During the first six centuries, it was taken for granted that saints’ days must not be observed during Lent. The Trullan synod introduced the first exception to this rule in favour of the Annunciation. In the West, this rule was soon entirely set aside, but, on the other hand, in token of sorrow, the Allelujah ceases during the entire Lent, a custom of which the Greek Church knows nothing. The Lenten prayers have a particularly earnest tone, and Lent from quite an early date appears richly provided from a liturgical point of view, each week-day having its own special Mass. In old days in Rome, there was a procession every day, for the Pope and clergy proceeded from the papal palace in solemn array to some church in the city where a halt (_statio_) was made, and Mass was sung. 8. _The Transfiguration_ In the existing calendar, the Transfiguration of our Lord is commemorated by a special festival, the _festum Transfigurationis_, which, as it is kept on a fixed date, is excluded from the proper sequence of the ecclesiastical year and treated in the same manner as the saints’ days. From quite an early date, this festival had been celebrated in divers churches, both East and West, on different days. The date now observed, the 6th August, was appointed for the festival by Calixtus III. in 1457, in memory of the victory over the Turks, gained by John Capistran and George Hunyadi, at Belgrade. In the choice of a day, he seems to have been influenced by the Greek calendar, where the festival had already been kept on this day. It appears in the Synaxaria of the Copts in Selden and Mai, in the menology of Constantinople belonging to the eighth century, and, later, in the _Neapolitanum_, and among the orthodox Syrians. In the East it was commonly observed. Sermons on the event are found among those of St Augustine and Leo the Great.[234] The tendency to transfer to another period of the year the commemoration of those events which fell within Lent, is also perceptible in the case of the feast of the Seven Dolours. More will be said on this point in the second part. 9. _The Ascension_