Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?
147 comments
·April 18, 2025thih9
> (…) the meaning of the name Good Friday can be understood as historically meaning ‘holy’. The use of ‘good’ denotes that this is a day of religious observance (…)
thrance
It's actually called holy Friday (Vendredi Saint) in France.
giraffe_lady
English-speaking eastern christians call it this too. But every day of holy week is named like that, holy tuesday, holy saturday, etc. Easter/Pascha is the one exception in the week.
mcv
In Dutch those have all their own somewhat cryptic names: Goede Vrijdag (Good Friday), Witte Donderdag (White Thurday), Stille Zaterdag (Silent Saturday).
registeredcorn
At risk of being a pedant, Pascha would not be the exception to Holy Week but rather after the conclusion of Holy Week. The end of week is sundown on Saturday.
After Holy Week has ended on Saturday, The Resurrection (i.e. Pascha), occurs on the first day of the week - Sunday. :)
bmk44
In Polish, it is called "Wielki Piątek" which translates as "Great Friday". Simiarly; the week is "Wielki Tydzień", translates as "Great Week". I always understood it in the similar vein as the Jewish "High Holidays" as the most important observation of the year.
The discrepancy between "Holy Week" and "Good Friday" always irked me when I learned these terms in English.
hagbarth
In Danish it’s called Langfredag (Long Friday). I believe it’s because of the drawn out suffering of the crucifixion.
dfxm12
It's more about it being a long day for the faithful. Traditionally, you may have attended three hours agony, fasting, in addition to the liturgy (there's no transubstantiation), etc.
WorkerBee28474
The etymology is interesting, but this writing reads like weirdly bad AI.
arrowsmith
"Why is Good Friday called Good Friday? … What is Good Friday? … Why is Good Friday called Good Friday? … How is Good Friday marked around the world? … When is Good Friday in 2025?"
This is SEO slop.
citrin_ru
SEO slop existed long before LLMs but now it is also in the training sets which may affect their output.
airstrike
It's lossy turtles all the way down
rvba
This feels like SEO slop boosting its ranking by being linked on HN.
I wonder what Dang or Tomhow think about submissions like this
philsnow
I was surprised to learn that markets (NYSE and NASDAQ) at least are closed on Good Friday.
Some article ascribed it to superstition about a previous crash that had happened on some previous Good Friday, but debunked there being any connection.
otterley
In light of recent market turmoil, I would call today "not bad Friday."
AStonesThrow
Why don't we consult a rather authoritative and reliable, albeit 100 years old, source?
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06643a.htm
Good Friday, called Feria VI in Parasceve in the Roman Missal, he hagia kai megale paraskeue (the Holy and Great Friday) in the Greek Liturgy, Holy Friday in Romance Languages, Charfreitag (Sorrowful Friday) in German, is the English designation of Friday in Holy Week — that is, the Friday on which the Church keeps the anniversary of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
The origin of the term Good is not clear. Some say it is from "God's Friday" (Gottes Freitag); others maintain that it is from the German Gute Freitag, and not specially English. Sometimes, too, the day was called Long Friday by the Anglo-Saxons; so today in Denmark.
I should also add that Friday retains its pagan vestiges, named after Frigg in the German pantheon, or Venus, the Roman deity of erotic love, beauty and fertility, better known to some as Aphrodite. And likewise, April is a month that was long known as sacred to Aphrodite/Venus in the Roman Calendar, and many feasts such as the Veneralia were celebrated during April.
It is no coincidence that on Good Friday, Christ redeemed the world; since He is the Bridegroom and the Church is his holy, unblemished bride, it is the day of consummation: the consummation of His sacrifice on the Cross, the day He poured out His Precious Blood for us, and many theologians mark this event also as the seeds or birth of the Church, along with Pentecost.
So I'd say that Good Friday is best Friday. And the fact that it's in April is really cool. And once I heard the university shooting up fireworks on the evening of Good Friday. I'll be planning on the Stations of the Cross at 3pm. Seeya there!
9d
[flagged]
sollewitt
[flagged]
milesrout
[flagged]
bigstrat2003
I mean, the comment you replied to was flagged and killed. I'm not sure I would call that "getting away with".
jiggawatts
[flagged]
sollewitt
I have no problem with the religion, only tortured metaphors.
null
getnormality
Growing up Catholic, I always figured that it was meant to be paradoxical, to drive home the Christian message. This horribly sad event that is so painful to imagine happening, this event was the most important Good thing that happened in human history. So we have to call it Good Friday.
Like many folk etymologies, it sounds like it's not quite right, but it was intuitive at the time...
vel0city
> to drive home the Christian message
For "the Christian message" the death of Christ is the ultimate good thing. According to Christianity his death brings everyone's salvation, not the resurrection. This is my body which is given for you.
Sad so many Catholic churches fail at actually sharing that message.
elcritch
In Eastern Orthodox churches the main hymn we sing is:
> Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life! [1]
It’s sung about a hundred times in Pascha (Easter) liturgy, so _very_ well emphasized in the eastern traditions.
Though in eastern churches the emphasis was less on a juridical understanding of the passion wherein Christ fulfilled a legal requirement. Rather it’s more emphasized that Christ’s very nature destroys death by taking on death. That mental framework always appealed to me more. The early Egyptian (Coptic) church father Athanasius [2] was pivotal in refining the philosophical concept [3]. Athanasius was also the first recorded to record the full list of the 27 books of the New Testament.
1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paschal_troparion 2: https://www.copticchurch.net/pdf/theology/incarnation_st_ath... 3: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasius_of_Alexandria
vel0city
I love hearing more about the viewpoint of Coptics, they're seemingly underrepresented in viewpoints in a lot of discussions in the US!
Your comments mirror a lot from my Egyptian friends. Thanks for sharing.
Tabular-Iceberg
Thankfully mine made this exact point in the homily. Also great to see it made on HN of all places!
tptacek
I have never been to a Catholic mass that failed to share that message. It's not a subtle detail.
vel0city
Maybe I'm being less charitable to Catholic churches on that. Truly a lot of Christian churches have failed on their messaging to others from what I've seen, and it's probably not just a Catholic thing. It's not like Joel Osteen is really sharing a truly Christian life and theology.
The fact there's a lot of people in this thread with this understanding should point to a lot of people not getting it though. I mean this is a whole thread of people not getting why it's "Good Friday" yet the Catholic Church has supposedly been preaching this point for over a thousand years.
I'm truly not anti-Catholic. I do think Catholics are unfairly painted by a lot of Protestants. As someone who walks between both worlds on a daily basis there's a lot of untruths and misunderstandings about Catholics out there.
getnormality
Yes. GP is one of the most baffling comments I've ever read on HN. I really have no idea how one manages to arrive at that opinion.
lukan
The whole suffering jesus on the cross everywhere is failing to bring that message across to me.
Im german it is Karfreitag (Karfriday) btw. and the whole week, Karwoche (Kar week). And that means sadness. Lamenting.
vel0city
In Christian ideology, his suffering and death was the suffering and death we were all supposed to have. He took that suffering and death so we don't have to, the "perfect lamb".
Looking at just that suffering on that one day is missing the context for everything else after, at least according to Christian ideology.
Also, an important part of the completion of previous prophecies for those looking at the older books. Jesus wouldn't have been the savior if those things didn't happen to him, according to the texts.
SoftTalker
Page is catastrophically broken. Scrolling doesn't work at all. Reader mode helps.
ReptileMan
In my country it is called literally Crucifixion Friday
textm0de
Most likely an evolution of "God Friday", in much the same way as "God Be With Ye" became Good-Bye.
layer8
Wikipedia disagrees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday#Etymology
https://archive.is/pAaH8