Easter Week is the period of seven days from Easter

Easter

Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

 Sunday through the Saturday following.

Western Church

In the Latin Rite of Roman Catholicism, Anglican and other Western churches

Western Christianity

Western Christianity is a term used to include the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church and groups historically derivative thereof, including the churches of the Anglican and Protestant traditions, which share common attributes that can be traced back to their medieval heritage...

, Easter Week is the week beginning with the Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 feast

Calendar of saints

The calendar of saints is a traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the feast day of said saint...

 of Easter

Easter

Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

 and ending a week later on Easter Saturday

Easter Saturday

Easter Saturday, or Bright Saturday, is the Saturday following the Christian festival of Easter. In the liturgy of Western Christianity it is the last day of Easter Week, sometimes referred to as the Saturday of Easter Week or Saturday in Easter Week. In the liturgy of Eastern Christianity it is...

. The term is sometimes inaccurately used to mean the week before Easter, which is properly known as Holy Week

Holy Week

Holy Week in Christianity is the last week of Lent and the week before Easter...

, and particularly confusing in this context is the secular usage of the term Easter Saturday to refer to the day known liturgically

Christian liturgy

A liturgy is a set form of ceremony or pattern of worship. Christian liturgy is a pattern for worship used by a Christian congregation or denomination on a regular basis....

 as Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday , sometimes known as Easter Eve or Black Saturday, is the day after Good Friday. It is the day before Easter and the last day of Holy Week in which Christians prepare for Easter...

 or Easter Eve (the day before Easter), rather than the Saturday following Easter.

While the first day of Easter Week is called Easter Day or Easter Sunday, the other days in the week may be designated according to any of the following patterns: (1) Monday of Easter Week (e.g. in the Church of England's Common Worship

Common Worship

Common Worship is the name given to the series of services authorised by the General Synod of the Church of England and launched on the first Sunday of Advent in 2000. It represents the most recent stage of development of the Liturgical Movement within the Church and is the successor to the...

calendar), (2) Monday in Easter Week (e.g. in the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer

Book of Common Prayer

The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...

calendar), or (3) Easter Monday. In former years, Easter, as the most important celebration in Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

, was observed for a week, and it still is celebrated in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

 and Anglicanism

Anglicanism

Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...

 with an octave. The Te Deum

Te Deum

The Te Deum is an early Christian hymn of praise. The title is taken from its opening Latin words, Te Deum laudamus, rendered literally as "Thee, O God, we praise"....

 is sung at the conclusion of Matins

Matins

Matins is the early morning or night prayer service in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and Eastern Orthodox liturgies of the canonical hours. The term is also used in some Protestant denominations to describe morning services.The name "Matins" originally referred to the morning office also...

/Office of Readings and the Gloria in excelsis Deo

Gloria in Excelsis Deo

"Gloria in excelsis Deo" is the title and beginning of a hymn known also as the Greater Doxology and the Angelic Hymn. The name is often abbreviated to Gloria in Excelsis or simply Gloria.It is an example of the psalmi idiotici "Gloria in excelsis Deo" (Latin for "Glory to God in the highest")...

 is sung at Mass

Mass (liturgy)

"Mass" is one of the names by which the sacrament of the Eucharist is called in the Roman Catholic Church: others are "Eucharist", the "Lord's Supper", the "Breaking of Bread", the "Eucharistic assembly ", the "memorial of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection", the "Holy Sacrifice", the "Holy and...

 each day of the Octave. The paschal sequence

Sequence

In mathematics, a sequence is an ordered list of objects . Like a set, it contains members , and the number of terms is called the length of the sequence. Unlike a set, order matters, and exactly the same elements can appear multiple times at different positions in the sequence...

, Victimae Paschali Laudes

Victimae Paschali Laudes

Victimae paschali laudes is a sequence prescribed for the Roman Catholic Mass and liturgical Protestant Eucharists of Easter Sunday. It is usually attributed to the 11th century Wipo of Burgundy, chaplain to the German Emperor Conrad II, but has also been attributed to Notker Balbulus, Robert II of...

, may be sung before the Gospel reading on each of these days as well and the gospel readings for each of these days is a scriptural account of the resurrection of Christ (Monday--Matthew 28:8-15; Tuesday--John 20:11-18; Wednesday--Luke 24:13-35; Thursday--Luke 24:35-48; Friday--John 21:1-14; Saturday--Mark 16:9-15).
Owing to modern working patterns, many Easter celebrations now occur only on Easter Sunday and Easter Monday

Easter Monday

Easter Monday is the day after Easter Sunday and is celebrated as a holiday in some largely Christian cultures, especially Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox cultures...

 (the latter known in some places, especially those under Polish and Bohemian influence, as "Dyngus Day"). Easter Tuesday is a public holiday

Public holidays in Australia

Public holidays in Australia are declared on a state and territory basis, with the exception of national public holidays.-Nature of public holidays:...

 in Tasmania

Tasmania

Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...

. Easter Monday is also a national holiday in the Scandinavian countries which have Lutheran state church

State church

State churches are organizational bodies within a Christian denomination which are given official status or operated by a state.State churches are not necessarily national churches in the ethnic sense of the term, but the two concepts may overlap in the case of a nation state where the state...

es.

Eastern Church

In the Eastern Orthodox Church

Eastern Orthodox Church

The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...

 and in Eastern Catholic Churches, the days of Bright Week are named: Bright Monday, Bright Tuesday, etc. Each day repeats the joyful hymns of Pascha

Easter

Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

 (Easter), with only a few variations, taken from the Octoechos

Octoechos (liturgy)

The Octoechos —literally, the book "of the Eight Tones"—contains an eight-week cycle, providing texts to be chanted for every day at Vespers, Matins, the Divine Liturgy, Compline and the Midnight Office...

, according to the Eight Tones

Octoechos

Oktōēchos is the name of the eight mode system used for the composition of religious chant in Syrian, Coptic, Byzantine, Armenian, Latin and Slavic churches since the middle ages...

 of the Orthodox liturgy. One tone (with the exception of the Seventh Tone—known as the "Grave Tone") is assigned to each day:

• Sunday of Pascha (Tone One)
• Bright Monday (Tone Two)
• Bright Tuesday (Tone Three)
• Bright Wednesday (Tone Four)
• Bright Thursday (Tone Five)
• Bright Friday (Tone Six)
• Bright Saturday (Tone Eight)

Bright Week is considered to be one single joyful day, although the celebrations on the Sunday of Pascha are the most solemn. The Divine Services are completely different during this time than any other time of the year. Everything during the service is sung joyfully, rather than read. There is no reading from the Psalter

Psalter

A psalter is a volume containing the Book of Psalms, often with other devotional material bound in as well, such as a liturgical calendar and litany of the Saints. Until the later medieval emergence of the book of hours, psalters were the books most widely owned by wealthy lay persons and were...

, and the services are much shorter than usual. There is no fasting

Fasting

Fasting is primarily the act of willingly abstaining from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. An absolute fast is normally defined as abstinence from all food and liquid for a defined period, usually a single day , or several days. Other fasts may be only partially restrictive,...

 during Bright Week. The Holy Doors in the iconostasis

Iconostasis

In Eastern Christianity an iconostasis is a wall of icons and religious paintings, separating the nave from the sanctuary in a church. Iconostasis also refers to a portable icon stand that can be placed anywhere within a church...

 remain open throughout the entire week, and the Artos

Artos

The term Artos refers to a loaf of leavened bread that is blessed during services in the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches...

 (a leavened loaf of bread that was blessed during the Paschal Vigil) remains in the church and is venerated by everyone as they enter the temple as a way of "greeting the Resurrected Christ".

Bright Friday is the annual feast day of the Theotokos

Theotokos

Theotokos is the Greek title of Mary, the mother of Jesus used especially in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Catholic Churches. Its literal English translations include God-bearer and the one who gives birth to God. Less literal translations include Mother of God...

 (Mother of God), as the "Life-giving Spring", and there are optional hymns which may be chanted in honor of the feast in addition to the paschal hymns. If any other feasts on the fixed cycle

Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar

The Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar describes and dictates the rhythm of the life of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Associated with each date are passages of Holy Scripture, Saints and events for commemoration, and many times special rules for fasting or feasting that correspond to the day of...

 occur during Bright Week, they are transferred to a convenient day after Thomas Sunday.

Just before the beginning of the Ninth Hour on Bright Saturday, the Holy Doors are closed, and the services begin to return to their more normal form, although the chanting of the Troparion

Troparion

A troparion in Byzantine music and in the religious music of Eastern Orthodox Christianity is a short hymn of one stanza, or one of a series of stanzas. The word probably derives from a diminutive of the Greek tropos...

 of Pascha, "Christ is risen from the dead...", as well as certain other paschal hymns, continue to be chanted until Ascension.