Hosanna in the Highest: Hosanna Sunday in Oriental Orthodox Churches

[dzheremi]

While the Western Christian world is celebrating the Resurrection today, today is Hosanna Sunday for us, so we are celebrating the entrance of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem.

So today in the Coptic Orthodox Church we sing one of the ancient Greek hymns that the Church has preserved, "Evlogimenos", which is also sung on other occasions where a leader enters the church, either literally as when a bishop visits his flock, or in the celebration of the ordination of a new bishop, etc.

Unaccompanied version (I think this is cantor Ibrahim Ayad, but I'm not sure), since to find it in one of the liturgies posted online would take hours (all the Holy Week services are extra long)

Here is what I assume to be an Ethiopian equivalent (don't know their language, but Ethiopian/Eritrean stuff comes up often on YouTube as "Coptic", and it's clearly Palm Sunday):

And here is some footage from inside one of the Eritrean Orthodox churches in Asmara, Eritrea, which is I'm assuming quite uncommon to find (Eritrea's Church's relationship to its country's government seems to make sure not a lot makes it out of the country, sadly):

While I have less than zero idea what is actually being said here, I can't help but marvel at how full and alive (read: LOUD) the church is! And it's interesting to me from an architectural/artistic perspective how they've covered their walls with icon-like scenes, but only above a certain level on the walls, leaving the area below for paintings of individual saints (I can only assume for ease of veneration? In common OO practice, and also apparently among the Maronites, we usually do not kiss the icon directly, but instead kiss our fingers and then touch them to the icon).

 

[dzheremi]

Here is the same "Evlogimenos" text in its Syriac and Malayalam translations and melody, as prayed in the Malankara Orthodox Church:

Here is the entire Palm Sunday liturgy from Jerusalem celebrated by HG Abp. Mor Severios Malki Murad and his people in Jerusalem proper:

And for the Armenians living in the lands of believers, of course the celebration is a very public event, as with these Armenians in Moscow:

Apparently (from what I can gather by just watching the visuals of this entirely Armenian-language news broadcast) in Armenia proper the celebration of this Sunday is marked in hospitals by visits of and blessings by priests of the Church upon all the little ones, which is so very nice to see.

May God bless us all on this day, whether we are celebrating His entrance into Jerusalem or His glorious resurrection. They both proclaim the same truth: that the King and Redeemer of Israel has come! Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord of Hosts!