Prophet Elijah's Day
20 July 2026 — A bright greeting from the summit – happy feast to all who climb!
On 20 July, Orthodox Christians in Greece honour the Prophet Elijah. In the Old Testament he is a prophet of the 9th century BC, and the Second Book of Kings (chapter 2; Fourth Book of Kingdoms in the Orthodox Bible) tells that he was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind, after a chariot of fire parted him from his disciple Elisha. For this reason, in folk tradition Elijah is linked with the sky, thunder and rain, and summer is often a season of storms. In Greece, many chapels of Prophet Elijah (Profitis Ilias) stand on mountaintops and hills. On the feast day, believers climb up to them – sometimes on a pilgrimage starting at dawn – for the divine liturgy (the main church service), often followed by a shared meal and a village gathering. In many towns and on the islands, it is also a local festival. The Church of Greece keeps fixed feasts by the Revised Julian calendar, which currently coincides with the Gregorian, so the feast falls on 20 July. In our sky, the chariot is only a symbol: a gentle comet of light gliding over the mountain peak, a reminder of the way upward.
Flying across the sky: An ethereal, bluish-silver star figure made of luminous dots and fine lines, like a constellation: a blazing chariot shaped like a comet, with a soft tail of light, gliding across the sky above a mountain peak with a tiny chapel outlined in stars
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