Great Lent
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Great Lent, or the Great Fast, is the most important fasting season of the church year within many denominations of Eastern Christianity. It is intended to prepare Christians for the greatest feast of the church year, Pascha (Easter).
An Orthodox church in the Czech Republic vested in lenten colors (Třebíč).
The Crucifixion. Icon by Theophanes the Cretan (16th century, Stavronikita monastery, Mount Athos).
Saint Gregory Dialogus, who is credited with compiling the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts.
The Last Judgment is a repeating theme of Great Lent (17th-century icon from Lipie, Poland).
Palm Sunday
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Palm Sunday is the Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels. Its name originates from the palm branches waved by the crowd to greet and honor Jesus Christ as he entered the city. Palm Sunday marks the first day of Holy Week; in Western Christianity, this is the beginning of the last week of the solemn season of Lent, preceding Eastertide, while in Eastern Christianity, Holy Week commences after the conclusion of Great Lent.
Entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem (1320) by Pietro Lorenzetti: entering the city on a donkey symbolizes arrival in peace rather than as a war-waging king arriving on a horse.
Triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Russian icon (Cathedral of the Annunciation, Moscow)
"Flevit super illam" (He wept over it); by Enrique Simonet, 1892
Small crosses woven from blessed palms are often distributed at churches on Palm Sunday.