Good Friday

Good Friday is the solemn Christian remembrance of the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ. According to the Gospel accounts, Jesus is arrested after the Last Supper, questioned by religious authorities and brought before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. He is sentenced to crucifixion, made to carry the cross toward Golgotha and put to death there. Christians understand the event through the larger story of Jesus’ teaching, his willingness to suffer rather than answer violence with violence, and the belief that his death is bound to forgiveness, reconciliation and salvation. The word ‘Good’ does not mean that the suffering itself is joyful; it reflects the theological belief that redemption comes through what happened on that day. Churches often observe silence, scripture readings, prayers, the Stations of the Cross and veneration of the cross. It is a restrained day of grief and reflection that leads into the hope of Easter.

Good Friday is significant to the community that observes it and helps preserve religious, family and cultural continuity.

A service in the afternoon at the hour tradition gives the death, with the passion read and the cross venerated. Many keep the day fasting and without meat. The altar is stripped and the church left bare until Sunday.

A public holiday across India, and in Kerala and Goa the Way of the Cross is walked through the streets. The Philippines, Spain and parts of Latin America keep processions of a scale found nowhere else; Orthodox churches keep it on their own Easter reckoning.