Palm Sunday (Tsvetnitsa)
5 April 2026 · movable holiday — Happy Palm Sunday! May your home bloom with health and peace.
Palm Sunday, called Tsvetnitsa in Bulgaria, falls on the Sunday one week before Easter. The Orthodox Church remembers the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem, when people welcomed Jesus Christ with branches and cheers. In the Middle East these were palm branches. Palms do not grow in Bulgaria, so willow branches are used instead. They are blessed in church and given to the faithful. Many people keep them at home near the icons, and doors and yards are decorated with wreaths of willow and flowers. On this day, people whose names come from flowers celebrate their name day, for example Tsvetan, Tsveta, Violeta, Lilia and Margarita. The feast comes after Lazarus Saturday, when girls once went from house to house as the lazarki (young girls singing ritual songs for health and good harvest). Palm Sunday is a movable feast. Its date depends on Easter, which is set by a rule tied to the full moon after the spring equinox. The Orthodox Church, however, counts the equinox by the old Julian calendar, so the feast often falls later than the Catholic one. So the feast follows both the sun and the moon.
Flying across the sky: An ethereal, bluish-silver willow branch made of pale glowing dots and thin lines, like a constellation drifting slowly across the night sky, with small catkins sparkling along its length
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