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49 free Lent trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
40 free Lent trivia questions with answers. Lent is forty days that take forty-six, begins with last year's palm leaves and ends on a different day depending on who you ask. These 49 questions explain all of it: why Sundays are not counted, where the ashes come from, what 'shrove' actually means, and why fish never counted as meat. The quiz also covers everything attached to the season — Shrove Tuesday and the pancake race that supposedly began in 1445, Mardi Gras and its krewes, Carnival and the Latin phrase behind its name, Palm Sunday, and the Eastern Great Lent that starts on Clean Monday and counts its forty days the opposite way round. Every answer was checked against a primary reference before publication, so the rules, dates and terminology here are accurate rather than approximate. It works as a parish quiz, a classroom round, or a way to settle what exactly you are allowed to eat on a Friday.
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Q 01The forty days of Lent are modelled on which forty-day episode from the Bible?
Jesus fasting in the desert
Jesus fasting in the desert while tempted by Satan is the model; Moses and Elijah also fasted forty days, each as preparation for their work.
Q 02Where does the name of the season come from?
An Old English term for spring
The word is lencten. It may refer to the lengthening of the days at that time of year.
Q 03Why are Sundays not counted as fasting days in Lent?
They are the Lord's Day
Sundays are always the Lord's Day, a weekly celebration of the resurrection, so they are never fast days; that is why the calendar count runs past forty.
Q 04In Roman Catholic practice, when does Lent end?
On the evening of Holy Thursday
Catholic Lent ends on the evening of Holy Thursday, when the Mass of the Lord's Supper begins the three days that lead to Easter Sunday.
Q 05What are the three traditional pillars of Lent?
Prayer, fasting and almsgiving
Prayer, fasting and almsgiving are the three pillars, drawn from Jesus's teaching in Matthew 6; giving something up is a later popular custom, not one of the three.
Q 06What is the name for the practice of giving up a personal pleasure for the forty days?
A Lenten sacrifice
A Lenten sacrifice is the voluntary giving up of a pleasure such as chocolate, alcohol or social media for Lent; it is a custom, not a church obligation.
Q 07How many days before Easter does Ash Wednesday fall?
46
Ash Wednesday falls 46 days before Easter Sunday: forty fast days plus the Sundays of Lent, which are not counted.
Q 08Where do the ashes used on Ash Wednesday come from?
Burnt palms from last year
Churches collect the previous year's palms and burn them. The cycle links one year's Holy Week to the next.
Q 09Which words are said as the ashes are imposed?
Remember that you are dust
The minister says 'Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return', from Genesis 3:19, or alternatively 'Repent, and believe in the Gospel', while marking a cross on the forehead.
Q 10What does the word behind Pancake Day's older English name mean?
To absolve through confession
Christians were shriven before the fast began. The pancakes are a practical side effect of the same custom.
Q 11Why are pancakes associated with the day before Lent?
They use up eggs, milk and butter
Rich foods had to be cleared out before the fast. That is also where pancake races come from.
Q 12Which English town claims a pancake race dating from 1445?
Olney
Olney in Buckinghamshire traces its pancake race to 1445, when a housewife supposedly ran to church with her frying pan in hand; the modern race was revived in 1948.
Q 13Which treat is eaten in Poland on Fat Thursday, the last Thursday before Lent?
Pączki
Pączki, jam-filled doughnuts fried in lard, are eaten by the million in Poland on Tłusty Czwartek, Fat Thursday, the last Thursday before Lent.
Q 21Which trees have been substituted for palms in colder climates?
Box, olive, willow and yew
Box, olive, willow and yew branches were carried where real palms could not be had in northern Europe; in parts of Britain and Ireland the day was even called Yew Sunday.
Q 22On which day does Great Lent begin in Eastern Christianity?
Clean Monday
Great Lent begins on Clean Monday, seven weeks before Pascha, and its first week is marked by the reading of the Great Canon of St Andrew of Crete.
Q 23How does the Eastern count of the forty days differ from the Western one?
Sundays are included, Holy Week is not
Q 14What does 'Mardi Gras' mean in French?
Fat Tuesday
Fat Tuesday refers to the last day of eating rich, fatty food before the fast begins the following morning.
Q 15What are the social organisations that stage New Orleans Mardi Gras parades called?
Krewes
They are called krewes; the first, the Mistick Krewe of Comus, was founded in 1856 and staged its first parade in 1857, and each krewe has its own parade and colours.
Q 16What does the word 'carnival' come from, in Late Latin?
Carne levare, to remove meat
Carnival derives from the Late Latin carne levare, 'to remove meat', a name that announces the coming Lenten fast; Shrove Sunday to Shrove Tuesday are its last days.
Q 17Which carnival is recognised by Guinness World Records as the largest in the world?
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro's carnival is listed by Guinness World Records as the world's largest, drawing around two million people a day to its street parties and samba parades.
Q 18Where did the first modern carnival parade take place, in 1823?
Cologne
Cologne staged the first organised Rosenmontag parade in 1823, the start of the modern Rhineland carnival tradition later copied in Düsseldorf and Mainz.
Q 19What does the Sunday before Easter commemorate?
Christ's entry into Jerusalem
Palm Sunday commemorates Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event described in all four gospels, with crowds spreading cloaks and waving palm branches.
Q 20On which animal did Jesus ride into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday?
A donkey
The gospels describe Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9, as crowds spread cloaks and branches on the road.
The arithmetic is the mirror image of the Western scheme. Fasting continues through Holy Week regardless.
Q 24Which foods are most commonly given up during Great Lent?
Meat, eggs, dairy and oil
The traditional Great Lent rule gives up meat, eggs, dairy and oil, with wine and oil allowed only on weekends, a far stricter regime than Western abstinence.
Q 25Which Sunday of Great Lent commemorates the restoration of icons in 843?
The Sunday of Orthodoxy
The Sunday of Orthodoxy, the first Sunday of Great Lent, commemorates the Triumph of Orthodoxy of 843, when Empress Theodora restored the veneration of icons after iconoclasm.
Q 26When does the Eastern fast finally end?
After the Paschal Vigil
The Eastern fast runs through Holy Week and is broken only after the Paschal Vigil and its Divine Liturgy, in the small hours of Easter morning.
Q 27Which two days are obligatory days of fasting and abstinence for Catholics?
Ash Wednesday and Good Friday
Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are the only two days of obligatory fasting and abstinence for Catholics; the other Fridays of Lent require abstinence from meat alone.
Q 28From what age does the law of abstinence bind Catholics?
Fourteen
Canon 1252 binds Catholics to abstinence from age fourteen for life, while fasting binds only from majority, eighteen, until the start of the sixtieth year.
Q 29How much may a Catholic eat on a fast day?
One full meal, two small ones
On a fast day a Catholic may eat one full meal and two smaller ones that together do not equal a full meal; water and medicine are never restricted.
Q 30Under Catholic abstinence rules, which of these counts as meat?
Chicken
Chicken counts as meat: the rule covers the flesh of warm-blooded land animals and birds, which is why poultry is forbidden on Lenten Fridays.