palm sunday

So, one might wonder why a nice Jewish boy like me is posting something about Palm Sunday and Easter on his blog. Especially given that his blog is named after part of the Passover liturgy and it is, right now, Passover. It doesn't really matter. My passover piece is in the works. But it doesn't involve parades or popes or incense or anything nearly as exciting as this morning's Coptic Palm Sunday Celebration.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is built where, according to the Catholic and various Orthodox Churches, Jesus was crucified and buried and where he came back to life a little less than 2000 years ago. It is an exciting place to be on Easter. But given that the Western and Eastern Churches use different calculations to compute the date of Easter, when I thought it I was going to see Easter Celebrations, I actually happened in on the Coptic Archbishop of Jerusalem and his Palm Sunday procession around the shrine which used to be the cave (the cave itself was removed in order to build the church). The Copts are an Egyptian group who broke off from the rest of the church in the 400s CE (long before the reformation). The Coptic Pope lives in Alexandria, Egypt.



The whole experience was beautiful, full of incense, pendants, robes of every imaginable color and monks of every imaginable size and style. It was different from any Catholic event I've been too. It felt more chaotic and less sterile. The Archbishop wore sunglasses (and a crown, he's pictured to the right). People wailed and cheered and cried as they reached out to touch the marchers and received olive sprigs and palm fronds in return. Other spectators held up their splendidly dressed babies and sang along to the hymns.

It was really interesting to get to watch Easter (well pre-Easter really) commemorated in the place where that particular miracle is supposed to have happened. My roommate and I were swept up in the power of the moment and stayed watching it unfold around us for almost and hour. Then we left, walked through the Old City for a while and finally bought kosher-for-passover ice cream.