Pentecost Green Sunday

Pentecost Green Sunday
- by Fr. Christopher Zugger

Pentecost is called Green Sunday and it is indeed marked in Eastern Europe by a profusion of greenery. Every Greek Catholic and Orthodox home is adorned with green branches at the gates, on apartment balconies, and over doorways. Fresh greenery is put into a vase for the family icon corner, greenery is put over framed photos and mirrors, and if there's no carpet, green grasses and rushes cover the floor. Women wear headscarves filled with green designs when going to church, and everyone tries to put on something with green.

In the church, green branches are put across the iconostasis so that it becomes a shiny green forest, large sheaves of green grass are on the floor, and all the clergy are vested in green. In many places people bring bouquets of the first flowering plants to church to be blessed and to take home for the icon corner or to put on the dining table in a vase. When these are dried up, they must be buried in the garden or burned.

In many places, people take food to the cemetery, as this is the last weekend for commemorating the dead on the previous Saturday, and families will sit down for picnic meals at the family plots. It serves both as a reminder of the departed and the need to pray for them, and a blunt reminder that we all face the same end and should live accordingly.