Leading Up to Easter - Serbian Customs Related to Palm Sunday

Many people had come out for the arrival of the Lord, triumphantly, like a king, entering Jerusalem. Who, at that time, did not cry out: Hosanna to the Son of David!

(Saint Theophan the Recluse)

The holiday which commemorates Jesus Christ’s arrival in Jerusalem, Palm Sunday, is among the greatest of Christian holidays and is dedicated to the remembrance of the event of Christ’s triumphant entry into the city in which he was ultimately crucified and killed for the sake of our salvation. All four of the gospels describe this event. The holiday is also known as Vrbica, since the custom of sanctifying palm branches on that day is replaced with doing the same to willow (vrba) branches in the Serbian custom.

The customs surrounding Palm Sunday are rooted in the distant past, as far back as the 3^rd century. In this earliest of periods we see the first lessons concerning that day come from the pen of Saint Methodius, the bishop of Patara. In the 6^th century, according to the testimony of Epiphanius of Cyprus, this holiday came to be celebrated very ceremoniously. Theophanius and  Nikifor Ksanfopul celebrated this holiday with songs that are sung in the Orthodox church to this very day.

Leading up to this holiday, there are evening services held in churches and the liturgy is performed with palm or willow branches. The branches are sanctified on Sunday during the morning service and they are sprinkled with holy water. The branches are kept throughout the year beside the icon of the household Saint.

Mothers dress their children in their best clothing on Palm Sunday, even the youngest, and take them to church where they buy them little bells hung on a Serbian flag ribbon (trobojka) which they place around their necks.

The custom for girls and young women to go out into fields and pick flowers before Palm Sunday is found throughout Serbia: chrysanthemums so that they might be pretty and grow, cornels so that they might be strong, violets so that they might be fragrant and attractive, and willow branches so that they might prosper. These flowers are not taken into the home, but left outside in a water filled dish over night. Sometimes the flowers are placed in the water along with gold and silver rings, and the children later wash their faces with that water.

In Serbia it is still sometimes customary for young women to go out on Palm Sunday adorned with flowers, and for young men to create bouquets from picked flowers where each flower has a particular significance, giving them to the girl that they love. The young woman can then discern the young man’s feelings through the number and type of flowers she receives.

In the Šumadija region, young men and women gather at crossroads and playgrounds to give each other flowers. They play and laugh but do not dance or sing, since it is still the fasting period.

Palm Sunday is also observed in Serbia as a national holiday, since on that day in 1815 Miloš Obredović, the leader of the Second Serbian Uprising, roused the people to rebel against the Turks in front of the Takovo village church.