If you visit Greece on Good Friday, you may witness or participate in a tradition that has ancient roots. People light candles from a central flame at church and carefully bring home the lit candle. This flame is considered to be especially sacred, purifying
If you visit Greece on Good Friday, you may witness or participate in a tradition that has ancient roots. People light candles from a central flame at church and carefully bring home the lit candle. This flame is considered to be especially sacred, purifying, and is guarded carefully until it is back home. This tradition has roots with Greek goddess Hestia.
Hestia's public hearths were kept in a meeting hall building called the prytaneion (also spelled prytaneum) or bouleterion; one of her titles was Hestia Bouleia, which derives from the word for "meeting hall." She was also believed to be present at any offering fire at all other temples, so she truly was a national deity in Greece.
Greek colonists would kindle fire from her hearth in the prytaneion and keep it lit in a lantern until they reached the hearths of new towns and cities or built their hearth at their new location. There is one of these at Olympia an