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The Events Leading to Easter
And the controversies surrounding the holiday
For the last 1990 years, people remember the last days of Jesus’ life as a Holy Week. It is a time of religious devotion observed with a special passion. Holy Week was first used by St. Athanasius of Alexandria and St. Epiphanius of Constantia in the 4th century.
At first, only Good Friday and Holy Saturday were observed as holy days. In later centuries, Wednesday was added as the day Judas conspired against Jesus, and by the 3rd century, the other days of the week had been added as well. Later in the 4th century, the practice of separating the different events from each other and commemorating them on their respective days became increasingly common.
As a result of the decree Maxima Redemptoris (November 16, 1955), the Holy Week observances in the Roman Missal have been revised to keep the time of day consistent with the events described in Scripture. These are the events that happened during Holy Week:
Palm Sunday
The first day of the Holy Week, Palm Sunday is the Sunday before Easter and it commemorates Jesus Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem.
On Palm Sunday, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey like a rival king to challenge Caesar and his empire. Jesus had just performed…
