Holy Week | History, Meaning, Christianity, Days, & Events | Britannica (original) (raw)

Holy Week, in the Christian church, the week between Palm Sunday and Easter, observed with special solemnity as a time of devotion to the Passion of Jesus Christ. In the Greek and Roman liturgical books, it is called the Great Week because great deeds were done by God during this week. The name Holy Week was used in the 4th century by St. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, and St. Epiphanius of Constantia.

Originally, only Good Friday and Holy Saturday were observed as holy days. Later, Wednesday was added, in commemoration of the day on which Judas plotted to betray Jesus. By the beginning of the 3rd century the other days of the week had been added as holy days. The pre-Nicene church—i.e., before the First Council of Nicaea in 325—concentrated its attention on the celebration of one great feast on the night between Saturday and Easter Sunday morning. This feast was celebrated as the Christian Passover, the Jewish holiday commemorating the Hebrews’ liberation from slavery in Egypt. By the later 4th century the practice had begun of separating the various events of the final week of Jesus’ life and commemorating them on the days on which they occurred:

• Holy Monday, commemorating Jesus’ cleansing of the temple
• Holy Tuesday, commemorating Jesus’ teaching in parables
• Holy Wednesday (also called Good Wednesday or Spy Wednesday), commemorating Judas’s betrayal

On November 16, 1955, the Holy Week observances in the Roman Missal were revised according to the decree Maxima Redemptionis, issued by Pope Pius XII, to restore the services to the time of day corresponding to that of the events discussed in scripture. In 2016 the observances were revised again in the decree In Missa in Cena Domini, issued by Pope Francis, to allow women and girls to participate in the foot-washing ritual on Maundy Thursday. Prior to this decree, the ritual was restricted to men and boys.

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The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Meg Matthias.