven week fast, Lent, and Holy Week, as the week of Christ’s Passion is called (Καθαρά Δευτέρα: Τα έθιμα, η ιστορία και ο συμβολισμός του χαρταετού, 2021). For the Greeks, Clean Monday is a holiday.
This day is considered by believers as a day of “purification”. In Byzantium, they called it Apothesis-Apodosis and they carried out events. Parts of the songs sung that day have survived to this day (Καθαρά Δευτέρα: Τα έθιμα, η ιστορία και ο συμβολισμός του χαρταετού, 2021). From Clean Monday, the Orthodox begin to prepare physically and spiritually for Easter, which culminates with the Resurrection of the Christ. It got this name because housewives used to clean their kitchen utensils on this day. They washed the utensils with hot water and ashes to clean them well and hung them without using them again until the end of the fast (Η ιστορία της λαγάνας και της Καθαράς Δευτέρας, 2020). One of the many surviving proverbs says “Clean Monday cleans everything” (Ιωαννίδης, 1876).
Clean Monday is usually celebrated outdoors. Families sit on the ground and eat the fasting food they prepared from home. For the celebration of Clean Monday in the countryside, the word “Koulouma” is mainly used, while until now the origin of the word has not been clarified. Nikolaos Politis, the great Greek folklorist, believes that the word comes from the Latin Cumulus. This word characterizes the heap, the abundance but also the end, as Shrove Monday symbolizes the end of Carnival. Another interpretation given by the folklorist is its origin from the Latin word “columnae”, i.e. “column”, as it is considered that the first celebration of Clean Monday took place at the Pillars of Olympian Zeus in Athens (Καθαρά Δευτέρα: Τα έθιμα, η ιστορία και ο συμβολισμός του χαρταετού, 2021). All over Greece on that day there are various events with small variations. What is certain, however, is that every event includes dancing and singing, eating lagana-a specific type of bread and flying a kite.
Bibliography
Η ιστορία της λαγάνας και της Καθαράς Δευτέρας (2020). Retrieved January 29, 2023 from
https://www.enandro.gr/istoria/5805-%CE%B7-%CE%B9%CF%83%CF%84%CE%BF%CF%81%CE%AF%CE%B1-%CF%84%CE%B7%CF%82-%CE%BB%CE%B1%CE%B3%CE%AC%CE%BD%CE%B1%CF%82-%CE%BA%CE%B1%CE%B9-%CF%84%CE%B7%CF%82-%CE%BA%CE%B1%CE%B8%CE%B1%CF%81%CE%AC%CF%82-%CE%B4%CE%B5%CF%85%CF%84%CE%AD%CF%81%CE%B1%CF%82.html
Ιωαννίδης, Ε., Αμοργός 1876, σελ.65. Κέντρο Ερεύνης Ελληνικής Λαογραφίας.
Καθαρά Δευτέρα: Τα έθιμα, η ιστορία και ο συμβολισμός του χαρταετού (2021). Retrieved January 29, 2023 from
https://www.protothema.gr/greece/article/1104580/kathara-deutera-ta-ethima-i-istoria-kai-o-sumvolismos-tou-hartaetou/