Celebrating Easter Year Round

The feasts connected to the Resurrection encompasses a 64-day period that begins with the Saturday prior to Palm Sunday (dedicated to the Raising of Lazarus) and concludes with the seven-day period of abstinence dedicated to the prophet Elijah.   This period includes the commemoration of the Raising of Lazarus, Palm Sunday, Holy Week, Easter Sunday, the days from Easter to the Ascension (a Thursday, 40 days after Easter Sunday), and the period from the Ascension to Pentecost (another 10 days), followed by the six days of abstinence dedicated to the Prophet Elijah.

If you include all the days falling under the Easter cycle in the Armenian Church calendar -- stretching from the Fast of the Catachumens to the Feast of the Transfiguration -- Easter encompasses 24 weeks, or 168 days.

Aside from the days mentioned above, all Sundays of the year are dedicated to Christ's Resurrection within the Armenian Church.  Other churches, while dedicating Sundays to the Resurrection, also celebrate other feasts and saints days on Sundays.  But in the Armenian Church, Saints days are never celebrated on Sunday.  Only a few Dominicals are celebrated on Sunday, such as the Transfiguration, Assumption of the Holy Mother of God, Exaltation of the Holy Cross, or Discovery of the Holy Cross, but always with an emphasis on the Resurrection.