Catholic Good Friday (Good Friday)

Good Week (Karwoche) begins with Palm Sunday (Palmsonntag) and ends with a clean Thursday (Gründonnerstag), Good Friday (Karfreitag) and Good Saturday (Karsamstag), thus completing the 40-day Great Lent (Passionszeit).

Good Friday (Karfreitag) is a sign of sadness and grief, it represents the death of Jesus.

This church holiday is brought to the rank of state. Its name comes from the old German word "kara, chara" - "sorrow, sadness, mourning, lamentation."

Palm Sunday is the solemn entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem and signifies His entry into the path of suffering on the cross.

A clean (green) Thursday commemorates the last supper of Christ and his disciples.

Holy Saturday is the day of the burial of Christ, the day of tranquility and repose. It's a fasting day. Everyone is preparing for the feast of the ascension of the Lord – for Easter Sunday (Osternsamstag).
Catholic and Lutheran churches stop ringing bells on Thursday.

Until the fourth century, the Last Supper (Abendmahl), the death of Christ on the Cross (Kreuzestod), the ascension of the Lord (Auferstehung Jesu) were celebrated on Easter night (Osternacht), on the night from Saturday to Sunday. Today is three days of mourning, starting on a clean Thursday.

Since the XIV century, there was a tradition of the Prayer Way of the Cross, which previously consisted of 12 stages, and in 1625 the Spanish Franciscan Antonio Daza added 2 more, here they are all:

1. Jesus sentenced to death
2. Jesus takes the cross on his shoulders
3. Jesus falls for the first time with the cross
4. Jesus Meets His Painful Mother Mary
5. Simon of Cyprus forced to help Jesus carry the cross
6. Veronica throws Jesus a towel
7. Jesus falls a second time with the cross.
8. Jesus speaks to crying women.
9. Jesus falls a third time with the cross
10. Jesus is stripped of his clothes
11. Jesus nailed to a cross
12. Jesus dies on the cross.
13. Jesus lies in the arms of his mother Mary.
14. Jesus is buried.

Since the middle of the XVIII century there is a pilgrimage of the procession to the holy cities.

In evangelical churches, daily evangelism is celebrated on Holy Week. Especially noted in this calendar Good Friday.

For Protestant Christians, the day of Jesus’ death is the deliverance of sins. This is the highest peak of the church year, the most important holiday of the year.

In Catholic churches, the service does not take place, as on the next day, on Good Saturday (the day before Easter). Instead, at 15 o’clock, the hour of Christ’s death, believers gather together to pray. There is a service dedicated to Jesus.

In the last 3 days of Holy Week, especially on Friday, in Germany it is not customary to visit, have fun. It is allowed to spend time with family, it is necessary to visit the church.