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60 free Ash Wednesday trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Ash Wednesday trivia quiz covers the day that opens Lent, from the palm branches burned to make the ashes to the words whispered as they are pressed on foreheads. The easy questions are the ones any churchgoer knows: what the day begins, what comes the day before, where the ashes come from and what the smudge is shaped like. From there the set moves through the observance: the two formulas from Genesis and Mark, sprinkling versus smudging, the Pope's procession to Santa Sabina, the fasting rules for Catholics, why the season is 40 days but the calendar counts 46, and the earliest and latest possible dates. The harder end is for church-history and trivia buffs: Pope Urban II and the Council of Benevento, the Gregorian Sacramentary and Aelfric of Eynsham, Cranmer's ban and the Commination Office, the Ambrosian Rite's Sunday ashes, Ashes to Go and the drive-through ashes in Ireland, Icelandic children pinning ash bags on strangers, Ireland's National No Smoking Day, T. S. Eliot's conversion poem, the Ash Wednesday bushfires of 1983, the Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962 and the years the day coincides with Valentine's Day. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for Ash Wednesday, Shrove Tuesday, Lent and the events that borrow the day's name before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Lent, Easter and Christianity quizzes next.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Ash Wednesday marks the first day of which Christian season?
Lent
The season is a period of prayer, fasting and almsgiving before Easter.
Q 02Which day immediately precedes Ash Wednesday?
Shrove Tuesday
It is also called Mardi Gras, Pancake Tuesday or Pancake Day.
Q 03What are the ashes used on Ash Wednesday traditionally made from?
Palms from the previous year's Palm Sunday
Churches often collect the old palms in a basket in the narthex before Lent.
Q 04In what shape are the ashes usually marked on the forehead in English-speaking countries?
A cross
In Italy and many other countries the ashes are sprinkled on the crown of the head instead.
Q 05Which words, based on Genesis 3:19, traditionally accompany the imposition of ashes?
Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return
The Latin is Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.
Q 06What alternative formula, based on Mark 1:15, was given first place in the 1969 Roman Missal?
Repent, and believe in the Gospel
The older dust formula recalls the words spoken to Adam and Eve after their sin.
Q 07How many days before Easter Sunday does Ash Wednesday always fall?
46
Lent counts 40 days because its six Sundays are not included.
Q 08What is the earliest date in February on which Ash Wednesday can fall?
The 4th
It last happened in 1818 and will next happen in 2285.
Q 09What is the latest date in March on which Ash Wednesday can fall?
The 10th
That requires Easter on 25 April, as it will be in 2038.
Q 10In which year will Ash Wednesday first fall on 29 February since the Gregorian calendar was introduced?
2096
It only happens when Easter falls on 15 April in a leap year.
Q 11Ash Wednesday coincided with Valentine's Day in 2018 and 2024. When will it next do so?
2029
It also happened in 1923, 1934 and 1945.
Q 12To which Roman basilica does the pope process from the Church of Saint Anselm on Ash Wednesday?
Santa Sabina
Ashes are sprinkled on his head rather than smudged on his forehead.
Q 13For Roman Catholics aged 18 to 59, what does the Ash Wednesday fast permit?
One full meal and two smaller meals
The two smaller meals together should not equal the full meal.
Q 21Which archbishop obtained a 1547 order forbidding the use of ashes on Ash Wednesday as superstitious?
Thomas Cranmer
The same order banned candles on Candlemas and palms on Palm Sunday.
Q 22What did the 1549 Book of Common Prayer put in place of the ashes ceremony?
The Commination Office
The people responded Amen to readings of God's curses against sinners.
Q 23The Miserere, traditionally central to the Ash Wednesday service, is which number in the Book of Psalms?
51
It is the first psalm at Lauds on all penitential days.
Q 14From what age does Catholic canon law require abstinence from meat on Ash Wednesday?
14
Fasting itself applies from 18 to 59.
Q 15What is the traditional name for the practice of eating nothing until sunset on Ash Wednesday?
The Black Fast
Many Christians in India and Pakistan still keep it on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
Q 16What is Ash Wednesday called in India?
Vrat Vibhuti
The name means the sacred ash of the Holy Fast.
Q 17Which pope ordered in 1091 that receiving ashes be extended to the church in Rome?
Urban II
By the end of the 10th century the practice was customary in Western Europe but not yet in Rome.
Q 18What did the liturgical books soon call the day after the 1091 order?
Feria Quarta Cinerum
It means the fourth weekday of ashes.
Q 19To which early pope is the dust-to-dust custom traditionally, and probably wrongly, credited?
Gregory I the Great
Ash Wednesday was not yet part of Lent in his time.
Q 20Which Anglo-Saxon abbot wrote around the year 1000 of ashes being strewn on heads at the start of Lent?
Aelfric of Eynsham
The Gregorian Sacramentary of the late 8th century already records the practice.
Q 24Which major branch of Christianity skips Ash Wednesday, beginning Great Lent on Clean Monday instead?
Eastern Orthodox
Western Rite Orthodox parishes are the exception.
Q 25In the Ambrosian Rite of Milan, when are the ashes placed on the faithful?
At the end of Mass on the following Sunday
The Ambrosian fast then begins on Monday, and its day of abstinence falls nine days later.
Q 26What is the 'to Go' movement that began among US churches in 2007 on the first day of Lent?
Clergy giving ashes in public places like stations
Anglican priest Emily Mellott of Lombard turned the idea into a movement.
Q 27In which Irish town did a priest set up a drive-through ashes station in 2017?
Glenamaddy
The parish also ran drive-through prayer requests during Lent.
Q 28What do children in Iceland traditionally do on Ash Wednesday?
Pin bags of ashes on unsuspecting people and sing for candy
They also dress up in costumes.
Q 29In Hungarian villages, what did people do if someone had not received ashes?
Rubbed foreheads together to share the blessing
The Csángó people of Moldova even cover their pots with ashes for good luck.
Q 30What did Victorian-era theatres refrain from presenting on Ash Wednesday?
Costumed shows
They offered other entertainment instead, as the Church of England mandated.