For many these days, the celebration of Easter is centred only around midnight and the ritual lighting of candles from "holy fire" at churches throughout Bulgaria’s cities, towns and villages.

In recent years, there have been live television broadcasts of Bulgarian Orthodox Church senior clergy arriving by special aircraft from Jerusalem, bearing in a special lantern holy fire from the Holy Land.

For those somewhat more devout than those who have only a last-minute engagement with Easter, the run-up to Orthodox Christianity’s holiest day would have begun some time before.

In Bulgarian Orthodox Church tradition, the fast at this time of year begins on Zagovezni, the Sunday six weeks before Easter.
For these 46 days, tradition calls for abstention from all animal products.

Even during this period, there are Bulgarian traditions which owe more to paganism than to any conventional Christian theology; for instance, the belief that if you hear a cuckoo midway through the time of fasting, spring is coming. If you have money in your pocket, you will be rich in the coming year, but if you have no money, or are hungry, then you are set for a year of bad fortune.

On the Sunday before Easter, known as Tsvetnitsa (Palm Sunday) it is allowed for the faithful to eat fish. In villages where such observances remain possible, the day is traditionally celebrated with young girls weaving crowns from willow branches, which they throw into a stream, where further down boys are waiting.

In Sofia and other larger cities, churches open their doors early in the morning on Palm Sunday and willow branches are distributed.
The symbolism of Palm Sunday can easily be linked not just to the resurrection of Jesus, but to that of all of nature.

In Bulgaria, Palm Sunday is often referred to as Vrubnitsa, as a symbol of nature’s resurrection.
Vrubnitsa marks the start of Holy Week, which precedes the great festival of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday, and which consequently is used to commemorate Jesus’s Passion, and the events that immediately led up to it.

Vrubnitsa, which in translation could be termed Flower Day is one of the biggest name days as there are a lot of Bulgarian names derived from flowers, for example: Violeta, Tsvetelina, Lillia, Yavor, Yassen, Roza, Iglika, Latinka, Temenuga, Karamfila, Zdravko, Kameila. Hence the flowers given as Name Day gifts. The branches, traditionally willow, are distributed by churches and are carried, or worn as crowns by girls and women.