The Christian year

The Christian Calendar 2026

Lent 2026 begins on Ash Wednesday, February 18, 2026, and its forty days end on Holy Saturday, April 4; Easter Sunday is April 5, 2026. Orthodox Easter is Sunday, April 12, 2026. Pentecost is Sunday, May 24, and Advent begins on Sunday, November 29, 2026.

Every date of the Christian year in 2026

When does Lent start in 2026?

Lent 2026 starts on Ash Wednesday, February 18, 2026, the day after Shrove Tuesday (February 17). Its forty days, not counting the Sundays, run to Holy Saturday, April 4, and the season gives way to Easter on Sunday, April 5. Some traditions close Lent on the evening of Maundy Thursday, when the three holy days begin. In the Orthodox churches, Great Lent begins on Clean Monday, February 23, 2026.

When is Holy Week 2026?

Holy Week 2026 runs from Palm Sunday, March 29, to Holy Saturday, April 4, and ends in the joy of Easter morning. These are the days the Church walks with Jesus into Jerusalem, to the table, to the cross and to the tomb.

When is Easter 2026?

Easter Sunday 2026 is April 5, 2026 in the Western churches (Catholic, Protestant and Anglican). Orthodox Easter (Pascha) is Sunday, April 12, 2026. In 2026 the two dates are one week apart: Western churches keep Easter on Sunday, April 5, 2026 and most Orthodox churches on Sunday, April 12, 2026.

The two dates differ because the churches keep the same ancient rule with two different calendars. Western churches reckon Easter by the Gregorian calendar; most Orthodox churches still reckon it by the older Julian calendar, which now runs thirteen days behind, and by an older table of the moon. So in some years the dates fall together, and in others they are one, four or five weeks apart.

How is the date of Easter set?

Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21. That full moon is not observed in the sky but read from fixed church tables, which is why it is called the ecclesiastical full moon. The Council of Nicaea in 325 asked that all Christians keep the resurrection on the same Sunday, and the tables that carry out that wish were worked out by the church of Alexandria and refined over the centuries that followed. In the West, Easter can fall on any Sunday from March 22 to April 25, and every other moveable day of the year counts from it: Ash Wednesday comes 46 days before, Ascension 39 days after, and Pentecost 49 days after.

When is Pentecost 2026?

Pentecost 2026 is Sunday, May 24, 2026, the fiftieth day of Easter, counting Easter itself. Ascension Day comes ten days before it, on Thursday, May 14, 2026, and Trinity Sunday follows a week later, on Sunday, May 31, 2026. Orthodox Pentecost in 2026 is Sunday, May 31, 2026.

When does Advent start in 2026?

Advent 2026 begins on Sunday, November 29, 2026, the fourth Sunday before Christmas, and opens a new Christian year. Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of the old year, comes the week before, on Sunday, November 22, 2026. Christmas Day 2026 falls on a Friday.

What each season is for

The Christian year is the life of Jesus told through time, so that a whole year of ordinary days is spent walking with him.

• Advent: Advent is the beginning of the Christian year, the four weeks before Christmas spent waiting and preparing for the coming of Christ, both his birth in Bethlehem and his promised return.
• Christmas: Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, when God so loved the world that he came into it as a child.
• Epiphany: Epiphany celebrates the revealing of Christ to the world, remembered above all in the wise men who followed the star to worship the newborn King.
• Lent: Lent is the forty-day season of preparation before Easter, echoing the forty days Jesus fasted in the wilderness.
• Holy Week: Holy Week is the final week before Easter, walking with Jesus from his entry into Jerusalem, through the last supper and the cross, to the silence of the tomb.
• Easter: Easter is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, the center and joy of the whole Christian faith.
• Pentecost: Pentecost, fifty days after Easter, celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit on the first believers, when the church was born and the good news went out in every language.

Questions people ask about the 2026 calendar

When does Lent start in 2026?

Lent 2026 starts on Ash Wednesday, February 18, 2026, and its forty days end on Holy Saturday, April 4, 2026.

When is Ash Wednesday 2026?

Ash Wednesday 2026 is February 18, 2026.

When is Holy Week 2026?

Holy Week 2026 runs from Palm Sunday, March 29, 2026, to Holy Saturday, April 4, 2026. Maundy Thursday is April 2, 2026 and Good Friday is April 3, 2026.

When is Easter 2026?

Easter Sunday 2026 is April 5, 2026 in the Western churches. Orthodox Easter is Sunday, April 12, 2026.

When is Pentecost 2026?

Pentecost 2026 is Sunday, May 24, 2026.

When does Advent start in 2026?

Advent 2026 begins on Sunday, November 29, 2026, the fourth Sunday before Christmas.

Related: The 2027 calendar · When is Lent? · When is Easter? · When is Holy Week? · When is Advent? · The whole Christian year