Palm Sunday, celebrated by Romanian Orthodox and Greek-Catholic believers

Palm Sunday, Floriile in Romanian, is a Christian feast with no exact date, always celebrated on the last Sunday before Easter. On the sixth Sunday of the Orthodox Lent, also known as Palm Sunday, the Church celebrates the day Jesus entered Jerusalem while pilgrims welcomed  him with palm branches.

Palm Sunday opens the week for Easter preparations, the so-called Holy Week, after the 40 days of fasting. On that Sunday Christian can eat fish, being the second dispensation of Lent, after the one from the Annunciation (Buna Vestire).

On this special Sunday, people who go to church in Romania return home with blessed willow branches and hang them on the doors or gates or on icons in the house. Some say that who wears the willow branches as a belt will not suffer of loin aches or who eats three catkins will not have throat aches all year long.

They believe that it’s bad luck to give up these willow branches until the next year. People put them on fruit trees to help believing this will make trees fruit. Therefore, they plant trees before Palm Sunday so that they will not remain fruitless. Willow branches from Palm Sunday are considered symbols of fertility and spring vegetation.

Some beekeepers decorate their hives with sanctified willow branches. Thus they believe that bees will be more diligent and make more honey.

The elders say that if it’s sunny on Palm Sunday, Easter will be as sunny. And if you hear the frogs singing until Palm Sunday, that summer will be nice and warm, but full of rain and abundant.

This year, the procession on Palm Sunday in Bucharest was held on Saturday, April 23, probably due to the rainy day of Sunday. The procession went on the following route: Radu Voda monastery-Mararesti Boulevard-Dimitrie Cantemir Boulevard-Bibescu Voda street-Serban Voda- St. Spirison Nou metropolitan cathedral-the Patriarchal Cathedral.

Flower names

On Palm Sunday, nearly 1.54million Romanians celebrate their name day.

Women have flower-derived names such as: Viorica (142,248), Florentina (131,788), Florica (89,712), Camelia (73,950), Violeta (57,924), Margareta (48,686), Delia (35,331), Lacramioara (31,496), Crina (20,301), Narcisa (15,227), Micsunica (603), Panseluta (443).

The same onomastic diversity is found among men, most of them having the name of Florin (340,458), Viorel (144,012), Florian (54,343), Florentin (25,746), Narcis (14,572), Bujor (1,502), Ghiocel (1,185) or Floricel (926).