Lexicon index Lexicon
Great Lent
The forty-day fast before Pascha — the Church's annual school of repentance, beginning on Clean Monday.
Great Lent begins on Clean Monday and concludes with Holy Saturday. It is not merely a penitential season but a school of the spiritual life: fasting, increased prayer, confession, the reading of the Psalter each week, the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, and the Presanctified Liturgy. The soul purified by Lent receives Pascha not as an annual holiday but as a genuine encounter with the Risen Christ.