This video is amazing, spectacular, and dangerous all at the same time. It shows two churches on the Greek island of Chios staging their traditional rocket war – literally firing thousands of home-made fireworks at each other.
Why do they do this? The tradition supposedly began in 1889 when the Ottoman occupiers confiscated their cannon balls. So the churches’ congregations fired rockets instead. As you would.
Now, every Easter, the churches still fire up to 50,000 rockets at each other with the aim of hitting the opposing church’s bell tower. More bizarrely, there are actually people in the churches at the time. Rather them than me.
Maybe this tradition should spread. Maybe it should become an inter-denominational event, with Catholics against Protestants, Muslims against Jews, and Atheists fighting all of them at once. It would sure beat real religious war.
