The Cross of Palm Sunday
The second religious procession, which was approved in 1630.
On Christmas Eve 1629, the first four cases of the plague were detected on the island of Corfu (Kerkyra), which was already raging not only in neighboring Italy but also in other countries. This terrible news spread around the island and alarmed the people and the authorities. After an investigation, it turned out that the servant of the Greek lawyer Sarandari bought two silk scarves from a Turkish ship and gave them to his wife. She, in turn, gave them to her daughter, who became infected and died. The lawyer's house became a hotbed of the plague.
Despite the strict preventive measures taken by the authorities, the number of sick people increased. Then people began to gather in the Church of St. Spyridon, prayers were held day and night, and people prayed to the saint for salvation from the deadly disease. And, oh miracle! – the deadly disease retreated, taking with it only 60 lives.
Historian Andreas Marmaras wrote: "...many of those who fell ill saw the Saint in a dream, promising salvation, and they were saved. When the city was engulfed by the disease, a light like from a lamp was seen over the church of the saint, and the night guards from the fortresses saw it." The number of those falling ill was constantly decreasing, and on Palm Sunday 1630 the epidemic finally stopped. The number of victims stopped at 60, while thousands of people were dying throughout Europe.
On the same day of Palm Sunday, grateful Orthodox believers held a religious procession in honor of the miracle of the island's salvation from the plague, which was performed by Saint Spyridon. At the same time, 5,000 ducats (the island's currency at that time) were collected for the restoration of the Saint's church. The Venetian authorities received a petition from local residents, the Corfueans, to establish an annual celebration in honor of the salvation of the island's inhabitants from the plague. On June 21, 1630, permission was received for an annual church procession on Palm Sunday, which is still held today. The solemn procession follows the streets of the old city.
It should be noted that this procession was originally held in two stages: the first ceremony took place at the gates of the Old Fortress (where all the prayers of the processions on the feasts of St. Spyridon are held), and the second and more ancient one in the Church of St. Athanasius (where the relics of St. Spyridon were kept in 1456-1489), which was held in gratitude for the miracle of salvation from the plague, revealed by St. Spyridon in the Levkim area. Following the ancient tradition, tapestries with icons of saints, huge candles and lanterns carried by believers during the procession are decorated with crosses made of palm leaves and remind us of the entry of the Lord Jesus Christ into Jerusalem.
