Category:Greek Paschal Lamb

The traditional services and customs of Orthodox Easter are inevitably linked with both fasting and festive foods. When the Christians began to celebrate Pascha, they retained some of the features of the Jewish Passover, such as eating lamb, which is one of the most common Christian symbols especially associated with Pascha.

The early Christians associated the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb with Christ's sacrifice on the cross. They connected the joyous Passover festival, which commemmorates the liberation of the Hebrews from their years of bondage in Egypt, with the liberation from death represented by the Resurrection of Christ as the Lamb of God (Greek: ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, amnos tou theou), a title for Jesus Christ that appears in the Gospel of John (John 1:29). Thus the Lamb of God was related to the Paschal Lamb of Passover.

The popularity of lamb as an Easter food among Greek Orthodox is related to its long-standing historical importance as this symbol.

A similar, however different practice, involves the offerings of lambs as "Kourbania" votive offerings to the Holy Trinity, the Virgin, or to certain saints.