Palm Sunday - WikiHQ

Palm Sunday is the Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels. Its name originates from the palm branches waved by the crowd to greet and honor Jesus Christ as he entered the city. Palm Sunday marks the first day of Holy Week; in Western Christianity, this is the beginning of the last week of the solemn season of Lent, preceding Eastertide, while in Eastern Christianity, Holy Week commences after the conclusion of Great Lent.

In most Christian rites, Palm Sunday is celebrated by the blessing and distribution of palm branches (or the branches of other native trees), representing the palm branches that the crowd scattered before Christ as he rode into Jerusalem. These palms are sometimes woven into crosses. The difficulty of procuring palms in unfavorable climates led to the substitution of branches of native trees, including box, olive, willow, and yew.

Many churches of mainstream Christian denominations, including the Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran, Moravian, Reformed, Anglican and Methodist traditions, distribute palm branches to their congregations during their Palm Sunday liturgies. Christians take these palms, which are often blessed by clergy, to their homes, where they hang them alongside Christian art (especially crosses and crucifixes) or keep them in their Bibles and daily devotional books. In the days preceding the next year's Lent in Western Christianity, known as Carnival or Shrovetide, churches often place a basket in their narthex to collect these palms, which are then ritually burned on Shrove Tuesday to make the ashes to be used on the following day, Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of Lent. In Eastern Christianity, where Ash Wednesday is non-existent, it is typical to return the Palms the following Palm Sunday prior to receiving new Palms.

Biblical basis and symbolism

left|thumb|upright|[[Triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Russian icon (Cathedral of the Annunciation, Moscow)]]

In the accounts of the four canonical Gospels, Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem takes place a week before his resurrection. Only the Gospel of John shows a timeline of the event, dated six days before the Passover.

The raising of Lazarus is mentioned only by the Gospel of John, in the previous chapter. The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Eastern Catholic Churches which follows the Byzantine Rite, commemorate it on Lazarus Saturday, following the text of the Gospel. In fact, the Jewish calendar dates begin at sundown of the night beforehand, and conclude at nightfall.

The Gospel of Matthew states that this happened that the prophecy might be fulfilled of: Zechariah 9:9 "The Coming of Zion's King – See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey". It suggests that Jesus was declaring he was the King of Israel.

According to the Gospels, Jesus Christ rode on a donkey into Jerusalem, and the celebrating people there laid down their cloaks and small branches of trees in front of him, singing part of Psalm 118: 25–26 – Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord.

In many lands in the ancient Near East, it was customary to cover in some way the path of someone thought worthy of the highest honour. The Hebrew Bible reports that Jehu, son of Jehoshaphat, was treated this way. Both the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John report that people gave Jesus this form of honour. In the synoptics the people are described as laying their garments and cut rushes on the street, whereas John specifies fronds of palm (Greek phoinix). In Jewish tradition, the palm is one of the Four Species carried for Sukkot, as prescribed for rejoicing in Leviticus 23:40.

In the Greco-Roman culture of the Roman Empire, which strongly influenced Christian tradition, the palm branch was a symbol of triumph and victory. It became the most common attribute of the goddess Nike or Victoria. For contemporary Roman observers, the procession would have evoked the Roman triumph, when the triumphator laid down his arms and wore the toga, the civilian garment of peace that might be ornamented with emblems of the palm.

Although the Epistles of Paul refer to Jesus as "triumphing", the entry into Jerusalem may not have been regularly pictured as a triumphal procession in this sense before the 13th century. In ancient Egyptian religion, the palm was carried in funeral processions and represented eternal life. The martyr's palm was later used as a symbol of Christian martyrs and their spiritual victory or triumph over death. In Revelation 7:9, the white-clad multitude stand before the throne and Lamb holding palm branches.

Observance in the liturgy

thumb|upright|Churches may distribute [[Christian crosses woven from blessed palms on Palm Sunday, or Christians may make palm crosses out of the palms that are distributed during Palm Sunday Mass.]]

Eastern and Oriental Christianity

Palm Sunday, or the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem as it may be called in Orthodox Churches, is one of the Twelve Great Feasts of the liturgical year. The day before Palm Sunday, Lazarus Saturday, believers often prepare palm fronds by knotting them into crosses in preparation for the procession on Sunday. The hangings and vestments in the church are changed to a festive color – most commonly green.

The Troparion of the Feast (a short hymn) indicates that the resurrection of Lazarus is a prefiguration of Christ's Resurrection:

In the Russian Orthodox Church, Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Ukrainian Catholic Church, Eastern Lutheran Churches, Ruthenian Catholic Church, Polish, Bavarian and Austrian Roman Catholics, and various other Eastern European peoples, the custom developed of using pussy willow and other twigs like box tree instead of palm fronds because the latter are not readily available that far north. There is no canonical requirement as to what kind of branches must be used, so some Orthodox believers use olive branches.

Whatever the kind, these branches are blessed and distributed together with candles either during the All-Night Vigil on the Eve of the Feast (Saturday night), or before the Divine Liturgy on Sunday morning. The Great Entrance of the Divine Liturgy commemorates the "Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem", so the meaningfulness of this moment is punctuated on Palm Sunday as everyone stands, holding their branches and lit candles. The faithful take these branches and candles home with them after the liturgy, and keep them in their icon corner as an evloghia (blessing).

In Russia, donkey walk processions took place in different cities, but most importantly in Novgorod and, from 1558 until 1693, in Moscow. These were prominently featured in testimonies by foreign witnesses and mentioned in contemporary Western maps of the city. The Patriarch of Moscow, representing Christ, rode on a "donkey", actually a horse draped in white cloth. The Tsar of Russia humbly led the procession on foot. Originally, Moscow processions began inside the Kremlin and terminated at Trinity Church, now known as Saint Basil's Cathedral. In 1658 Patriarch Nikon reversed the order of procession. Peter I in the 1720s, as a part of his nationalisation of the church, terminated the custom. It has been occasionally recreated in the 21st century.

In Oriental Orthodox churches, palm fronds are distributed at the front of the church at the sanctuary steps. In India the sanctuary itself is strewn with marigolds, and the congregation proceeds through and outside the church.

File:Wjatscheslaw Grigorjewitsch Schwarz 002.jpg|Palm Sunday procession, Moscow, with Tsar Alexei Michaelovich (painting by Vyacheslav Schwarz, 1865)

File:Engraving of Red Square & Kremlin (Moscow, 1654).jpg|The Palm procession in Moscow, 1654, showing the original rite of the Russian church with a donkey walk

File:Palm sunday.JPG|Orthodox congregation in India collects palm fronds for procession: men on left of sanctuary in the photo; women collecting fronds on right of sanctuary, outside photo.

File:Цвети, улазак Христа у Јерусалим (Church fresco - Triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Bitola).jpg|Eastern Orthodox fresco in Nativity of the Theotokos Church, Bitola, Republic of North Macedonia

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Western Christianity

right|thumb|516x516px|An [[Lutheranism|Evangelical-Lutheran Palm Sunday Mass in a congregation of the Church of Sweden. Due to the cold climate in the Nordic countries, Pussy Willow has traditionally been used as a substitute for palm fronds for decoration and processions.]]

In ancient times, palm branches symbolized goodness and victory. They were often depicted on coins and important buildings. Solomon had palm branches carved into the walls and doors of the temple. Again at the end of the Bible, people from every nation raise palm branches to honor Jesus.

Palm Sunday commemorates the entrance of Christ into Jerusalem, during which palm branches were placed in his path, before his arrest on Holy Thursday and his crucifixion on Good Friday. It thus marks the beginning of Holy Week, the final week of Lent.

In churches of many Christian denominations, members of the congregation, oftentimes children, are given palms that they carry as they walk in a procession around the inside of the church. In the Church of Pakistan, a united Protestant Church, the faithful on Palm Sunday carry palm branches into the church as they sing Psalm 24. A robust hymnody has developed for Palm Sunday, including "Hosanna, Loud Hosanna", "Ride On, Ride On in Majesty!", "All Glory, Laud and Honour", "Palms of Victory", and "Hark the glad sound! the Saviour comes".

In the Roman Catholic Church, as well as among many Lutheran and Anglican congregations, palm fronds (or in colder climates some kind of substitutes) are blessed with holy water outside the church building (or in cold climates in the narthex when Easter falls early in the year) in an event called the Blessing of the Palms. A solemn procession of the entire congregation takes place immediately after the blessing of the palms, called the Palm procession.

In the Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican traditions, this feast now coincides with that of Passion Sunday, which is the focus of the Mass which follows the procession. The Catholic Church considers the blessed palms to be sacramentals. The vestments for the day are deep scarlet red, the colour of blood, indicating the supreme redemptive sacrifice Christ was entering the city to make, to fulfill his passion and resurrection in Jerusalem.

In the Lutheran Churches, as well as in the Episcopal/Anglican churches, the day is officially called The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday; in practice, though, it is usually termed Palm Sunday as in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer and in earlier Lutheran liturgies and calendars, to avoid undue confusion with the penultimate Sunday of Lent in the traditional calendar, which was Passion Sunday.

In traditional usage of the Methodist Church, The Book of Worship for Church and Home (1965) provides the following Collect for Palm Sunday: