Church year

Introduction
Origins of the church year
- Religious times and seasons
- Jewish background
- Formation of the church year
The major church calendars
- Eastern churches
- Roman Catholic Church
- Protestant churches
History of the church year
- Sunday
- Advent
- Christmas
- Epiphany
- Pre-Lent
- Lent
- Easter
- Ascension
- Pentecost
- Pentecost or Trinity Season
- Saints’ days and other holy days
Liturgical colors

References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics

Images & Videos

Illustration of Jesus Christ with a radiant halo, surrounded by colorful, patterned Easter eggs, symbolizing the connection between Easter eggs and the Christian holiday.

Patriarch Bartholomew I of the Eastern Orthodox Church, wearing ornate religious vestments and a jeweled mitre, holds a staff and censer during an outdoor service.

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Celebrating the Feast of the Epiphany in Italy

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Parishioners line up to receive ashes from priests at the front of Annunciation Catholic Church in Washington, DC, while others sit in wooden pews on Ash Wednesday.

At a Glance

Christ as Ruler, with the Apostles and Evangelists (represented by the beasts). The female figures are believed to be either Santa Pudenziana and Santa Praxedes or symbols of the Jewish and Gentile churches. Mosaic in the apse of Santa Pudenziana, Rome,A

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Holy week. Easter. Valladolid. Procession of Nazarenos carry a cross during the Semana Santa (Holy week before Easter) in Valladolid, Spain. Good Friday

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Related Questions

How are the Proper of Time and the Proper of Saints different in the Christian church year?
How did Ash Wednesday become the first day of Lent?
How did Holy Week ceremonies first develop in Jerusalem?
How did Maundy Thursday receive its name?
How did Passover become connected to the Christian celebration of Easter?
How did Pope Innocent III influence the use of liturgical colors in the Roman Catholic Church?
How did the Easter season come to last 50 days until Pentecost?
How did the Jewish religious year influence the Christian church year?
How do lunar and solar calendars affect the dates of Christian feasts?
How does the Christian church year reenact the life, death, Resurrection, and glorification of Jesus?
How does the Orthodox church calendar honor the end of the Iconoclastic Controversy?
How is the Christian liturgical year organized from Advent through Pentecost?
How was Lent connected to the baptism of new Christians in the early church?
What do the candles in an Advent wreath symbolize?
What do white and gold vestments represent at Christmas and Easter?
What does Pentecost commemorate in the Christian church year?
What happens during the two periods called Ordinary Time in the Roman Catholic liturgical year?
When does the Paschal Triduum begin and end?
Which holy days of obligation are observed by Roman Catholics in the United States?
Why are ashes placed on Christians’ foreheads on Ash Wednesday?
Why are palms used on Palm Sunday?
Why are purple vestments used during Advent and Lent?
Why are red vestments worn on Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Pentecost?
Why did some Protestant churches reduce or abolish most church-year observances after the Reformation?
Why do Easter and Christmas form the two main cycles of the Christian church year?
Why do Lutheran churches observe Reformation Day on October 31?
Why do Orthodox Christians celebrate the Feast of Orthodoxy during Lent?
Why does the Armenian Apostolic Church celebrate the Incarnation on Epiphany rather than Christmas Day?
Why does the Orthodox calendar begin its fixed cycle of holy days on September 1?
Why is Gaudete Sunday marked with rose-colored vestments and candles?
Why is green used during Ordinary Time in many Western churches?
Why is the Feast of Christ the King observed near the end of the Roman Catholic church year?
Why is the Feast of the Holy Trinity observed after Pentecost?

Philosophy & Religion Religious Beliefs

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External Websites

The Church of England - The Liturgical Year
Orthodox Church in America - The Church Year
Web Exhibits - The Christian Calendar
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops - Liturgical Year and Calendar
Calvin Institute of Christian Worship - Introduction to the Christian Year

Church year

Christianity

Also known as: Christian calendar, liturgical year

Written by

Massey H. Shepherd

Hodges Professor Emeritus of Liturgics, Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, California. Author of The Worship of the Church and others.

Massey H. Shepherd

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

Britannica Editors

Last updated

Nov. 2, 2026 •History

Church year, annual cycle of seasons and days observed in Christian churches in commemoration of the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ and of Christian virtues as exhibited in the lives of the saints. (Discover Britannica’s calendar of Catholic saint feast days.) The church year has deep roots in the primitive human impulse to mark certain times with sacral significance and ritual observance. These are times when conscious attention is given to the mysterious...

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