100 Fun Facts About Holy Week

Which day marks the beginning of Holy Week?

It commemorates the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, described in all four canonical gospels, with crowds waving branches.

According to the Gospels, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on which animal?

In Eastern tradition it was an animal of peace, unlike the horse of war; Matthew ties it to a prophecy in Zechariah.

Palms from the first day of Holy Week are burned to make ashes that open which season the next year?

Churches put out a basket in the narthex during Shrovetide, and the palms are burned on Shrove Tuesday.

In Russia, Ukraine and Poland, which plant stands in for palm fronds on Palm Sunday?

Palms simply do not grow that far north, so box-tree twigs are also used.

Holy Tuesday is sometimes nicknamed after which fruit, from a tree Jesus passed near Bethany?

The barren tree became a teaching example for the disciples in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark.

Holy Wednesday is nicknamed "Spy Wednesday" because of whose actions?

The word "spy" here carries the old sense of ambush or snare; it is the day he arranged the betrayal with the chief priests.

The Latin word behind "Maundy" in Maundy Thursday means what?

Mandatum novum, "a new commandment I give to you," is what Jesus says in John 13 after washing the disciples' feet.

Which ceremony do Catholic and Lutheran parishes traditionally perform on Maundy Thursday?

In 2016 the Roman Missal was revised so that women could be among the twelve people whose feet are washed.

At the Royal Maundy service, the number of people who receive Maundy money is determined by what?

The white purse holds one penny for each year of the sovereign's age; the red purse holds ordinary money in place of food and clothing.

Which liturgy, at which a bishop blesses the year's holy oils, is usually celebrated on Maundy Thursday morning?

The oil of the sick, the oil of catechumens and sacred chrism all come from this one diocesan liturgy.

After the Gloria on Maundy Thursday, what happens to the church bells until the Easter Vigil?

The organ and other instruments are likewise used only to support singing until the Gloria returns on Saturday night.

The Maundy Thursday evening Mass opens which three-day period that runs to Easter Sunday evening?

Its three days are counted from the Mass of the Lord's Supper through Good Friday and Holy Saturday to Easter Sunday evening prayer.

What is the Filipino Maundy Thursday practice of praying at seven churches called?

The name is simply Spanish for "church visit"; the faithful pray the Stations of the Cross at each stop.

Tenebrae, celebrated especially on Spy Wednesday, is distinctive for what happening during the service?

The name is Latin for "shadows" or "darkness"; a loud noise, the strepitus, ends the service in the dark.

In the Roman Rite Tenebrae, how many candles stood on the triangular stand called a hearse?

One went out after each of the nine psalms of matins and the five of lauds, leaving a single flame that was hidden, not snuffed.

In Old English the day was "langa frigedæg", echoed in Scandinavian languages. What does "langa" mean?

The name referred to the lengthy fasting and services; the German Karfreitag comes from an Old High German word for sorrow.

In Germany, Good Friday is a "silent holiday" on which many states ban which activity?

Nightclubs close, film showings are restricted and even loud appliances like leaf blowers can be prohibited.

The Celebration of the Passion of the Lord on Good Friday is ideally held at what time?

That is the traditional ninth hour of Jesus' death; in the Philippines noise is discouraged after 3 pm and stations go off air.

Which sacrament is never celebrated in the Catholic Church on Good Friday?

Communion is still distributed, but from hosts consecrated at the previous evening's Mass of the Lord's Supper.

What colour vestments does a Catholic priest wear for the Good Friday liturgy?

Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian churches keep black, which was Catholic practice too until 1970.

Which Gospel's Passion narrative is sung or read at the Roman Rite Good Friday liturgy?

The reading is often split among several voices, and Isaiah 53 on the Suffering Servant comes first.

What are the chants sung during the Veneration of the Cross, voicing Christ's remonstrance with his people, called?

In Latin they are the Improperia; a crucifix is solemnly unveiled and the people venerate it on their knees.

The Stations of the Cross, prayed especially on Good Friday, consist of how many images?

Early Franciscan shrines varied from seven to thirty; the pope leads the devotion around the Colosseum with no images at all.

Where in Rome does the pope traditionally lead the Good Friday Way of the Cross?

Since John Paul II the platform has been the heights of the Temple of Venus and Roma opposite the main entrance.

The "Three Hours Devotion" held in some churches on Good Friday is built around sermons on what?

One sermon per saying, interspersed with singing, filling the hours Jesus is believed to have hung on the cross.

Which spiced bun is traditionally eaten on Good Friday in the UK?

In 1592 London's Clerk of Markets banned selling spiced buns except at burials, on Good Friday or at Christmas.

In 1592 London restricted spiced buns to Good Friday, Christmas and which other occasion?

Breaking the decree meant forfeiting the whole batch to the poor, so most were baked at home.

Bach's St Matthew Passion was probably first performed on Good Friday 1727 in which city?

It sets chapters 26 and 27 of Matthew for double choir and double orchestra and was revised again in the 1740s.

Which Bavarian village performs a Passion Play once a decade, fulfilling a 1633 plague vow?

The vow was made on 28 October 1633; the play has run every decadal year since 1680 with only a few exceptions.

What are the lifelike Passion sculptures carried through Seville during Semana Santa called?

In Málaga the same floats are called tronos and can weigh over five tonnes, carried by hundreds of bearers.

The tall pointed hood that hides the face of a Spanish Holy Week penitent is called what?

The robe and hood together are the nazareno; some wearers walk barefoot or drag chains as penance.

In Guatemala and Honduras, Holy Week streets are covered with intricate coloured carpets known as what?

In Comayagua they are made of dyed sawdust and depict scenes from the Passion; the processions then walk over them.

What is the Philippine marathon chanting of a poem on Jesus's life and death, starting on Holy Monday, called?

The chanting can continue day and night for two straight days; the poem itself is the Pasyon.

Which Philippine town is famous for Good Friday devotees who are nailed to crosses?

The Church discourages the practice, but self-flagellation and crucifixions still draw crowds each year.

Holy Saturday commemorates Christ's body resting in the tomb and, in tradition, his descent to where?

The Harrowing is when he is believed to have freed the righteous dead; the Church keeps the day without any Mass.

In the Philippines, Holy Saturday is known as "___ Saturday". Which word fills the blank?

The colour reflects mourning; swimming becomes allowed in the afternoon as the previous day's taboos ease.

The Easter Vigil begins after sundown with the kindling of what?

The Paschal candle is lit from it and carried in with the chant "The Light of Christ", answered "Thanks be to God".

The Easter Proclamation chanted by the deacon at the Vigil is known by what Latin name?

It is also called the Paschal Praeconium and precedes a Liturgy of the Word with up to nine readings.

How many grains of incense are pressed into the Paschal candle at the Easter Vigil?

Encased in wax "nails", they stand for the Five Holy Wounds; the candle also bears the letters alpha and omega.

Which Old Testament reading must never be omitted from the Easter Vigil?

Exodus 14 is followed by the canticle of Exodus 15; the Vigil provides seven Old Testament readings, of which at least three are read.

Which Eastern Orthodox feast falls the day before Palm Sunday, bridging Great Lent and Holy Week?

It celebrates the raising of the man from Bethany, and fish roe is allowed as the fast lightens.

The Orthodox Holy Thursday evening service with a dozen chanted Gospel passages is the 'Matins of the' what?

The twelve readings run from the Last Supper to the burial, and a large cross is carried into the nave at the first Crucifixion Gospel.

What is the embroidered icon of Christ's burial laid in a tomb on Orthodox Great Friday?

On Friday evening it is carried in a candlelit procession around the outside of the church while the Trisagion is sung.

The Great Saturday fire ceremony led by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem takes place at which site?

The Greek Orthodox Patriarch leads it, and the flame is flown out to national churches in Athens, Moscow and beyond.

The Hymn of Kassiani, sung at the Tuesday evening Bridegroom service, was written in which century?

Kassia's hymn tells of the sinful woman who washed Christ's feet and can run to 25 minutes, a musical high point of the year.

Which early-Church pilgrim's travel diary details the whole observance of Holy Week in Jerusalem?

The pilgrim's diary, also spelled Etheria, describes the whole observance of the week and remains a key source for early liturgy.

Eastertide, the season Easter Sunday opens, runs until which feast?

Eastertide is also called the Great Fifty Days, and the weekly Sunday observance itself grew out of the Resurrection celebration.

How many readings make up the Liturgy of the Word at the Easter Vigil?

Seven (or at least three) come from the Old Testament, followed by an Epistle and a Gospel, and the Gloria returns only after the Old Testament readings end.

Which meal-based service do Moravians hold on Good Friday, having taken Communion on Thursday?

Moravian communicants also spend Good Friday cleaning the gravestones in their cemeteries.

The earliest reference to Holy Week as a special observance appears in which early text?

Dating from the late 3rd and 4th centuries, it commands abstinence from meat all week and a total fast on the Friday and Saturday.

According to the Gospels, what sound followed Peter's third denial of Jesus?

Jesus had predicted the denial at the Last Supper; Mark's version has the bird crow twice.

Golgotha and its Latin equivalent Calvary both mean 'place of the' what?

Jerome used both forms in the Vulgate, and English has borrowed the names since at least the 10th century.

Which 14-year-old reportedly wrote Allegri's Miserere out from memory in Holy Week 1770?

The piece was written in the 1630s for the Sistine Chapel; within three months the pope had awarded the boy the Order of the Golden Spur.

Leonardo's Last Supper covers a wall in the refectory of a convent in which city?

Leonardo painted it in tempera on dry plaster rather than true fresco so he could keep revising, which is why it began deteriorating within decades.

Which Passion relic did the Paris Fire Brigade rescue from the 2019 Notre-Dame fire?

Venerated since around 400 AD, it is shown to the public on Fridays in Lent and returned to the rebuilt cathedral in December 2024.

On Good Friday, Bermudians traditionally fill the sky with what?

The traditional hexagonal tissue-paper designs are built around a nail hub and have held world records for altitude and flight duration.

The Good Friday Agreement that ended most of the Troubles was signed in which year?

Voters on both sides of the Irish border approved it in referendums that May; the DUP was the only major party to oppose it.

Good Friday is not a US federal holiday, yet which institutions choose to close anyway?

Bond and foreign-exchange desks still trade a partial day, and the postal service works as normal.

In Matthew, Pilate's wife urges him to have nothing to do with Jesus because of what?

She is never named in the Gospel; later tradition called her Procula, and the Orthodox Church venerates her as a saint.

Which country blesses Easter food baskets on Holy Saturday in a rite called święconka?

Emigrant communities in the US, Canada, Britain and Ireland keep the custom, and the blessed food is eaten at Easter breakfast.

The Good Friday earthquake of 27 March 1964 struck which US state?

The magnitude 9.2 shock lasted four and a half minutes and ruptured 600 miles of fault at once.

Until 2018, pubs in which country shut on Good Friday because selling alcohol was illegal?

Good Friday still is not an official public holiday there, and Northern Ireland keeps a similar ban until 5 pm.

The name Gethsemane, where Jesus was arrested, comes from Aramaic words meaning what?

Matthew and Mark call it simply a 'place'; only the fourth Gospel describes a garden across the Kidron Valley.

Australia's Good Friday Appeal raises money for a children's hospital in which city?

It began in 1931 and passed $368 million in total after a record $23 million year in 2023.

At 11 am on Holy Saturday, Corfiotes hurl what from their balconies onto the street?

The balconies are draped in scarlet for the 'Early Resurrection', and the smash echoes Psalm 2's line about dashing a potter's vessel to pieces.

Pilgrims may ascend the Scala Sancta, said to be Pilate's staircase, only how?

The 28 marble steps have been encased in protective wood since 1724 and were briefly uncovered again in 2019.

The Holy Lance of the Imperial Regalia is displayed at the Hofburg palace in which city?

It is the head of a Carolingian winged lance with a gold cuff; rival lances are kept in Rome and at Vagharshapat in Armenia.

Fanesca, a soup of twelve grains and salt cod, is eaten on Good Friday in which country?

The twelve grains stand for the apostles and the cod for Jesus, with figleaf gourd and pumpkin as the base.

Since Saladin's day, who has kept the keys to Jerusalem's Church of the Resurrection?

The Joudeh family holds the keys and the Nuseibeh family opens the door, a neutral arrangement between the six Christian communities inside.

Easter falls on the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon on or after which fixed date?

The 'ecclesiastical' equinox is fixed by table rather than astronomy, which is why Eastern and Western dates still diverge.

Maundy money, handed out by the British monarch, is struck in which set of denominations?

The coins are sterling silver and legal tender, but recipients have sold sets for as much as £100 on eBay.

'My God, why have you forsaken me?', the cry from the cross in Mark, quotes which text?

It is the only one of the seven sayings recorded in more than one Gospel, given in Aramaic as 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani'.

Wagner claimed to have conceived which opera on Good Friday morning 1857 in Zürich?

Wagner later admitted to Cosima that it had not been Good Friday at all, just a pleasant spring morning at the Wesendonck cottage.

Akeldama, the Jerusalem plot bought with the betrayal money, is Aramaic for what?

Matthew says the priests bought it as a burial ground for foreigners because the returned coins were blood money.

In Sweden, children dress as witches and knock on doors on which day of Holy Week?

Folklore held that witches flew to Blåkulla that day; in Finland the same dressing-up happens a few days earlier.

Which country made Good Friday a holiday in 2012 at the personal request of Benedict XVI?

It mirrored John Paul II persuading Fidel Castro to restore Christmas Day; both are now annual holidays there.

Malchus, whose ear Peter cut off during the arrest, was the servant of which high priest?

Only the fourth Gospel names both the servant and the swordsman; Luke alone says the ear was healed.

Besides Matthew's hanging, which book says the betrayer 'fell headlong' and burst open?

Peter tells the story to explain why a replacement apostle is needed; the two accounts have never been fully reconciled.

Caravaggio's lost Taking of Christ was recognised in 1990 in a Jesuit house in which city?

It had hung in the priests' dining room since the 1930s, mislabelled as a copy by the Dutch painter Gerard van Honthorst.

The masked Moriones of Marinduque spend Holy Week hunting which one-eyed centurion?

The name comes from the 16th-century morion helmet; the media coined 'Moriones' in the 1960s, while locals say Moryonan.

Mexico City's vast Iztapalapa Passion Play traces its origin to what 19th-century event?

Up to 5,000 residents take part, 150 with speaking roles, and only people from the eight original neighbourhoods may be cast.

German police brace for an informal 'Carfreitag' each Good Friday because of what?

Enthusiasts from neighbouring countries join in; offenders can lose licence points and even their cars.

The Titulus Crucis, claimed to be the INRI panel from the cross, is kept in which city?

Its Greek and Latin lines are written in mirror script, and radiocarbon tests dated the walnut board to between 980 and 1146.

Roughly how much myrrh and aloes is Nicodemus said to have brought for Jesus's burial?

About 33 kg by modern measure, a quantity Benedict XVI called fit for a royal burial.

Greek Orthodox parishes usually hold Holy Unction on which evening of Holy Week?

It recalls the anointing of Jesus at Bethany and prepares worshippers to receive Communion the next day.

Coptic Christians read which biblical book in full on the night after Good Friday?

They call it Apocalypse Night, and the reading is meant to point ahead to the Second Coming.

Which Spanish city's canon commissioned Haydn's Good Friday piece on Christ's last words?

The priest who commissioned it paid Haydn with a cake that turned out to be stuffed with gold coins.

Which Handel coronation anthem closes the music at the Royal Maundy service?

The service has two lessons and no sermon; the monarch hands out half the purses after each reading.

The traditional Via Dolorosa begins about 200 metres inside which Old City entrance?

A 2009 excavation near the Jaffa Gate suggested Pilate's praetorium, and so the real route, lay on the opposite side of the city.

Some scholars say 'Veronica' began as a misreading of which Latin label for her relic?

Her story is absent from the canonical Gospels but is the sixth Station of the Cross.

The Coptic Orthodox Church calls the fifth day of Holy Week by what name?

Coptic Lent runs 55 days and this day falls near its end; the Byzantine Rite calls it Great and Holy Thursday.

How many US states observe Good Friday as a state holiday?

Texas, Florida, Hawaii and New Jersey are among them; a 1999 court challenge to Indiana's day off failed.

A late venue switch put the 1724 premiere of Bach's St John Passion in which church?

The booklets were already printed, so Bach asked the council to fix the venue's broken harpsichord and find room for the musicians.

Who in 1685 became the last British monarch to perform the Royal Maundy pedilavium?

The Lord High Almoner kept washing feet until 1737; today only the officials' nosegays and linen towels recall the rite.

Mark names Simon of Cyrene, who carried the cross, as the father of which two men?

Naming the sons suggests Mark's Roman audience knew them, one reason scholars treat Simon's role as historical.

Jerusalem's Immovable Ladder has sat on the same church ledge since at least which decade?

The Status Quo forbids any of the six resident denominations from moving anything without the others' consent, so it stays.

Trapani's Good Friday Misteri procession, held since before 1612, lasts at least how long?

Twenty floats of wood, canvas and glue sculptures are carried through the night, sometimes for well over a full day.

The Roman Martyrology commemorates Dismas, the penitent thief, on which date?

The date doubles as the Annunciation, reflecting an ancient belief that Christ died on the anniversary of his conception.

Throughout Elizabeth II's reign, Maundy coins kept whose original portrait of her?

Every other British coin updated the Queen's bust as she aged; the change finally came in 2023 with Charles III's portrait.

Grünewald's Isenheim Crucifixion was painted for monks who treated which disease?

Christ's body is covered in sores like the patients', and the altarpiece now hangs in the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar.