Rouketopolemos
11 April 2026 · movable holiday — An arc of sparks between two bell towers – happy Easter!
The Rouketopolemos (Greek for „rocket war“) is a folk custom in Vrontados, near the town of Chios on the Greek island of Chios. On the night of Holy Saturday, two rival parishes, Agios Markos and Panagia Erithiani, launch thousands of homemade rockets toward each other, aiming at the opposite church's bell tower. It all takes place during the Easter vigil, as people welcome the Resurrection. It is a festive spectacle, not a real battle. The exact origin of the custom is not fully established, and several stories are told about it. Today the event draws many visitors. The date is movable because Orthodox Easter is calculated using the Julian calendar: it falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox, with both the equinox and the full moon taken from church tables rather than from the actual sky. So the night of the rockets changes each year, but always happens under the spring sky.
Flying across the sky: An ethereal, bluish-silver star figure made of light dots and thin lines, shaped like a tiny rocket that traces a glowing arc across the sky, like a constellation in motion
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