Ash Wednesday - Observing Denominations

Observing Denominations

These Christian denominations are among those that mark Ash Wednesday with a particular liturgy or church service.

  • African Methodist Episcopal Church
  • African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
  • Anglican Communion
  • Traditional Anglican Communion
  • Individual Baptist churches may hold a service
  • Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
  • Some congregations of the Church of the Nazarene
  • Church of God (Anderson)
  • Church of North India
  • Church of South India
  • Some congregations of Community of Christ
  • Ecclesia Gnostica
  • Some congregations of the Evangelical Covenant Church
  • Some Free Churches (e.g., Free Methodist Church)
  • Liberal Catholic Church
  • Lutheran Church
  • Some congregations of Mennonite Church USA
  • Methodist Church in India
  • Moravian Church
  • Old Catholic Church
  • Reformed churches (Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), etc.)
  • Roman Catholic Church
  • United Methodist Church
  • Wesleyan Church

The Eastern Orthodox Church does not, in general, observe Ash Wednesday; instead, Orthodox Great Lent begins on Clean Monday. There are, however, a relatively small number of Orthodox Christians who follow the Western Rite; these do observe Ash Wednesday, although often on a different day from the previously mentioned denominations, as its date is determined from the Orthodox calculation of Pascha, which may be as much as a month later than the Western observance of Easter.

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    No one can doubt, that the convention for the distinction of property, and for the stability of possession, is of all circumstances the most necessary to the establishment of human society, and that after the agreement for the fixing and observing of this rule, there remains little or nothing to be done towards settling a perfect harmony and concord.
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