The village of Vrontados in Cios

Vrontados is a town located on the eastern side of Chios, at a distance of 4 kilometers north of the capital of the island. The inhabitants of the village are known for their good relations with science, trade and, above all, with shipping.

According to legend, Columbus visited the village to study nautical charts and consult with experienced sailors, many of whom later joined his great voyage to discover America.

Vrontados is also one of the cities that claim the origin of Homer and on the northern side of the harbor there is a rock called “Homer’s Rock” where, according to tradition, the poet sat reciting and teaching his epics.

Important attractions of the village are the four windmills and the monument of the Unknown Sailor standing next to the sea, the folklore museum of the Philanthropic Group, as well as the monument of the great Greek linguist and writer Yiannis Psycharis which is located just outside of Vrontados.

One of the best-known Easter customs in all of Greece takes place here, with members of the parish of Agios Markos and members of the parish of Panagia Erythiani throwing rockets trying to hit the bell tower of each other’s church, resulting in the sight of it is impressive.

Easter in Vrontados and the Rocket wars

The custom of the Rocket War in Vrontados has its roots in the last decades of the Turkish occupation. The parishioners of the two opposite churches, Agios Markos and Panagia Erythiani, exchanged cannon shots on the night of the Resurrection.

These were brought by sailors from merchant ships, which were being decommissioned. They set them up in the courtyards of the churches, they filled them with 1-2 ocades of coarse gunpowder and from there they weighed at the time of the Resurrection, trying to break the windows of the people across the street with the bang.

In 1889, the bloodshed got so hot, that they started removing the stones from the yards and filling the cannons to attack the “enemy” with pebbles. The Turks, seeing this, confiscated the canons, fearing a general uprising of Chios.

The confiscation made the residents of Vrontados to devise new ways of expressing the resurgent “quarrel”. The solution was provided by a pyrotechnician who remembered the recipe some Italians had given him and suggested the rockets.

The parishioners of Agios Markos brought some rockets to Vrontados, as a result of which their reputation spread and the parishioners of Panagia also learned about it.

This is how they ended up on the night of the Resurrection targeting the bell tower of Panagia Erythiani and the dome and the lion of Saint Mark. In the first years, the rockets were supplied by the same pyrotechnician who had the idea, but then they found the pyrotechnician’s way of making them and made them themselves.

The launch was initially made from the tiles of the two churches. The accidents that occurred from time to time obliged the rocketeers to descend from the tiled roofs and scatter in positions with a visual field around the two parishes. Since then the custom has been held every year, with a short break during the period of the Occupation and the first three years of the Dictatorship.