Holy Week 1 week before Easter

Orthodox Christians call it Great Week. Romanian Orthodox Christians most often use the term Week of Sufferings. The services of Holy Week have the particularity of beginning with Compline and Matins and ending with Vespers (whereas it is normally the Vespers service that begins the liturgical day).

Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday, considered one of the twelve great feasts of the liturgical year. It is a festive Sunday because it celebrates the entry of Christ into Jerusalem, where he is welcomed triumphantly by the people holding palm branches. The faithful bring palms on this day and the priest blesses them. However, Christ's coming to Jerusalem marks the beginning of the Passion of Christ, towards which he advances voluntarily. This Sunday therefore opens Holy Week. In the Catholic Church, the story of the Passion of Christ is read there (1962: Passion according to Saint Matthew; 1969: alternately, Saint Matthew, Saint Mark or Saint Luke).

In the Byzantine Rite, unlike all the other Sundays of Lent, the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is celebrated and not that of St. Basil. Palm Sunday is closely linked to the Saturday preceding it, when the resurrection of Lazarus by Christ is commemorated. Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday are two separate days in the period of preparation for Easter, and serve as a transition between Lent, which focuses on asceticism, and Holy Week, which contemplates the ascent to the Passion and the mystery of the Cross.

From Holy Monday to Holy Wednesday, there is no special ceremony in the Catholic Church, except for the Chrism Mass which normally takes place on Thursday morning, but can be brought forward to an earlier day of Holy Week. Before 1969, in the Roman tradition, the Passion according to Saint Mark (on Tuesday) and the Passion according to Saint Luke (on Wednesday) were read at Mass as the Gospel.

On Holy Thursday, in the Catholic Church (or on Holy Wednesday in some dioceses, and most often on Tuesday in France), the blessing of the holy oils and the making of the holy chrism take place in the cathedral by the bishop; this is the Chrism Mass. The washing of the feet is celebrated in the afternoon or with the evening Mass. In the evening, a second Mass takes place, the Mass of the Last Supper. This is the last Mass before that of Easter night.

In the Byzantine Rite, three events are commemorated on Holy Thursday: the washing of the feet, the Mystic Supper, and the betrayal of Judas. Vespers are joined to the liturgy of St. Basil the Great. In monasteries and cathedrals, the bishop or abbot washes the feet of twelve men, clerics or monks.

On Good Friday, the Church is in mourning, there is no mass. Traditionally in the afternoon there is in each parish a Station of the Cross and then in the evening a liturgical celebration, the celebration of the Passion and the Cross, which follows the same sequence as a mass: three readings, the third being the Passion according to Saint John; a solemn universal prayer; the veneration of the Cross; communion with the hosts consecrated the day before at the evening mass; this is why the solemn office of Good Friday is traditionally called "the mass of the presanctified".

In the Byzantine rite, matins are celebrated with the reading of twelve evangelical pericopes (often on Thursday evening), then the Royal Hours (in the morning), and finally the Vespers of the Burial (in the early afternoon), during which the epitaphion is carried to the middle of the church.

On Holy Saturday there is no Mass either. In the evening, there is the Easter Vigil (blessing of the new fire, of the baptismal water, announcement of the Resurrection), then the solemn Mass of the Easter Vigil is celebrated.

In the Byzantine rite, matins are celebrated before the epitaphion, before going out in procession; then vespers are joined to the liturgy of Saint Basil the Great. Inheriting from the ancient practice of the baptism of catechumens on this day, there are after the lucernarium fifteen paremias (Old Testament readings) which announce the Resurrection of Christ. Just before the office of Easter matins, the midnight office is sung, which is part of Holy Week. These offices, although celebrated in a discreet manner, are already imbued with the joy of the Resurrection of Christ, and contemplate the distress of hell before the coming of the Savior.