Pirovasia: Fire Walking in Greece
May 21 · Level 8 · #669 of 2238
Pirovasia is a Greek fire-walking ritual in which participants carry icons and walk barefoot across glowing embers to the sound of music. It is linked to the feast of Saints Constantine and Helen, marked on 21 May.
How it is celebrated: in a few villages of northern Greece, notably Agia Eleni near Serres, dancers move to the lyra and drum before stepping onto the embers.
The tradition came to Greece with refugees from Eastern Thrace, who resettled in the north after the population exchange of the 1920s and brought their icons and customs from the Bulgarian village of Kosti.