Ash Wednesday Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
54 free Ash Wednesday trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 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 54 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The traditional words said as Ash Wednesday's ashes are given remind each worshipper of what?
Their own mortality
Their own mortality. The words are 'Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return', God's sentence on Adam in Genesis, and they are said to everyone in turn, the presiding priest or bishop included.
Q 02Besides Ash Wednesday, on which other day of the year must Roman Catholics fast?
Good Friday
Good Friday. Catholics were once bound to fast through the whole of Lent; in the twentieth century the rule was cut back to these two days, with the rest left to each person's choice.
Q 03What are the ashes used on Ash Wednesday traditionally made from?
Palms from the previous year's Palm Sunday
Palms from the previous year's Palm Sunday. Ashes were once only for notorious sinners doing public penance; when that custom faded about a thousand years ago, whole congregations began to receive them instead.
Q 04In what shape are the ashes usually marked on the forehead in English-speaking countries?
A cross
A cross. The minister traces it with a thumb dipped in the ash; where the ashes are instead sprinkled dry on the crown of the head, as in much of the rest of the world, nothing shows afterwards.
Q 05Which season did the Old English word 'lencten' name before it shrank to mean only the church's Lent?
Spring
Spring. The word probably began as 'long days', for the lengthening light; other Germanic languages kept it for the season, and only English turned it into the name of the forty-day fast.
Q 06Which words from Mark may a Catholic priest say when giving Ash Wednesday ashes?
Repent, and believe in the Gospel
Repent, and believe in the Gospel closes the first words Jesus speaks in Mark, as he starts preaching in Galilee. The modern Roman Missal prints it first, ahead of the older line drawn from Genesis.
Q 07Which days are left out of the 40-day fast that begins on Ash Wednesday?
Sundays
Sundays are never fast days, so six weeks of Lent once held only 36 days of fasting. Four more days were added in front to reach 40, which is why the season starts on a Wednesday.
Q 08In Madrid, Carnival traditionally ends on Ash Wednesday with a mock funeral procession for which fish?
A sardine
A sardine: in the 'Burial of the Sardine', mock mourners parade a fish effigy, then bury or burn it to lay Carnival's excesses to rest. Goya painted Madrid's revellers dancing their way to the riverbank.
Q 09Which liturgical colour do Catholic priests put on for Ash Wednesday and keep as the colour of Lent?
Purple
Purple marks a season of penance, which is why it returns in Advent. Midway through Lent, on Laetare Sunday, priests may trade it for rose to signal a pause for joy.
Q 10Ash Wednesday shared its date with which celebration in both 2018 and 2024?
Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day. Ash Wednesday is tied to Easter, so a 14 February start in an ordinary year always puts Easter on April Fools' Day, as in 2018 and again in 2029.
Q 11Which word drops out of the Roman Catholic Mass on Ash Wednesday and returns only at the Easter Vigil?
Alleluia
Alleluia, Hebrew for 'praise the Lord', is swapped all through Lent for a verse that says much the same in plain words: 'Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ'. Only the joyful Hebrew sound is given up.
Q 12For Roman Catholics aged 18 to 59, what does the Ash Wednesday fast permit?
One full meal and two smaller meals
One full meal and two smaller meals that together fall short of a second full one: the Church's fast still means eating three times a day, with drinks at any hour but nothing solid in between.
Q 13Which animal may Catholics still eat on Ash Wednesday, when Church rules forbid meat?
Alligator
Q 21Which psalm, known by its Latin opening words, is traditionally sung at Ash Wednesday services?
Miserere
Miserere, 'have mercy', opens Psalm 51 in Latin. Its heading presents it as King David's plea after the prophet Nathan confronted him over his affair with Bathsheba.
Q 22Which major branch of Christianity skips Ash Wednesday, beginning Great Lent on Clean Monday instead?
Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Christians open the fast the evening before Clean Monday instead, at Forgiveness Vespers, where worshippers bow to one another in turn and ask each other's pardon.
Q 23In which Italian city does Carnival run four days longer, past Ash Wednesday, because its own ancient rite starts Lent later?
Milan
Alligator is allowed because the ban covers only warm-blooded land animals and birds, and reptiles fall outside it. New Orleans' archbishop confirmed it in 2010 when an alligator wrangler wrote to ask.
Q 14Christians keeping the strict Black Fast on Ash Wednesday ate nothing until what time of day?
Sunset
Sunset: only then came the day's single, meatless meal. Some Christians in Pakistan still fast from dawn to dusk through Lent, as their Muslim neighbours do in Ramadan.
Q 15Catholic priests may give ashes to anyone who asks, since ashes are a blessing rather than one of the seven what?
Sacraments
Sacraments such as Communion are kept for members of the Church, but ashes are only a 'sacramental', so non-Catholics, the unbaptised and even the excommunicated may come forward for them.
Q 16Which pope led the 1091 council that told all Christians to receive ashes, four years before launching the First Crusade?
Urban II
Urban II presided at Benevento, where the council ruled that everyone, clergy and laity, men and women alike, should receive ashes. The rite had spread by custom for a century before any pope made it a rule.
Q 17Which early pope is traditionally, though probably wrongly, credited with introducing the ashes of Ash Wednesday?
Gregory I the Great
Gregory I the Great preached about a Lent only six weeks long. The four days that now start it on a Wednesday were most likely added after his time, so the ashes are unlikely to be his idea.
Q 18Which Renaissance painter showed a fat Carnival on a barrel jousting with a gaunt Lady Lent?
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Pieter Bruegel the Elder armed Carnival with a spit of roast meats and Lent with two herring on a baker's paddle. Behind them one half of the town square feasts while the other half fasts.
Q 19Which archbishop obtained a council order under Edward VI banning ashes on Ash Wednesday as superstitious?
Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer had the candles of Candlemas stopped by the same order. A decade earlier Henry VIII had still upheld the giving of ashes as a good and laudable ceremony.
Q 20Which English text of 1549 replaced Ash Wednesday's ashes with a service of God's curses on sinners?
The Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer had the minister read out curses from Deuteronomy, the people answering 'Amen' to each. The service's opening words called this a stand-in until public penance for notorious sinners could be restored.
Milan follows the Ambrosian Rite, named for its 4th-century bishop St Ambrose, which has no Ash Wednesday at all. Its Carnival carries on until the Saturday, by which time the rest of Italy has been in Lent for days.
Q 24'Political Ash Wednesday', when German party leaders trade insults at rowdy rallies, began in which state?
Bavaria
Bavaria's tradition grew out of a cattle market in the town of Vilshofen, which drew crowds of farmers each Ash Wednesday. The speeches go back to a rally a farmers' league held there in 1919.
Q 25In which Nordic country do costumed children sing in shops for sweets on Ash Wednesday, known there as Öskudagur?
Iceland
Iceland's Öskudagur once meant secretly pinning little bags of ash on other people's backs. That prank has all but died out, and the day now looks more like Halloween.
Q 26Which dish is the centrepiece of Maslenitsa, Russia's festive week before Lent begins?
Blini
Blini are fried by the stack all week. The festival ends with a straw effigy of Lady Maslenitsa going up in flames to see off winter.
Q 27Ash Wednesday is National No Smoking Day in which country?
The Republic of Ireland
The Republic of Ireland ties its quit day to the Lenten habit of giving something up: Ash Wednesday was already the day Irish smokers traditionally tried to stop, so health campaigns are timed to match.
Q 28Which Old Testament city repented in sackcloth and ashes after the prophet Jonah's warning?
Nineveh
Nineveh's king left his throne, put on sackcloth and sat in ashes, then ordered that even the animals fast and wear sackcloth. The destruction Jonah had announced was called off.
Q 29Which biblical figure declared 'I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes'?
Job
Job says it once God has finally answered him out of a whirlwind, taking back his long complaint about his suffering. His fortunes are then restored twice over.
Q 30The Gospel read on Ash Wednesday, a warning against fasting for show, comes from which of Jesus's discourses?
The Sermon on the Mount
The Sermon on the Mount tells anyone fasting to wash their face so that nobody can tell. It is read on the one day when many Christians wear the sign of their fast on their foreheads.