Forgiveness Sunday, Last day of Maslenitsa Congratulate →

In the seventh week before Easter, the cheerful and wide Maslenitsa is celebrated. After it, Lent begins, lasting seven weeks. On the last day of Maslenitsa, Forgiveness Sunday comes - the line between a cheerful farewell to winter and strict Christian fasting. This day does not have a clear date; it falls differently every year, seven weeks before Easter. However, it is always the Sunday of cheese week. On Saturday night, a liturgy begins in all churches, which tells about the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise for sinful intemperance, about the great power of the Lord’s forgiveness. Believing Christians pray and ask for forgiveness from everyone who, wittingly or unwittingly, they may have offended. Great Lent implies the beginning of cleansing the soul and body from dirty thoughts and everything gross that has accumulated since last year. Christians specifically ask for forgiveness, and do not apologize, since sincere repentance is possible only through a request to forgive, and apologies are only a sign to consider omissions forgotten. In addition, the person from whom forgiveness is sought must necessarily let go of grievances, without holding anything bad in his soul. People enter Lent with their inner world as purified as possible. You should not be burdened by your own mistakes or by the reproaches and insults of others weighing on your shoulders. During repentance, no worldly thoughts should burden you, and therefore the more thoroughly the soul is cleansed on Forgiveness Sunday, the more calm and focused these days will be. Despite the fact that Maslenitsa week is quite cheerful and well-fed, some prohibitions already apply on Forgiveness Sunday, for example, on meat and milk. On the night before the beginning of the first seven weeks, Christians pray in temples and churches, asking forgiveness from the Lord together, for the “forefathers”, and for themselves. Forgiveness Sunday is a chance for a person to try to correct his sins and begin to fast calmly. In Russia, everyone knows about the existence of such a day on which they pray for those who have left this world and establish contacts with friends and loved ones.