Easter Week

Easter Week is the period of seven days from Easter Sunday through the Saturday following. It follows Holy Week.

Western Church

In the Latin Rite of Catholicism, Anglican and other Western churches, Easter Week is the week beginning with the Christian feast of Easter and ending a week later on Easter Saturday. The term is sometimes inaccurately used to mean the week before Easter, which is properly known as Holy Week, and particularly confusing in this context is the secular misuse of the term Easter Saturday to refer to the day known liturgically as Holy Saturday or Easter Eve (the day before Easter), rather than the Saturday following Easter.

While the first day of Easter Week is called Easter Day or Easter Sunday, the other days in the week may be designated according to any of the following patterns: (1) Monday of Easter Week (e.g. in the Church of England's Common Worship calendar), (2) Monday in Easter Week (e.g., in the Anglican Church's Book of Common Prayer calendar), or (3) Easter Monday. In former years, Easter, as the most important celebration in Christianity, was observed for a week, and it still is celebrated in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church and Anglicanism with an octave. The Te Deum is sung at the conclusion of Matins/Office of Readings and the Gloria in excelsis Deo is sung at Mass each day of the Octave. The paschal sequence, Victimae Paschali Laudes, may be sung before the Gospel reading on each of these days as well and the gospel readings for each of these days is a scriptural account of the resurrection of Christ (Monday—Matthew 28:8-15; Tuesday—John 20:11-18; Wednesday—Luke 24:13-35; Thursday—Luke 24:35-48; Friday—John 21:1-14; Saturday—Mark 16:9-15).

Holy Week

Holy Week (Latin: Hebdomas Sancta or Hebdomas Maior, "Greater Week"; Greek: Ἁγία καὶ Μεγάλη Ἑβδομάς, Hagia kai Megale Hebdomas, "Holy and Great Week") in Christianity is the week just before Easter. In the west, it is also the last week of Lent, and includes Palm Sunday, Holy Wednesday (Spy Wednesday), Maundy Thursday (Holy Thursday), Good Friday (Holy Friday), and Holy Saturday. It does not include Easter Sunday, although traditions observing the Easter Triduum may overlap or displace part of Holy Week or Easter itself within that additional liturgical period.

History

Holy Week in the Christian year is the week immediately before Easter. The earliest allusion to the custom of marking this week as a whole with special observances is to be found in the Apostolical Constitutions (v. 18, 19), dating from the latter half of the 3rd century and 4th century. In this text, abstinence from flesh is commanded for all the days, while for the Friday and Sunday an absolute fast is commanded. Dionysius Alexandrinus in his canonical epistle (AD 260), refers to the 91 fasting days implying that the observance of them had already become an established usage in his time.

Easter

Easter (Old English usually Ēastrun, -on, or -an; also Ēastru, -o; and Ēostre), also called Pasch (derived, through Latin: Pascha and Greek Πάσχα Paskha, from Aramaic: פסחא‎, cognate to Hebrew: פֶּסַח‎ Pesaḥ) or Resurrection Sunday, is a festival and holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, described in the New Testament as having occurred on the third day of his burial after his crucifixion by Romans at Calvary c. 30 AD. It is the culmination of the Passion of Christ, preceded by Lent (or Great Lent), a forty-day period of fasting, prayer, and penance.

The week before Easter is called Holy Week, and it contains the days of the Easter Triduum, including Maundy Thursday, commemorating the Maundy and Last Supper, as well as Good Friday, commemorating the crucifixion and death of Jesus. In western Christianity, Eastertide, the Easter Season, begins on Easter Sunday and lasts seven weeks, ending with the coming of the fiftieth day, Pentecost Sunday. In Orthodoxy, the season of Pascha begins on Pascha and ends with the coming of the fortieth day, the Feast of the Ascension.