Easter in Cyprus 2027 and 2028: dates, customs, holidays

When Easter is in Cyprus and why the date differs

The Deputy Ministry of Tourism publishes the movable holidays several years in advance. According to its list, Orthodox Easter Sunday is on 2 May in 2027 and on 16 April in 2028; Western Easter falls on 28 March in 2027 and also on 16 April in 2028. So the gap is not always one week, as it was in 2026: in 2027 it is five weeks, and in 2028 both churches celebrate on the same day.

The rule is the same for both. In 325 the Council of Nicaea laid down that Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring. The Orthodox Church, however, continues to calculate this date according to the Julian calendar, even where the Gregorian calendar has long been used in everyday life; Greece, for instance, adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1923 for civil use only, as the Apostoliki Diakonia of the Church of Greece explains. In December 2024 Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew called for Easter to be celebrated together in future according to the Julian calculation, and described the shared date in 2025 as more than a coincidence of the calendar.

The other days follow from the date of Easter. In 2027 Palm Sunday is on 25 April, Good Friday on 30 April, Easter Monday on 3 May and Whit Monday on 21 June; in 2028 they are 9 April, 14 April, 17 April and 5 June. Green Monday, which marks the start of Lent, falls on 15 March in 2027 and on 28 February in 2028.

Public holidays, banks and school holidays

According to the Deputy Ministry of Tourism's list, the public holidays are Green Monday, Good Friday, Easter Monday and Whit Monday. On these days public offices and banks are closed. For shops the shop opening hours law applies: general shops stay closed on Easter Sunday, Easter Monday, 1 May and Whit Monday, may open until 18:00 on Good Friday, and the law does not require them to close on Green Monday. Over Easter the major archaeological sites and museums are closed only on Easter Sunday.

Easter Tuesday is not on the Deputy Ministry of Tourism's list of public holidays and is not a closing day for shops; banks, however, are closed, and OSEA runs its holiday timetable. For 2027 the Central Bank lists 15 March, 30 April, 3 and 4 May and 21 June as bank holidays around Easter; 1 May falls on a Saturday in 2027. Primary schools have their Easter holidays in 2027 from 26 April to 7 May, that is from the Monday of Holy Week to the Friday after Easter (Ministry of Education).

Shopping and buses at Easter

When shops may open is governed by the shop opening hours law of 2006. In the ten days before Easter, general shops may open daily from 05:00 to 20:00, and on Good Friday and Holy Saturday from 05:00 to 18:00. On Easter Sunday and Easter Monday they remain closed, as they do on 1 May and on Whit Monday. The law's opening hours do not apply to restaurants and hotels as far as they serve or accommodate guests on their premises.

In 2027 there is a special case: 1 May is also Holy Saturday. Under the law, 1 May is observed as a public holiday even if it falls within the ten days before Easter. When this happened once before, in 2021, the Ministry of Labour declared that shops would be closed, according to a Cyprus Mail report. If you are spending Easter 2027 in a holiday apartment, it is therefore best to do your shopping by Good Friday.

For tourist zones, the Ministry of Labour can allow different hours by decree, including for Easter Sunday. The most recent decree for the Famagusta district that we found dates from 2015 and included Sotira, Agia Napa, Paralimni, Deryneia, Liopetri and Frenaros; however, it applied only from 13 May to 30 November of that year. Whether such a rule will apply for Easter 2027 was not known in November 2026.

On public holidays, OSEA buses run to the Saturday and Sunday timetable. OSEA counts Green Monday, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Easter Tuesday, 1 May and Whit Monday among these days. Information is available on the freephone number 8000 5200.

Holy Week up to the Resurrection

It begins with Palm Sunday, which in Cyprus is also called the Sunday of the Olive Branch: every family brings olive branches to church. There are evening services throughout Holy Week. On Holy Thursday the Easter eggs are dyed red, traditionally with the dye root rizari, with beetroot juice or with poppies, and in the evening the long Passion service is sung, during which the twelve Gospels are read.

On the morning of Good Friday the crucified Christ is taken down from the cross, and the Epitaphios, the symbolic tomb, is decorated with spring flowers. In the evening the congregation sings the Enkomia, the lamentations, and at around 20:30 the Epitaphios is carried through the streets to the tolling of funeral bells. On the morning of Holy Saturday comes the first Resurrection, at which the priest scatters bay leaves over the faithful.

Around midnight the Resurrection is celebrated in the open air. The lights go out, and with the call “Δεύτε λάβετε φως”, come and receive the light, the flame is passed from candle to candle, and the bells ring again. People greet one another with “Χριστός Ανέστη”, Christ is risen, and reply “Αληθώς Ανέστη ο Κύριος”; the greeting is used for forty days. In the churchyard the Lambratzia then burns, the Easter bonfire for which children have been collecting wood all week. An effigy of Judas is burned in it, and the fire burns until the morning of Easter Sunday. Afterwards, at home, there are Flaounes and a warm soup.

Flaounes, red eggs and the Easter table

Flaounes are pastries with a filling of cheese, eggs, raisins and mint; the dough is brushed with egg and sprinkled with sesame. There is a special flaouna cheese for the filling, which rises during baking and hardly melts (Visit Cyprus). The national inventory of intangible cultural heritage also lists sourdough, mahlepi, mastic and cinnamon for the filling. The sources disagree on the baking day: Visit Cyprus gives Holy Thursday, the inventory Holy Saturday; they are eaten after the Resurrection.

After the midnight service, families knock the red eggs against each other. The shell stands for the sealed tomb, the red colour for the blood of Christ. Easter baking includes the Avkotes, sesame rings with a red egg, and on Easter Sunday roast lamb comes to the table.

Easter games and Easter in Sotira

On the afternoons of Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, and in some places on the Tuesday too, villages gather for the traditional Easter games, usually on the village square or in the churchyard: egg-and-spoon races, sack races, donkey races or Ditzimin, the lifting of heavy stones. The games have been on the national inventory of intangible cultural heritage since 2017. In the Famagusta district, the Deputy Ministry of Tourism's events calendar lists Agia Napa, Frenaros, Paralimni, Deryneia and Dasaki Achnas.

In Sotira, Palm Sunday is one of the two major feast days of the new Church of the Transfiguration of the Saviour, the other being 6 August (Visit Famagusta). In 2027 Palm Sunday falls on 25 April. On Easter Monday 2018 Easter games were held in the courtyard of the same church under the auspices of the then municipality of Sotira. What else Sotira looks like and which churches it has is described in the guide to Sotira; trips to the neighbouring villages are covered in the guide to the Kokkinochoria.

New from 2027 is a programme by the Deputy Ministry of Tourism: in ten municipalities or communities along the Heartland of Legends route, there are to be Easter programmes from Holy Thursday to the Sunday after Easter, with traditional Easter food and handicrafts, the decorating of the Epitaphios and Easter games. The places have yet to be selected; the ministry intends to announce the conditions and the application procedure later.

Kataklysmos: Pentecost by the sea

Fifty days after Easter, Cyprus celebrates Pentecost with a festival that, according to the Deputy Ministry of Tourism, exists only here: Kataklysmos, the flood, a reference to the Flood in Genesis and the myth of Deucalion. According to the national inventory of intangible cultural heritage, the name also goes back to the custom of splashing one another with water. It is celebrated in the coastal towns with games, folk dances, swimming competitions and boat races; the largest festival lasts six days in Larnaca. Near Sotira, Agia Napa celebrates at the harbour and Paralimni in the Protaras area.

In 2027 Whit Monday is on 21 June, in 2028 on 5 June; both days are public holidays. The organising municipalities publish the programme and dates each year. If you would like to spend Easter or Pentecost 2027 in Suite 203: the apartment is expected to be ready for occupancy in March 2027, and you can already send us the dates you have in mind.