Clean Monday
23 February 2026 · movable holiday — May the start of Lent be as light as a kite. A bright path to you!
Clean Monday (Greek: Kathara Deftera) is the first day of Great Lent for Orthodox Christians. It falls 48 days before Orthodox Easter. Easter is the first Sunday after the first spring full moon, but the Orthodox churches reckon the equinox (21 March) by the old Julian calendar and the full moon by church tables, so the date moves every year and often differs from Western Easter. In Greece and Cyprus it is a public holiday. The word “clean” points to cleansing the soul and the table of excess. Families head out into the countryside and fly kites, filling the sky with colour. The table is set with fasting food: lagana, a flatbread baked only on this day, taramosalata (a spread of fish roe), halva, olives, vegetables and bloodless seafood. Meat, eggs and dairy are avoided. The day joins prayer and reflection with the joy of approaching spring.
Flying across the sky: An ethereal, bluish-silver kite made of bright dots and thin connecting lines, like a constellation, with a long tail of small twinkling stars
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