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:
“It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration;”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“And although he had given himself a week to do it in and had told the landlady that he had finally decided to leave on Saturday, Ganin felt that neither this week not the next would change anything. Meanwhile nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)