Good Friday, the name applied by the Roman Catholic and Anglican Church to the Friday before Easter, sacred as commemorating the crucifixion of our Lord; paraskeuē, Holy Friday, or Friday in Holy Week, was its general appellation. This day was kept as a day of mourning, of rigid fast, and of special prayer from a very early period. It was one of the two paschal days celebrated by the Christian church, and in memory of the crucifixion was called by the Greeks Pascha Staurōsimon, or the 'Pasch of the Cross.' In the Catholic Church the service of this day is very peculiar: instead of the ordinary mass, it consists of what is called the Mass of the Pre-sanctified, the sacred host not being consecrated on Good Friday, but reserved from the preceding day. Formerly all the faithful partook in silence of the eucharist, but at present communion is forbidden on Good Friday, except in the case of the celebrant and of sick persons. The priests and attendants are vested in black; the altar remains stripped of its ornaments, as on Holy Thursday; a wooden clapper is substituted for the bell at the elevation of the host; the priest recites a series of prayers for all classes, orders, and ranks in the church, and even for heretics, pagans, and Jews, though the ministers' genuflection is omitted before this last petition, in denestation of the feigned obeisance with which the Jews mocked Christ. But the most striking part of the ceremonial of Good Friday is the so-called 'adoration of the cross,' or, as it was called in the Old English popular vocabulary, 'creeping to the cross.' The black covering is removed from a large crucifix which is placed before the altar, and the entire congregation, commencing with the celebrant priest and his ministers, approach, and upon their knees reverently kiss the figure of our crucified Lord. In the eyes of Protestants this ceremony appears to partake more strongly of the idolatrous character than any other in the Roman Catholic ritual; but Catholics earnestly repudiate all such construction of the ceremony (see IDOLATRY, IMAGE-WORSHIP). The very striking office of Tenebræ ('darkness') is held upon Good Friday, as well as on the preceding two days: it consists of the matins and lauds of the following day, and has this peculiarity, that by the close all the lights in the church have been gradually extinguished except one, which for a time (as a symbol of our Lord's death and burial) is hidden at the Epistle corner of the altar.
In the Anglican Church also Good Friday is celebrated with special solemnity: proper psalms are appointed, and one of the three special collects is a prayer for 'all Jews, Turks, heretics, and infidels.' In some ritualistic churches the impropria, or 'reproaches,' adopted from the Roman service, are sung; and Bach's Passion music is frequently heard. In England and Ireland Good Friday is by law a dies non, and all business is suspended; but this is not the case in Scotland or the United States. In Scotland the day until recently met with no peculiar attention, except from members of the Episcopal and Roman Catholic communions; but of late years there have been services in some Presbyterian churches in the larger towns. See also CROSS-BUNS, and CRAMP-RINGS.