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Ashes / Ash Wednesday
Dust on the brow to begin the long road of Lent
Ash Wednesday marks the start of the Lenten fast by signing penitents' foreheads with ashes as a sign of mortality and repentance, a practice attested around the Synod of Benevento in 1091. It is a Western observance, kept by Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, and increasingly other Protestants, while the Orthodox do not observe it. Its fixed form is post-patristic rather than reaching back to the earliest Church.
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