Orthodox Christian families honour the memory of deceased loved ones with a special dish called koliva. This ritual, common in the Balkans (especially Greece) and Russia, employs the whole grain of the wheat plant to symbolize everlasting life. These starchy “berries” give koliva a firm bite and subtly nutty, earthy flavour.

Mourning families prepare the dish by adding raisins, which represent life’s sweetness, as well as spices like cinnamon and anise as symbols of plenty. They then mix in some combination of sesame seeds, almonds, parsley, pomegranate seeds, honey, Jordan almonds, and ground walnuts. Topping the commemorative dish is a blanket of confectioner’s sugar, to represent resurrection and abundance. A cross often graces the top, sometimes accompanied by the initials of the deceased.

Scholars believe koliva dates back to the early years of Christianity, but some medieval manuscripts assign the dish divine origins. A 14th-century Byzantine Greek service book includes a story in which the pagan Roman emperor Julian sought to undermine Lent by contaminating Constantinople’s food supply with animal blood. Saint Theodore came to the rescue, revealing the recipe for koliva to an archbishop in a dream and thus saving Christians from eating unholy food.

An artos (Ancient Greek: ἄρτος, "leavened loaf", "bread") is a loaf of leavened bread that is blessed during services in the Eastern Orthodox and Greek Orthodox churches. A large Artos is baked with a seal depicting the resurrection for use at Pascha (Easter). Smaller loaves are blessed during great vespers in a ritual called Artoklasia (the term means “breaking of bread”), and in other occasions like feast days, weddings, memorial services.