GOOD FRIDAY (God's Friday), the name applied by the Church of England to the Friday before Easter, sacred as commemorating the crucifixion of our Lord; the Great and Holy Parasceve is the Greek title of it, and it is called in the Roman Missal the Parasceve. This day was kept as a day of mourning, of rigid fast and of special prayer from a very early period. Eusebius (260 A.D.) says that the day had been observed long before his time. Constantine ordered a cessation from all labor on that day. It was one of the two paschal days celebrated by the Christian Church, and in memory of the crucifixion was called by the Greeks Pascha Staurosimon or the "Pasch of the Cross." In the Roman Catholic Church the service of this day consists of what is called the Mass of the Presanctified, the sacred host not being consecrated on Good Friday, but reserved from the preceding day. Com munion is forbidden on Good Friday, except in the case of the celebrant and of sick persons.
The most striking part of the ceremonial is the "adoration of the cross? or, as it was called in the Old English popular vocabulary, "creep ing to the cross." The black covering is re moved from a large crucifix which is placed before the altar, and the entire congregation, commencing with the celebrant priest and his ministers, approach, and on their knees rever ently kiss the figure of our crucified Lord. The very striking office of Tenebrce (darkness) is performed on Good Friday, as well as on the preceding two days: it consists of the matins and lauds of the following day, and has this peculiarity, that by the close all the lights in the church have been gradually extinguished except one, which for a time (as a symbol of our Lord's death and burial) is hidden at the Epistle corner of the altar.
In the Church of England, and in the Prot estant Episcopal Church of the United States, as well as in the Roman Catholic Church, Good Friday is celebrated with special solemnity: proper psalms are appointed, and one of the three special collects is a prayer for "all Jews, Turks, infidels and heretics?) In some churches of the English Church, and of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the improperia, or reproaches, adopted from the Roman service, are sung; and Bach's passion music is frequently heard The 'Three Hours' Devotion,' borrowed from Roman usage, with meditation on the 'seven last words) from the Cross, and held from 12 till 3, when our Lord hung on the Cross, is a service of Good Friday that meets with in creasing acceptance among the Anglicans. In England and Ireland Good Friday is by law a dies non, and all business is suspended; hut this is not the case in Scotland or the United States. In Scotland the day till recently met with no peculiar attention, except from members of the Episcopal and Roman Catholic communions; but of late years services have been held in many Presbyterian churches, and there is a growing disposition to fall in with the rest of Christendom in the observance of this day.