Holiday Calendar

Orthodox Good Friday

Next celebratedFriday, April 30, 2027

Orthodox churches mark the crucifixion on the Friday two days before Pascha, with twelve Gospel readings the night before, a fast that rules out even oil and wine, and an image of Christ laid in a carved bier.

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Last updated September 2, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEOrthodox Good Friday
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYReligion
SUBCATEGORYChristian
ORIGIN

Religious Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A fourth-century pilgrim found the day already in place.

No founder, founding act or inception year is on record. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America says the Church has kept Great Friday, Great Saturday and Pascha as an annual commemoration from the beginning, and when the pilgrim Egeria wrote about Jerusalem on a journey scholars place between 381 and 384, the day already ran from a morning veneration of the Cross to an evening reading of the burial.

Read Egeria's fourth-century accountvia ccel.org
INTRO

A day of services with no Divine Liturgy

Orthodox Good Friday carries a Matins, a set of Royal Hours and a Vespers. What it does not carry is the Divine Liturgy, which the Orthodox Church in America says is not celebrated on this day.

The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America puts the scope on it. Great Friday and Great Saturday are, in its words, the only two days of the year when no eucharistic assembly is held. The same archdiocese notes that this was not always the rule, because before the twelfth century the Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts was customarily served on Great Friday.

What fills the space is text. Twelve Gospel readings on the Thursday night, then a set of hymns on the Friday morning that Orthodox scholars are now arguing about in public.

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ORIGINS

Orthodox Good Friday history

INTRODUCTION

In the early 380s a pilgrim named Egeria stood in Jerusalem and watched a bishop hold the ends of a piece of wood firmly in his hands. Deacons stood around the table. She was told why.

Someone, she was told, had once bitten off and stolen a portion of the relic, so it was guarded while the people came forward one at a time. They touched it with their foreheads, then their eyes, then kissed it. None laid a hand on it.

CHAPTER 01

Three hours in the open air

The veneration ran until the sixth hour. Then the crowd moved into the court between the Cross and the Anastasis, in rain or in heat, and for three hours nothing was done but the reading of lessons. Psalms, the Apostle, the Gospels and the prophets, arranged so that the prophecy and the fulfilment sat side by side.

The 1919 English edition adds a note to that passage. It is probably the earliest record we have, it says, of the observance of the Three Hours.

CHAPTER 02

The hymns reach Mar Saba

The day acquired the hymns it still sings in the sixth century. Monks at the monastery of Mar Saba took up a set of hymns called the Idiomele and placed them in their Good Friday services between 553 and 560. The Church of the Anastasis in Jerusalem adopted them shortly after.

CHAPTER 03

A rule the Church changed

What remained was governed by canon. Meeting in 692, the Council in Trullo set out when the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts was to be said across the days of the fast.

On Great Friday that service was still customary before the twelfth century. After it, the day carried readings, hymns and a burial, and no eucharistic service at all.

No founder is on record for any of this, and no year. What survives instead is a description of a day already running, written down by a traveller who came to watch it.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Trullo fixes the Presanctified

The Council in Trullo ruled on which days of the Lenten fast the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts was to be said, excepting Saturdays, Sundays and the Annunciation.

Great Friday loses the Presanctified

Serving the Pre-Sanctified Gifts on Great Friday was customary before the twelfth century, by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America's account, and was not afterwards.

Greek shops close only till one

Article 4 of Royal Decree 748/1966 underpins the rule that shuts Greek shops until 13:00 on Megali Paraskevi instead of for the whole day.

Romania writes it into law

Law 64/2018 inserted Vinerea Mare into article 139 of the Labour Code as a legal holiday on which work is not performed, in force from 16 March.

Scholars open the hymn question

The Orthodox Theological Society in America ran a seminar on 2 April and moved to form a working group on anti-Jewish liturgical texts.
To be clear, not all of the Idiomele make this theological mistake. And, poetically, many of the Idiomele are beautiful. The final one, Today is hung upon the cross He who suspended the earth and the waters, is, to my mind, the most powerful hymn of Holy Week.
George DemacopoulosCo-Director, Orthodox Christian Studies Center, Fordham University
there is none, either great or small, who, on that day during those three hours, does not lament more than can be conceived, that the Lord had suffered those things for us
EgeriaPilgrim, writing of Jerusalem in the fourth century

GOOD TO KNOW

Orthodox Good Friday Around the World

Greece

Not on the national list of compulsory public holidays, which names Easter Monday but not this day. Shops are shut by law only until 13:00, public offices and banks close, and other private firms close only where a collective agreement or an established custom says so.

Romania

A full statutory day off since 16 March 2018, listed in the Labour Code by name as Vinerea Mare, the last Friday before Easter.

Cyprus

A bank holiday. The Central Bank of Cyprus schedules it for Friday 10 April in 2026, followed by Easter Monday and an Easter Tuesday that Cyprus also takes off.

Ethiopia

Known as Siklet and kept by prostration, with rigorous fasting, prolonged prayer and worshippers staying in the churches through the day. It closes Semone Himamat, and Ethiopian Catholics and Evangelicals hold their own prayers and processions alongside.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why Orthodox Good Friday Matters

SCRUTINY

Four of twelve hymns blame one group. A thousand older ones did not.

Four of the twelve Idiomele name the Jews as the group solely responsible for the crucifixion, where roughly a thousand older hymns in the Jerusalem Georgian Chantbook had on balance put the whole of humanity there instead. The Orthodox Theological Society in America is forming a working group of liturgical scholars and Jewish-Christian dialogue specialists to recommend what to do about it.

SCALE

A count that grew while its share fell

Pew Research Center counts roughly 260 million Orthodox Christians, more than double the 125 million of 1910. Their share of world Christianity fell over the same century from 20 percent to 12 percent, because Catholics, Protestants and other Christians together nearly quadrupled.

EVIDENCE

It sits inside a landmark piece of evidence

Egeria's travel account is, in the Biblical Archaeology Society's phrase, the first Western report about the Christian communities in the Levant. Its second half is given over to the liturgical rites she watched in Jerusalem, and this Friday is set out in it hour by hour, from the sixth to the ninth.

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe Orthodox Good Friday

EDITOR'S PICK

Attend the Matins of Holy Friday on Thursday

The day's opening service is held the evening before, and it is the one that carries the twelve Gospel readings. After the fifth reading the priest carries the Crucifix in procession round the church, chanting the Fifteenth Antiphon.

KEEP

Keep the strict fast the calendar sets

The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America marks the day a strict fast and defines it as refraining from meat, fish, oil, wine, dairy and eggs. The archdiocese groups this day with Great Saturday as a strict fast kept from Christian antiquity.

FOLLOW

Follow the Royal Hours on Friday morning

These are the hours at which the Idiomele are sung, the set of hymns designed for Holy Week and now the subject of open scholarly argument. Reading a translation beforehand makes the service far easier to follow.

STAY

Stay for the Vespers of the burial

In the Friday afternoon service the body is taken down from the Cross, wrapped in white cloth, and the Epitaphios is carried around the church and laid in a carved bier standing for the tomb. It is the point at which the commemoration ends.

LOOK

Look for the icon of the Extreme Humility

Orthodox churches display it on this day, and it is the one image that folds the crucifixion and the burial together. Seeing it puts the two halves of the day in front of you at once.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know Orthodox Good Friday?

1 / 8

Which service is missing from Orthodox Good Friday?

Answer

It depends on the country. Romania made it a statutory non-working day in 2018 and Cyprus keeps it as a bank holiday, while Greece treats it as a half-holiday and requires shops to close only for the morning.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

14sources
11primary records
10independently dated
Primary records
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America
Great and Holy Friday
The archdiocese's own account of the day's services, its silences and its icons.
View source
Orthodox Church in America
The Orthodox Faith: Holy Friday
A second jurisdiction on the twelve Gospels and the missing Divine Liturgy.
View source
Christian Classics Ethereal Library1919
The Pilgrimage of Etheria, trans. M. L. McClure and C. L. Feltoe
A fourth-century traveller's eyewitness description of Good Friday in Jerusalem.
View source
New Advent692
Council in Trullo (A.D. 692), Canon 52
The canon fixing when the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts may be served.
View source
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America2026-04-10
Online Chapel, Friday 10 April 2026
The liturgical calendar entry naming the day and defining its strict fast.
View source
Central Bank of Cyprus2024-06-07
Bank holidays to be observed in Cyprus during 2026
Cyprus's official 2026 bank holiday schedule, Good Friday included.
View source
gov.gr, Hellenic Republic2022-05-31
Official holidays
Greece's list of compulsory public holidays, published by the Ministry of Labour.
View source
Lege52018-03-13
Legea nr. 64/2018 pentru completarea alin. (1) al art. 139 din Legea nr. 53/2003
The Romanian law adding Good Friday to the Labour Code, as published in the Official Gazette.
View source
Orthodox Theological Society in America2023-04
Anti-Judaism in Orthodox Hymnography: Beginning a Conversation before Holy Week
The society's announcement of its seminar and its new working group.
View source
Pew Research Center2017-11-08
Key takeaways about Orthodox Christians
Population figures for Orthodox Christians worldwide and their share of Christianity.
View source
GOV.UK
UK bank holidays
The statutory dates that put the Western Good Friday on 3 April in 2026.
View source
Additional coverage
Ethiopian News Agency2026-04-10
Ethiopian Christians Mark Good Friday with Solemn Devotion
A report from Addis Ababa on how Siklet is kept across Ethiopia.
View source
Public Orthodoxy2022-04-14
The Origins of Anti-Jewish Rhetoric in the Hymns of Good Friday
George Demacopoulos on when the Idiomela were adopted and what five of them say.
View source
Biblical Archaeology Society
Text Treasures: The Pilgrimage of Egeria
How scholars date Egeria's journey and why her account matters.
View source
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