The pain of the people of Ukraine has been remembered as communities marked Palm Sunday in the build-up to Easter.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby – the leader of the Church of England, referred to communities who are “in a world of confusion and chaos”, while Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, spoke of the agony of the people of Ukraine during his Palm Sunday homily.
Palm Sunday, which is celebrated by Protestant and Catholic communities, opens Holy Week leading up to Easter and is the most sacred time of year for Christians.
Mr Welby tweeted: “As we enter Palm Sunday in the shadow of war, in a world of confusion and chaos, Christ the coming king comes with deep challenge about how to hold power, and how to use it.
“Christ comes in service and humility. His throne is the Cross and His power is love.”
He led a Palm Sunday parade through the village of Brabourne in Ashford, Kent, to the St Mary the Blessed Virgin Church ahead of a service and communion.
Palm Sunday commemorates the day the gospel says Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and was hailed by the people, only to be crucified five days later.
In his homily given on Sunday at Westminster Cathedral, Cardinal Nichols, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, said: “Today we bring ourselves to him. We bring the burden of our failure and sin.
“We place before Jesus the people of Ukraine, their agony. We bring to him our sick and dying. And he carries these burdens with us, indeed for us, for such is his love, made evident in his Cross.
“Where we go, he goes too. Where he goes, so do we. He accompanies us always for he has bound himself to us in the flesh of his body and in the love of his heart.
“He accompanies us. In him we recognise ‘our own humanity’ and our final destiny. Our calling now is to walk together, to accompany one another, in his name, in his love, so that we may truly be his people, his Church.”
Pope Francis made a call for an Easter truce in Ukraine to make room for a negotiated peace, highlighting the need for leaders to “make some sacrifices for the good of the people” as he celebrated a Palm Sunday Vatican mass.
The pontiff called for “weapons to be laid down to begin an Easter truce, not to reload weapons and resume fighting, no. A truce to reach peace through real negotiations” at the service which took place before crowds in St Peter’s Square for the first time since the pandemic.
He did not refer directly to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but the reference was clear, and he has repeatedly denounced the war and the suffering brought to innocent civilians.
During the traditional Sunday blessing following Palm Sunday Mass, the Pope said leaders should be “willing to make some sacrifices for the good of the people”.
