The Lord's Entry into Jerusalem: Palm Sunday, Hand-painted Bulgarian icon. Material - wood, tempera. Condition - very good. Palm Sunday is a moving Christian, religious and folk holiday that is celebrated in both the Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant churches a week before Easter, on the Sunday after Lazarus Day. It is also called Vrabnitsa, Flower Sunday, Vaia (Vaya), Kuklinden or (in Western churches) Palm Sunday. It falls on the sixth Sunday of Lent On this day, the Christian church celebrates the entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem in the days before the Jewish Passover. According to the New Testament gospels, Christ arrives in the city on a donkey, and the faithful greet him by spreading their clothes and olive branches before him. After resurrecting Lazarus, the brother of the sisters Martha and Mary, who had spent four days in the grave, Jesus Christ went to Jerusalem. When he approached the city with the disciples accompanying him and reached Bethphage, he sent two of them to go to the village and bring him the donkey and her foals tied at the beginning of the village, and if anyone asked them why they were doing it, they said that is necessary. of the Lord. When they realized that the donkey was for Christ, no one stopped them. He mounted her and thus solemnly entered Jerusalem. The news of the resurrection of Lazarus had already reached him, and a thousand people went to Bethany to meet him. People, seeing in Jesus Christ the Savior, ecstatically waved palm branches and threw flowers at his feet. They all sang, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the king of Israel. The Pharisees commanded Christ to forbid people to rejoice, to which He replied: "I tell you that if they keep silent, the stones will cry out." The procession proceeded from the height of the Mount of Olives to the temple. Christ drove out the peasants and the buyers of various goods gathered in his yard, and performed many healings of the sick and infirm. On this day, a prayer service is held in the church and willow branches are blessed. They are distributed to the faithful and everyone takes them home for health. The gates are decorated with willow branches and a wreath is woven from a willow consecrated in the church. The willow branches symbolize the palms with which Jesus Christ was welcomed in Jerusalem. On this day, which is in the fasting period, fish is allowed.