50 Fun Facts About Good Friday

Many Catholics give up meat on Good Friday and traditionally eat which food in its place?

Fish is the traditional stand-in on days of abstinence. The custom even shaped fast food: McDonald's added the Filet-O-Fish in the 1960s after a franchise in a Catholic part of Cincinnati kept losing its Friday trade.

Good Friday's 'good' once meant holy, a sense also heard in 'good tide', an old name for which festival?

Christmas was 'good tide' because 'good' once marked any day the church kept as sacred. The popular story that Good Friday began as 'God's Friday' is not the origin the Oxford English Dictionary gives.

Old English called Good Friday 'Long Friday', a name that survives today in which group of languages?

Nordic languages kept the old name: Danes say Langfredag and Swedes Långfredagen. The 'long' is put down to Jesus's drawn-out suffering, or to the day's long fast and church services.

Germans call Good Friday 'Karfreitag', from the Old High German word 'kara', meaning what?

Sorrow: 'kara' meant grief or lament. The same Germanic root gave English 'care', which meant sorrow and anxiety long before it meant looking after someone.

The 'Maundy' of Maundy Thursday comes from the Latin 'mandatum', meaning what?

Commandment: the name is traced to the day's Latin antiphon, 'Mandatum novum do vobis', Jesus's new commandment to love one another, given after he washed his disciples' feet.

The Good Friday Service of the Great Three Hours' Agony runs between which hours?

Noon and 3 p.m. are the hours when the Gospels say darkness covered the land. The three-hour service is credited to Jesuits in Peru, and Lutherans, Anglicans and Methodists now keep it too.

Mark's Gospel says Jesus was crucified at 'the third hour', which is about what time today?

About 9 a.m.: Mark counts the day's hours from sunrise, so the third hour is mid-morning. John's Gospel tells it differently, with Pilate still judging Jesus at about the sixth hour.

Which Bach work, written for Good Friday in Leipzig, lay neglected until Mendelssohn revived it in 1829?

St Matthew Passion was written for Good Friday at Leipzig's St Thomas Church. It was all but forgotten until a 20-year-old Mendelssohn conducted it in Berlin, which set off a wider revival of Bach's music.

In Luke's Gospel, Pilate learns Jesus is a Galilean and sends him to which man, in Jerusalem for Passover?

King Herod here is Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee. Luke says he had long hoped to see Jesus work a miracle, mocked him when he stayed silent, and ended the day as Pilate's friend, having been his enemy until then.

Which prisoner did the crowd choose to have released instead of Jesus?

Barabbas had been jailed for insurrection and murder. Some early manuscripts of Matthew call him Jesus Barabbas, which turns Pilate's offer into a choice between two men named Jesus.

Who was compelled by the Romans to carry Jesus's cross?

Simon of Cyrene came from a city in what is now Libya and was just passing by. Mark names his sons, Alexander and Rufus, which suggests that Gospel's first readers knew the family.

Golgotha, the site of the crucifixion, has a name meaning what?

Place of a skull is the Gospels' own translation of the name. Latin Bibles rendered it Calvaria, their word for a skull, and that is where English gets the name Calvary.

The traditional site of Calvary is enclosed within which Jerusalem building?

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is shared by rival Christian denominations, so for centuries two Muslim families have kept its key and opened its door each morning as neutral guardians.

How many 'last words' or sayings of Jesus on the cross are traditionally counted?

Seven sayings are counted, yet no single Gospel has them all: three appear only in Luke, three only in John, and the last is a cry shared by Matthew and Mark.

Jesus's cry from the cross, 'Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani', is in which sister language of Hebrew?

Aramaic was the everyday speech of Jesus's Galilee. The cry quotes Psalm 22, but its verb for 'forsaken' exists only in Aramaic and not in the psalm's Hebrew, so Mark keeps the words as they were spoken.

In John's Gospel, why did the soldiers leave Jesus's legs unbroken, unlike those of the two men beside him?

He was already dead, so there was no need to hasten the end. The soldiers broke the other men's legs so the bodies could come down before the Sabbath, and one pierced Jesus's side with a spear instead.

Which member of the Sanhedrin asked Pilate for Jesus's body and laid it in his own new rock-cut tomb?

Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus in haste, since the Sabbath began at sunset. Medieval legend later sent him to Britain, where he was said to have founded the first church at Glastonbury.

Which Roman historian wrote that 'Christus' was executed under Pontius Pilate, in his account of Nero and Rome's great fire?

Tacitus mentions the execution while explaining whom Nero blamed for the fire. He was no friend of the new faith, calling it 'a most mischievous superstition', yet scholars treat his line as an independent Roman record.

Which scientist tried to date the crucifixion from the visibility of the new moon, and favoured AD 34?

Isaac Newton's study, printed after his death, asked which Passovers could have fallen after a Friday. Modern scholars run the same test with better astronomy and favour AD 30 or 33 instead.

The Stations of the Cross retrace which Jerusalem street?

Via Dolorosa, the route Jesus is said to have walked, winds through the Old City. Stations were set up in churches far away so that people who could never make the pilgrimage could still walk it in miniature.

On Good Friday the Pope traditionally leads the Stations of the Cross at which Roman landmark?

The Colosseum was plundered as a stone quarry for centuries before the popes made it a shrine to the early martyrs, and Benedict XIV set up Stations of the Cross inside it in the 1700s.

Which Holy Week service, named from the Latin for 'darkness', has its candles put out one by one?

Tenebrae ends in total darkness with a sudden crash, the strepitus, made by slamming books or banging the pews. It probably began as a signal to leave, and was later read as the earthquake at Jesus's death.

Catholic churches celebrate no Mass on Good Friday, so Communion comes from hosts consecrated on which day?

Maundy Thursday's evening Mass consecrates extra hosts for the next day. They are carried in procession to a side 'altar of repose', where they are kept overnight.

In French tradition, what falls silent over Good Friday because it has supposedly flown to Rome to fetch Easter eggs?

The church bells really do stop: Catholic churches traditionally ring none from the Thursday evening before until the Easter Vigil. The tale of a trip to Rome explains the silence to children.

Which pope overhauled Catholic Holy Week services in 1955, a few years before the Second Vatican Council?

Pius XII's reform let the whole congregation receive Communion at the Good Friday liturgy. Since the Middle Ages only the officiating priest had done so.

In the Russian Orthodox tradition, what colour vestments do clergy usually wear on Great and Holy Friday?

Black is the Slavic custom for the weekdays of Holy Week. Byzantine service books ask only for 'dark' vestments, so the colour is far less common in Greek churches.

Greek Orthodox churches carry a cloth icon called the epitaphios through the streets on Good Friday evening to re-enact what?

The burial of Christ is staged as a funeral: the cloth icon is laid on a bier covered in spring flowers and carried through the streets with all the ceremony of a real one.

A magnitude 9.2 earthquake, North America's strongest on record, struck which US state on Good Friday 1964?

Alaska shook for more than four minutes, yet it was the tsunamis that killed most of the victims, some of them as far away as California.

Which spiced bun is traditionally eaten on Good Friday in Britain?

Hot cross bun: the cross marks the crucifixion and the spices recall those used to embalm Jesus. Buns baked on Good Friday were once believed never to go mouldy, so people hung them in the house for luck.

Under which monarch did London, in 1592, limit spiced bun sales to burials, Christmas and Good Friday?

Elizabeth I was on the throne when London's Clerk of Markets issued the decree. Bakers caught selling the buns on any other day had to hand their whole batch to the poor.

The letters INRI on a crucifix stand for the Latin for 'Jesus of Nazareth, King of' whom?

The Jews: INRI is short for 'Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum'. John's Gospel says the chief priests wanted the wording changed, and Pilate refused: 'What I have written, I have written.'

Under Catholic canon law, adults must fast and abstain from meat on Good Friday and which other day?

Ash Wednesday, which opens Lent, is the only other day when fasting is required. On paper every Friday of the year is still meat-free too, though bishops may let Catholics choose another penance.

Bermudians traditionally mark Good Friday by doing what with creations of sticks and coloured tissue paper?

Flying kites is said to stand for Christ's rising. In Bermuda the hexagonal kites are normally flown only at Easter, when people of all ages build their own.

Until 2018, what was illegal in the Republic of Ireland on Good Friday?

Selling alcohol on Good Friday was outlawed by a 1927 act that, at first, kept Irish pubs shut on St Patrick's Day as well.

Which country made Good Friday a holiday in 2012 at the visiting Pope Benedict XVI's request?

Cuba's government granted the day off after Benedict asked Raúl Castro in person. Christmas had been reinstated in 1998 in just the same way, after John Paul II put the request to Fidel Castro.

Which US president was shot on a Good Friday, dying the following morning?

Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre on 14 April 1865. John Wilkes Booth, an actor who knew the building well, had learned only that day that the president would be in the audience.

Which Italian city's cathedral keeps a linen cloth that some believe was Jesus's burial shroud?

Turin has held the shroud since 1578. Radiocarbon tests in 1988 dated its linen to the Middle Ages, and the Catholic Church neither endorses nor rejects it as a relic of Jesus.

Some penitents in San Fernando, Pampanga, in the Philippines mark Good Friday by doing what?

Having themselves nailed to crosses is an act of penance that the country's Catholic bishops condemn. Devotees keep doing it anyway, often to fulfil a vow or to give thanks for a favour granted.

Iztapalapa's Passion Play draws millions of spectators each Holy Week to which Latin American capital?

Mexico City's borough of Iztapalapa stages its crucifixion scene on the Cerro de la Estrella, the hill where the Aztecs once held their New Fire ceremony.

The Oberammergau Passion Play, staged since 1634, honours a vow made during what?

A plague outbreak was killing villagers in 1633 when they vowed to stage the play every ten years if they were spared. In a grim echo, another epidemic, COVID-19, pushed the 2020 staging back to 2022.

Pointed hoods that hide the face are worn by penitents in the Holy Week processions of which country?

Spain's hooded penitents, the nazarenos, cover their faces so that they can do penance in public without being recognised. The robes go back to the Middle Ages.

Orthodox churches usually keep Good Friday on a different date because they calculate Easter using which calendar?

The Julian calendar now runs 13 days behind the Gregorian one used in the West. The two Easters still coincide about three years in ten, but the Orthodox date can fall as much as five weeks later.

Easter Sunday, and so Good Friday, is dated from which event in the sky?

The first full moon of spring sets the date, with Easter on the Sunday after. Churches reckon it from tables rather than by watching the sky, fixing the start of spring at 21 March, so their moon does not always match the real one.

Backers of a Wednesday crucifixion cite Jesus's saying that he would lie buried for how long?

Three days and three nights is the phrase in Matthew's Gospel, and Friday to Sunday holds only two nights. Defenders of Friday answer that it was a Jewish idiom in which any part of a day counted as a whole one.

Holy Saturday, the day after Good Friday, commemorates which event while Jesus's body lay in the tomb?

The Harrowing of Hell is the Old English name for Christ's descent to free the souls held captive since the world began. Artists often show him leading Adam out by the hand.

Which British prime minister signed the Good Friday Agreement?

Tony Blair signed it alongside the Irish leader Bertie Ahern in April 1998. The talks that produced it were chaired by an American, the former US senator George Mitchell.

The Good Friday accord on Northern Ireland is also officially named after which city?

Belfast hosted the talks, and the deal was struck there on Good Friday, 10 April 1998. Six weeks later voters on both sides of the Irish border backed it in referendums held on the same day.

The midweek day of Holy Week, remembering Judas's plot to betray Jesus, is traditionally nicknamed what?

Spy Wednesday casts Judas as a spy among the disciples: it marks the day he struck his bargain with the chief priests for thirty pieces of silver and began watching for a chance to hand Jesus over.

Germany treats Good Friday as a 'silent holiday', when many states ban which activity in public?

Dancing at public events is barred, so clubs close for the day. In 2016 Germany's constitutional court ruled that Bavaria's version of the ban, which allowed no exemptions at all, went too far.

In which Canadian province may employers give the day off on Easter Monday instead of Good Friday?

Quebec leaves the choice to each employer, so neighbours can find themselves off work on different days of the same Easter weekend. Some firms simply give both.