When is Carnival 2022 – The date –

The carnival It is one of the most anticipated parties of the year. The costumes, the dances and the parties, the parades of floats and processions are the predominant note of a few days full of joy and color, in which we all recover a little of the childish spirit. Are you looking forward to next year so you can dress up again with your friends? Next in Overstory we remember when is carnival 2022.

When is Carnival celebrated in 2022

The Carnival It is the celebration that marks the beginning of Christian Lent, therefore it is celebrated 40 days before the arrival of Holy Thursday. Most of the carnival occasions usually fall at the end of February or the beginning of March, although the dates vary according to the year.

We all know what carnival is, a party that is for many one of the best of the year. Below you can see what days the carnival 2022 in Spain.

Carnival dates 2022

  • Start of the Carnival 02/13/2022 Septuagesima Sunday
  • End of Carnival 03/01/2022 Tuesday of Carnival
  • Beginning of Lent 02/03/2022 Ash Wednesday

When does Carnival 2022 start?

In the Catholic Church, Septuagesima Sunday is commemorated seventy days before Easter Sunday and is the celebration that serves to start what is known as Septuagesima Time (or Carnival Time), a period of preparation for Lent, in which abstinence from meat begins. From Monday to Friday. For 2022, therefore, the start of the Carnival will be on 02/13/2022.

When will Carnival 2022 end?

The carnival will end 40 days before Easter Sunday with Shrove Tuesday. The following day, which is called Ash Wednesday, is when the time we celebrate as Lent begins, a time when the faithful abstain from eating meat during the week. For 2022, therefore, the Carnival ends on 01/03/2022.

The reasons why the carnival begins on a different date each year

Although few know it, the start of the carnival is closely related to Holy Week and specifically with Resurrection Sunday. Moreover, the carnival period always starts about 70 days before Easter is celebrated.

From here we can understand why Carnival always begins on a different day or date from year to year, since Easter Sunday it is calculated through a calculation based on the day of the first full moon after the celebration of the vernal equinox (March 21). Holy Week is then usually celebrated between March 21 and April 25, so that if we count those 70 days mentioned we can say that the carnival is usually celebrated between January 10 and February 14 and there have even been years that It started a little later.

Carnival 2022 in Spain and in the world

Within the most important Spanish carnivals we can highlight those of Santa Cruz de Tenerife or those of Cádiz. although the truth is that the whole country celebrates these festivities in style with costume parades and even contests for the election of Carnival Queens, as is the case in Tenerife.

Of course, worldwide, we must point out those of Rio de Janeiro, the most famous on the planet, but there are also many others around the world that are worthwhile, such as the Venice’s Carnival.

What is the meaning and what are the origins of Carnival

But what is Carnival? What is the meaning? Few know the authentic origins that although we relate to Holy Week, the truth is that was born as a pagan festival.

In this way, first of all, we have to repeat that the Carnival festival is a recurrence in use in Catholic countries that does not foresee a fixed date but a variable one since it is a festival linked to Holy Week, at least that is how it was in the origins of the Carnival, since the religious celebrations were less. “commercial” and globalized than to date. Traditionally in Spain, it is celebrated from the day after Epiphany until the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday that begins the period of Lent. The climax of the carnival period runs from the previous Thursday called Jueves Lardero until Shrove Tuesday, the last day of Carnival.

For the Catholic Church, the meaning of Carnival was to find opportunities to reflect and rediscover God, although, as with other Catholic festivals, the origins of the Carnival are much older and go back to the pre-Christian era and therefore, as we say, it is a festival that was born as a pagan festival.

The Carnival etymology seems to derive from the Latin “carem levare” (remove the meat) to signify the Shrove Tuesday custom of feasting and finishing the meat in the pantry since in the period of Lent meat could not be eaten. In addition to eating, the custom of parading through the streets of the cities with masks was concentrated mainly on Shrove Tuesday

The origins of carnival celebrations

And speaking of the origins of Carnavalm, perhaps it is better to say the origins of the carnival celebrations with the characteristics that we also recognize in today’s Carnival. As we have commented previously, we can find the origins of the Carnival in very old times that go back to the pre-Christian and therefore pagan times. Christianity, from its beginnings, in order to impose itself on the ancient and ancestral rites and the beliefs of those devout peoples of a divine world populated by many divinities, tended to superimpose its own festivals on the pre-existing ones, welcoming them and at the same time transforming them. In fact, in the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church prohibited or at least did not look favorably on the excesses of the carnival of antiquity because they belonged to a world, the pagan, that they wanted to overcome.

Can recognize the characters of the Carnival in the ancient Greek “Dionysian” festivals dedicated to Dionysus or in the Roman festivals “Saturnalia” which were celebrated in honor of Saturn on the occasion of the winter solstice and, therefore, around December 21. Both parties were conceived as an opportunity for social cohesion to such an extent that in Greece criminal proceedings were paralyzed and prisoners were even released in order to include them and make them participate. In these days of festivities, the dissolution of social obligations was experienced, the slaves became masters and the latter served them, gave themselves over to crazy joy with great banquets without missing anything, not even orgiastic rites in total freedom and debauchery. Those were days when hierarchies were canceled and the established order was overthrown, leaving room for jokes and disguises that symbolized the supremacy of chaos over order as a symbolic renewal of society. After the celebrations, the order resurfaced renewed and was imposed again until the next carnival. The cycle considered was that of the solar year, and the winter solstice, as well as the Roman Saturnalia, represented the renewal determined by the new year.

In the time of Ancient Rome, the festival in honor of the Egyptian goddess Isiswhich spread throughout the Roman Empire, had the presence of masked groups and processions as we can read in the “Metamorphoses” (Book XI) of Lucius Apuleius. In the festival called “Equirria”, in honor of Mars, and held between February 27 and March 14, chariot races were held while the old year was symbolized by the character of Mamurio Veturio, a man covered in goat skins carried in procession and wounded. for some chopsticks. The Mamuralia festival was celebrated in his honor on March 14 or 15.

But going deeper, we can find carnival rites and symbols in all civilizations and in all latitudes.

And you, are you also one of those who enjoy the carnival or are you one of those bland people who doesn’t like to dress up?

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