Holy Week (Latin: Hebdomas Sancta or Hebdomas Maior, "Greater Week"; Greek: Ἁγία καὶ Μεγάλη Ἑβδομάς, Hagia kai Megale Hebdomas) in Christianity is the last week of Lent and the week before Easter. It includes the religious holidays of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday (Holy Thursday), Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. It does not include Easter Sunday. In Eastern Orthodox tradition, Holy Week starts on Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday. (Easter Sunday, for context, is the first day of the new season of the Great Fifty Days, or Eastertide, there being fifty days from Easter Sunday through Pentecost Sunday.) It is followed by Easter Week.
Read more about Holy Week: History, Holy Week in Protestant Churches
Famous quotes containing the words holy and/or week:
“When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.””
—Bible: New Testament, Luke 1:41,42.
“My veins are filled, once a week with a Neapolitan carpet cleaner distilled from the Adriatic and I am as bald as an egg. However I still get around and am mean to cats.”
—John Cheever (1912–1982)