What are the opening hours?

Monday 10am - 4pm Tuesday 10am - 4:30pm Wednesday 10am - 4pm Thursday 10am - 4pm Friday 10am - 4pm

St. Basil's Cultural Centre, 10819 71 Avenue, Edmonton, AB (2026)

04/05/2026

03/29/2026

We are officially sold out of P***as!

If you place an Easter food order (with or with out basket) between today and cut off on Tuesday, March 31st - you will receive two Babkas instead of a P***a and Babka.

03/29/2026

Palm Sunday - P***y Willow

On Saturday evening, on the eve of the feast day of the Entrance of the Lord into Jerusalem, our Ukrainian Catholic churches are transfigured. Church members, gathering in multitudes for the service, bring with them flowers and branches of p***y willows, or parishes are providing for their parishioners p***y willows. On that day the church begins to resemble a blossoming meadow. When did this beautiful ritual begin and what is its spiritual meaning? The Lord Jesus Christ entered the Holy City several days before His suffering and death. Here He concluded His three-year service as the Messiah. The Hebrew nation, chosen by God in the Old Testament, had to receive evidence from Christ Himself about His Godly Merit. The Lord enters Jerusalem, accompanied by multitude of people. The people, feeling the greatness of the event, from the excess of their hearts, called to Christ: “Hosanna!” (which means “blessed”) and spread His path with green palm branches. Kings and great conquerors have been met with such festiveness since ancient times, and now, in the placing of the branches, the thousand - year hope of the Jews was expressed about the coming of the earthly King who will restore the throne of David.

The people could not comprehend that Christ’s Kingdom was not of this world. Since then over two thousand years have passed. But every year we, like the people of that time, come to meet Christ in church with p***y willows. There are no palm trees in Ukraine, and other trees do not leaf so early due to the harshness of the climate, only p***y willows reveal their tender catkins. The p***y willow - is a sign of spring, characteristic of this time of year’s spiritual rebirth. It harbors leaves in itself, but does not yet put them out, and thus gives us to understand that our joy from the feast of the Lord’s Entrance is not complete, but conceals in itself the beginnings of the great joy of Pascha. The blessing of the p***y willows occurs during the festal service. At the end of Divine Liturgy the priests censes the p***y willows with sweet- smelling incense, reads the prayer and blesses the branches with holy water. We bring the blessed p***y willows home, where we keep them reverently, as a sign of the penetrating grace of God, until the next year. Then the branches are burned, replaced by new ones, or stuffed into a pillow, which is laid under the head of a deceased Christian in their coffin. The Feast of the Lord’s Entrance into Jerusalem is a sort of threshold which divides the forty day of Great Lent from the Passion Week, fortifying us before the terrible days of Christ’s Passion.

Let us bring live flowers and p***y willows to the festive church service, so that we may hear the joyous words: “These P***y willows are blessed by the sprinkling of this holy water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” The faithful will also receive a special blessing through the anointing of one’s forehead with Holy Oil. The priest will greet you with either, “Христос посеред нас!” or “Christ is Among Us!”, to which one responds: “Є і будe!” or “He is and will be!”