I became a catechumen in the Orthodox Church on the first Sunday of Great Lent, known as the Sunday of Orthodoxy. I was instructed by my spiritual father that my catechesis from then until Pascha would be simply attending the services and learning by participating. I probably attended almost forty services during that time, from the Canon of Saint Andrew — where we make prostration after prostration, asking for the Lord’s mercy — to Presanctified liturgies, to all the services of Holy Week. The amount of time I spent face down, prostrate in reverence before the Lord, was remarkable to me. It was spiritually and physically demanding, and claimed a lot of the time on my schedule.

Palm Sunday marked the beginning of Holy Week, and I can tell you that it was a mystical experience for me. As we sang the Troparion of Lazarus Saturday/Palm Sunday, and processed, something fascinating happened. I truly felt like I was there, at the actual Palm Sunday. I felt like I was in the crowd preparing for his entrance into Jerusalem. It was an amazing experience, but I can’t really explain it.

This video shows some of the festivities from an Orthodox church on Palm Sunday. It was definitely one of the most interesting services I attended, and the video captures some of the beauty of that day.