Christians in Erie area readying for Lent
BY DANA MASSING, Erie Times-News
dana.massing@timesnews.com
19/2/2012
Christians are about to enter a holy time of year.
Lent, the period of repentance and fasting that leads to Easter, will start Wednesday for Western Christians when they observe Ash Wednesday. Eastern Orthodox Christians will begin the period known as Great Lent on Feb. 27 when they mark Clean Monday.
Each day signals the start of a time of increased spirituality and penitence leading to Holy Week and Easter.
This year, Western Christians will celebrate Easter on April 8 while Orthodox Christians will celebrate the resurrection of Christ the following Sunday.
Easter is a movable feast that falls each year on a different date. It is determined in part by the moon and church tables.
Eastern and western churches will celebrate the holy day on separate Sundays this year because of differing calendars and calculations for determining the date of Easter.
Some years, the celebrations fall more than a month apart and in other years the two groups of Christians mark Easter on the same Sunday.
Lenten practices vary among Christians but often include fasting from foods like meat. On Ash Wednesday, it’s common for Roman Catholics, Anglicans and Episcopalians, as well as Lutherans and some other Protestants, to wear ashes on their foreheads as a sign of penitence.
