Maslenitsa, also known as Butter Lady, Butter Week, Crepe week, or Cheesefare Week, is an Eastern Slavic religious and folk holiday which has retained a number of elements of Slavic mythology in its ritual. It is celebrated during the last week before Great Lent; that is, the eighth week before Eastern Orthodox Pascha.
Maslenitsa, Boris Kustodiev, 1919 (Isaak Brodsky Museum, St. Petersburg)
Burning of the Maslenitsa effigy, during the Celebration of Forgiveness Sunday in Belgorod, February 21, 2015.
A girl wearing a traditional Russian kokoshnik hat for Maslenitsa in Slovenia.
Vasily Surikov. Взятие снежного городка Taking a Snow Town, 1891.
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).
