Holy Week is the period between Palm Sunday and Easter when Christians remember the final events in the life of Jesus. During this week, churches usually hold special services of worship and meditation.
Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week, commemorates Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when the people spread palms and garments before Him. Christians in many traditions observe the day with a procession with palm leaves. On Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday, services focus on the Last Supper of Jesus. Worship may include a foot-washing ceremony, in keeping with Jesus’s command to His disciples that they wash each other’s feet as He had washed theirs.
In Good Friday services, Christians remember the day of Jesus’s Crucifixion. On Holy Saturday, many churches hold the vigil (watch) of Easter, when worshipers recall Jesus’s burial and await His Resurrection. The vigil marks the start of Easter and often includes a service of light, Holy Baptism, and Holy Communion.
The observances of Holy Week took their present form in the late 300’s. Early Christians linked the final events of Jesus’s life with the days on which these events were thought to have occurred. Christians related these events with the places in and around Jerusalem where tradition held they took place. For the many pilgrims who visited Jerusalem, worship services were conducted at the churches and shrines that tradition associated with Jesus’s last days. As a result, the observances in Jerusalem produced for the entire church a week of special solemnity and services to commemorate the suffering and death of Jesus.
