Easter is not one day. It is not two or three (… Easter Monday, Easter Tuesday…). It is not a week. Not even an octave. It is not 40 days.
Easter is a season of 50 days.
If you agree with this, join the facebook event Easter is 50 days. Let’s support each other with ideas, devotions, resources, reflections… add yours there.
If you aren’t sure whether you agree with this, but want to explore this further, join the facebook event Easter is 50 days.
Many people like, from time to time, to add a badge to their website or blog. Here is one for the Easter Season:
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Image: Supper at Emmaus (He Qi)
I’d go with 40 days, but that may be just the Orthodox
practice.
Thanks, Peter. Could you provide any evidence that Orthodox Easter is 40 days as you suggest. I can only find references to it being 50 days. Christ is Risen.
Truly He is risen.
From Pentecost through Holy Saturday, almost every Orthodox service or prayer rule begins with the prayer to the Holy Spirit “O Heavenly King…” Starting with Matins of Easter Sunday, that prayer is replaced with “Christ is risen…” through the Divine Liturgy of the sixth Wednesday after Easter, which is listed in the calendar as the Leave-taking of Pascha. From the ninth hour of that day, the eve of Ascension, through vespers preceding Pentecost, the services all begin rather abruptly with “Holy God…”, omitting both the hymn of the Resurrection and the Hymn to the Holy Spirit, to remind us of the ten days of waiting that the Apostles lived through.
Thanks, Peter. Very helpful. I think people’s thinking that everything in liturgy will be neat and tidy as they would have it if they were creating liturgy ex nihilo is an illusion. Bright Week is part of Eastertide rather than coterminous with it, just as Holy Week is part of Lent… Christ is Risen!