Supermodel Heidi Klum Celebrates Greek Easter

On Sunday, Heidi Klum shared her celebrations marking Easter in Greece, very much in the Greek style, on her Instagram account.

The German American supermodel, television host, and businesswoman shared a video on social media where she can be seen playing the traditional tsougrisma game with brightly colored red Easter eggs.

As a predominately Orthodox nation, Greece celebrated Easter later than most other denominations this year. Clearly, the vibrant Easter traditions celebrated by Greek Orthodox Christians appealed to Heidi Klum, who shared them on her widely followed social media account.

Heidi Klum celebrates Easter the Greek way

Klum shared her Greek-themed Easter celebrations on her Instagram account, which has over 10.7 million followers.

The famous model can be seen playing tsougrisma, a traditional game played by Greeks at Easter. Each player will take up a brightly colored egg and tap it against the other player’s egg. The winner is the person whose egg emerges undamaged.

On Sunday, Klum’s egg proved stronger and she won the light-hearted game that she was playing with another woman who appeared in the video.

Klum also posted a picture in which she can be seen posing in front of a Greek flag. In fact, the white and blue could be seen in almost every picture and video that was posted, as the Greek flag was ever present in the foreground.

The Greek Easter egg tradition

The Greek Orthodox Easter tradition in which Klum participated has a long and interesting history spanning centuries. Beyond the fun that it brings to the Easter occasion, the tradition possesses a strong religious and spiritual meaning.

Traced back to the early Christians of Mesopotamia, the custom of painting eggs red—in memory of the blood of Christ shed at His crucifixion—spread into Eastern Europe and Siberia through the Orthodox Churches, and later into Western Europe through the Catholic and Protestant Churches.

The egg in itself is a symbol, as its hard shell represents the sealed tomb of Jesus—the cracking of which symbolizes His resurrection from the dead and exit from the tomb.

In Greece, egg cracking, or tsougrisma (τσούγκρισμα in Greek), starts after the Resurrection Service and continues the following day at the Greek Easter feast.

The red painted eggs are tapped against each other and cracked together between two people as they exchange the traditional Easter greeting “Christos anesti!” (“Christ has risen”)—“Alithos anesti!” (“He Truly Has”).

Each player holds a red egg, and one taps the end of their egg against the end of the other player’s egg. The goal is to crack the opponent’s egg without cracking yours, of course.

The rule is that you start with the same ends, point to point. When one end is cracked, the winner uses the same end of their egg to try to crack the other undamaged end of the opponent’s egg.

It then all comes down to whichever egg remains undamaged. The player who successfully cracks the eggs of the other players is declared the winner and, it is said, will have good luck during the year.