MOSCOW, February 24. /TASS/. Orthodox believers start celebrating Maslenitsa or the crepe week - the last preparatory week before Great Lent.
The name of the holiday stems from the custom of preparing a variety of dishes on these days using cheese, eggs, milk but with the exception of meat, in line with church canons. Pancakes are the most popular dish for this week.
"The Maslenitsa or the Cheesefare Week for the church is the time when we are preparing proactively for the upcoming Great Lent," Archpriest Maxim Pervozvansky, the clergyman of the Church of Forty Martyrs of Sebaste in Spasskaya Sloboda, told TASS. "Essentially this is the time when the lent has already been in effect in part. That is, there are certain food and praying, liturgical restrictions and lent rules," he noted.
"That is, this week serves for the lent not coming unexpected, not to be like snow falling on our heads, but that we indeed smoothly enter it," the archpriest said.
The Maslenitsa ends with Shrove Sunday. On this day, Orthodox Christians traditionally ask each other for forgiveness to begin the Great Lent with a good heart and to focus on the spiritual life.