Easter in Latvia Easter in Latvia The Christian festival of Easter is celebrated in Latvia as Lieldienas (). Lieldienas enters Holy Week with Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, but Sunday will mark first Lieldienas. Second Lieldienas is on Monday of the following week. Each day has a special significance. Also, many pagan elements of celebrating Lieldienas have become a tradition. Nowadays, the common date of Lieldienas is the first Sunday after the first full moon, after or during the vernal equinox. Thus, the Western Christian Church Lieldienas falls on a date between 22 March and 25 April. In Eastern
Royal Maundy Allison and Sarah Riddell in their "Royal Encyclopedia", the service "has become the occasion of a royal pilgrimage to different parts of the country". The Queen has directed that the service not be held in London more often than once in ten years. Westminster Abbey was the site of the 2001 Royal Maundy, and again in 2011, the first ever televised. On 20 March 2008, at the Church of Ireland St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh, the Queen attended the first Maundy service held outside England and Wales. Today the recipients are pensioners, chosen on an interdenominational basis from various Christian churches