Palm Sunday (Romanian Orthodox-style)

Despite growing up and spending my whole life Christian, it wasn't until I lived in Argentina that I realized Easter was supposed to be a week long celebration. I had heard of Palm Sunday and Good Friday, but really had no idea what they were. Maybe my church just didn't emphasize the idea of Holy Week enough, or my parents just weren't the celebrating kind. Perhaps I didn't pay enough attention in Sunday School. What seems all the more likely though is that South Americans tend to take religious holidays and ceremonies way more seriously than their North American counterparts. Whatever the reason, I decided this year that we should take the week a little bit more seriously, seeing how for most of the Christian world, it's the most important holiday on the calender.

Christ Entering Jerusalem Icon

Since my religious background didn't really provide me with many Holy Week traditions, I decided to co-opt some from Orthodox Christianity. Since getting to visit Sarajevo, Belgrade, and various cities in Romania, I've been very impressed with their cathedrals--especially the artwork. As an American more accustomed with Catholicism and Protestant traditions, there is something that seems genuinely foreign and yet familiar about it all. Separating the altar and the nave of most Orthodox churches is an iconostasis, which contains a series of icons commemorating Christ, the Theotokos (also known as the Virgin Mary), Old Testament patriarchs, the twelve apostles, and various feast days (including several from Holy Week). A typical Orthodox home will also have an icon corner set apart to display similar images. So I first got into the spirit of things by printing out several icons from the internet and making my own little icon corner. (And just in case anyone thinks this is idolatry of some sort, it's not. In my church, no one seems to have a problem with having pictures of Jesus or other religious figures around the house. But most of these are modern, and for some reason I connect more with those in a more Byzantine style).

Though Palm Sunday is typically the first day of Holy Week for most Western Christians, in the Eastern traditions it will start on Saturday, where they remember Christ raising Lazarus from the dead. So we actually started our celebration last night. I read John 11 outline and then we listened to a short thematic hymn, called a troparion, on the topic of Lazarus and Palm Sunday.  

For more information on Orthodox Christianity, try Orthodox Wiki.

Since there are several countries where Orthodox Christians are the main group, it was kind of tricky to decide what to have for dinner, since it could run anywhere between Russia and Greece. I decided to cook some traditional Romanian food (though not necessarily traditional food for Palm Sunday). I've been to Romania twice, once to visit the town where my grandfather was born near Lugoj and then again on a week-long tour of Transylvania. But when I was in Lugoj, I just ate at a pizzeria (but it was super cheap) and when I was in Transylvania we mostly just ate Hungarian food. So I had to do some Internet sleuthing to come up with our menu for the evening, which ultimately ended up being Mămăligă cu smântână (Polenta with sour cream), Fasole cu cârnaţi (baked beans and sausage), green beans, and orange slices.

Mămăligă cu smântână şi Fasole cu cârnaţi

I got the recipe for mămăligă from this website and attempted the traditional recipe, because I wanted the hard, more bread-like polenta. It turned okay, but maybe a little mushy on the bottom cause I didn't get enough of the moisture out (probably because I let it cool in a casserole dish). On its own it tasted fine, but was really quite good with a bit of sour cream. All the same, my wife said she probably would have been just as happy with corn bread. But, in case you were wondering, on its own mămăligă is high in fiber, low in cholesterol, and incredibly filling. So it's probably a healthier alternative.

As far as I could tell Fasole cu cârnaţi (baked beans in sausage) is basically like American beanie-weenies, though I'm sure the Romanians would use an awesome sausage instead of a chopped up hot dog. Since we can't get very good sausage here, I just used some of the leftover turkey kielbasa from the other day. Which in the end, still basically tasted like beanie-weenies, but with the mămăligă on the side, it was certainly the finest meal of beanie-weenies I've ever had.

We listened to some music by The Brotherhood of the Bigor Monastery of St. John the Baptist on grooveshark.com while we ate, then closed the meal reading from Zechariah 9:9 and Matthew 21:1-11.

We wish everyone a blessed Palm Sunday. Poftă bună!