Easter was last March for most Christians, but Holy Week is just beginning for more than 300 million Orthodox Christians in the world.

The date for Orthodox Easter, which is celebrated next Sunday, is based on the early Julian calendar, in which Easter follows the first full moon after the vernal equinox and always follows the Jewish Passover. Orthodox Lent, ”is a period of fasting and repentance, a looking within oneself to see how one can grow closer to God,” said the Rev. Dean Panagos of Saint Luke the Evangelist Orthodox Church in Columbia.

“The period of prayer and confession concludes as we enter the last week of Christ’s earthly life,” he said. “We focus on the Last Supper, the tomb and the Resurrection.”

Services at St. Luke’s are celebrated every night next week, and each service will “meditate on a particular theme of Holy Week,” he said. “As the week progresses, we become - both mystically and actually - part of the events of Christ’s life,” he said. For example, “we are there at the washing of the feet at the Last Supper, we are there in the garden scene.”

Next Saturday, Easter begins at midnight. “That service will be the culmination of 50 days of preparing for this one big event,” he said. “We begin in the middle of the night. Our bodies tell us we should be sleeping, but God tells us that we should be awake,” he said. “For me, Easter is a renewal of hope and love in a world that is full of craziness,” he said. “There is this immense feeling that God is with us, he cares for us and he loves us.”