Crowds line streets for Palm Sunday commemoration

The procession set out from St Helen’s Square before heading along Stonegate en route to a service at York Minster.

Members of York Minster Choir sang hymns during the walk, which was joined by two extra-special guests in the shape of donkeys Gary and Eeyore, from Monk Fryston Priory Farm.

There were similar scenes in Ripon, where a donkey named Lily joined a procession along Kirkgate to the city’s cathedral.

In a tweet, Ripon Cathedral said Lily’s role in the event – which also included worshippers and choristers from Ripon Cathedral Choir – was a way of “reminding us that Christ, our king, arrived into Jerusalem on the back of a humble, hard-working animal”.

Palm Sunday ushers in Holy Week, which will include processions in places around the world to commemorate the Passion, or suffering, of Jesus on Good Friday and his death by crucifixion.

In a Palm Sunday homily to thousands of people in St Peter’s Square in Rome, Pope Francis cautioned against the temptation of “triumphalism”, which he said feeds itself by “looking askance at others and constantly judging them inferior, wanting, failures”.