Good Friday

When it falls

The Friday before Easter Sunday, between 20 March and 23 April. It is a public holiday across India, most of the Commonwealth, and much of Europe and Latin America.

The Phala almanac gives the exact day for your own city; the lunar and solar rules above are what it computes from.

The story

The day of the crucifixion: Jesus was tried before Pilate, scourged, made to carry his cross to Golgotha outside Jerusalem, and died at the ninth hour, three in the afternoon, and was buried before the Sabbath. Good here means holy, as in Good Book. The Orthodox call it Great Friday.

It is the one day of the year on which the Catholic Church celebrates no mass; the altar is bare, the church stripped, the bells silent until the Vigil.

How the day is kept

• The Stations of the Cross, fourteen halts of the road to Calvary walked in the church or the street, and in Jerusalem along the Via Dolorosa itself, led by the Franciscans from the old city to the Holy Sepulchre.
• The three-hour service from noon, the reading of the Passion from John, the veneration of the cross, and communion from the hosts of the night before.
• Fasting and abstinence from meat; hot cross buns in England, marked for the day.
• In the Philippines, Pampanga province re-enacts the crucifixion with volunteers nailed to crosses; in Goa and Kerala the churches fill for the Passion in Konkani and Malayalam.

More holy days