Page:EB1911 - Volume 20.djvu/707

 procession in commemoration of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. In the Western Church, Palm Sunday is counted as the first day of Holy Week, and its ceremonies usher in the series of services, culminating in those of Good Friday, which commemorate the Passion of the Lord.

The ceremonies on Palm Sunday as celebrated now in the Roman Catholic Church are divided in three distinct parts: (1) The solemn blessing of the palms, (2) the procession, (3) the mass.

In the Orthodox Eastern Church Palm Sunday ( or , or  ) is not included in Holy Week, but is regarded as a joyous festival commemorating Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. There is no longer a procession; but the palms (in Russia willow twigs) are blessed, and are held by the worshippers during the service.

The earliest extant account of a liturgical celebration of Palm Sunday is that given in the Peregrinatio Silviae (Eleutheriae), which dates from the 4th century and contains a detailed account of the Holy Week ceremonies at Jerusalem by a Spanish lady of rank:—

This celebration would seem to have been long established at Jerusalem, and there is evidence that in the 4th and 5th centuries it had already been copied in other parts of the East. In the West, however, it was not introduced until much later. To Pope Leo I. (d. 461) the present Dominica palmarum was known as Dominica passionis, Passion Sunday, and the Western Church treated it as a day, not of rejoicing, but of mourning. The earliest record in the West of the blessing of the palms and the subsequent procession is the liber ordinum of the West Gothic Church (published by Férotin, Paris, 1904, pp. 178 sqq.), which dates from the 6th century; this shows plainly that the ceremonial of the procession had been borrowed from Jerusalem. As to how far, and at what period, it became common there is very little evidence. For England, the earliest record is the mention by Aldhelm, bishop of Sherborne (d. 709), in his De laudibus virginitatis (cap. 30, Migne Patrol. Lat. 89, p. 128), of a sacrosancta palmarum solemnitas, which probably means a procession, since he speaks of the Benedictus qui venit, &c., being sung antiphonally. As the middle ages advanced the procession became more and more popular and increasingly a dramatic representation of the triumphal progress of Christ, the bishop riding on an ass or horse, as in the East. Flowers, too, were blessed, as well as palms and willow, and carried in the procession (hence the names pascha floridum, dominica florum et ramorum les pâques fleuries).

Of the reformed churches, the Church of England alone includes Palm Sunday in the Holy Week celebrations. The blessing of the palms and the procession were, however, abolished at the Reformation, and the name “Palm Sunday,” though it survives in popular usage, is not mentioned in the Book of Common Prayer. The intention of the compilers of the Prayer-book seems to have been to restore the “Sunday next before Easter,” as it is styled, to its earlier Western character of Passion Sunday, the second lesson at matins (Matt. xxvi. 5) and the special collect. Epistle (Phil. ii. 5) and Gospel (Matt. xxvii. 1) at the celebration of Holy Communion all dwelling on the humiliation and passion of Christ, with no reference to the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The modern revival, in certain churches of an “advanced” type, of the ceremonies of blessing the palms and carrying them in procession has no official warrant, and is therefore without any significance as illustrating the authoritative point of view of the Church of England.

Of the Lutheran churches only that of Brandenburg seems to have kept the Palm Sunday procession for a while. This was prescribed by the Church order (Kirchenordnung) of 1540, but without the ceremony of blessing the palms; it was abolished by the revised Church order of 1572.

PALMYRA, the Greek and Latin name of a famous city of the East, now a mere collection of Arab hovels, but still an object of interest on account of its wonderful ruins. In 2 Chron.