H/T Moinillon, where if you can read French, the comments are pretty interesting... Apparently at one time in Greece such was common as well.
Needless to say, in Syria such a gathering of Muslims would be discouraged by the state.... with extreme prejudice.
And who says Orthodox customs from the old world couldn't catch on with the average American?
ReplyDeleteThis is common in parts of Romania as well. Certainly where I come from.
ReplyDeleteI remember being a little kid in Crete celebrating Pascha at a monastery on a mountainside, and hearing the gunshots of the villagers in the valley below.
ReplyDeleteI was also just watching a documentary of Pascha on Mt. Athos, and the local police officers and traditional guards also fire their guns there!
Needless to say, none of those groups packed as much firepower as the one in Lattakia. I hope those were blanks that they were firing ... that would be an awful amount of lead in a small confined space!