# Is Good Friday a special "thing" for non-Catholic Christians? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 22, 2011, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-good-friday-a-special-thing-for-non-catholic-christians/579370 "2011-04-22T16:24:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2011, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-good-friday-a-special-thing-for-non-catholic-christians/579370/21 "2011-04-23T16:02:22Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > No Communion on Good Friday? Wow, I don’t remember that from my childhood as a Catholic. It seems odd that you wouldn’t have Communion on the anniversary of the very first Communion. What’s the reason? You idiot. Good Friday isn’t the anniversary. That’s Holy Thursday. Is it OK to insult yourself in GQ? ---
**Author:** ![C.Montgomery\_Burns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecd19e/32.png) [@C.Montgomery\_Burns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C.Montgomery_Burns)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-good-friday-a-special-thing-for-non-catholic-christians/579370/22 "2011-04-24T21:35:41Z")
Independent Christian Church here. We generally recognize Good Friday as a day to pray and remember the crucifixion, but unless our place of business gives us the day off, we generally still work that day. There is not a special church service where I go. We celebrate Palm Sunday and have a sunrise service on Easter morning, followed by a breakfast and church. This is pretty typical of churches in my area. ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-good-friday-a-special-thing-for-non-catholic-christians/579370/23 "2011-04-25T02:20:22Z")
The stock market is closed on Good Friday, so obviously it’s not an exclusively Catholic thing. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-good-friday-a-special-thing-for-non-catholic-christians/579370/24 "2011-04-25T03:03:09Z")
I’m currently in a fairly Anabaptist part of Pennsylvania and the Mennonites closed all their stores on Good Friday. They were open on Saturday, and my fiancee thought I was making it up when I called it Holy Saturday (I was raised ELCA, she in more of a Brethren-type church) and expressed some surprise that they were open on Saturday. The difference between a fairly liberal branch of Lutheranism and an Anabaptist-derived church has proven interesting to me, although I don’t think she really cares. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-good-friday-a-special-thing-for-non-catholic-christians/579370/25 "2011-04-25T06:17:14Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > You idiot. Good Friday isn’t the anniversary. That’s Holy Thursday. > > Is it OK to insult yourself in GQ? That reminds me. There are some people at my church who believe Jesus must’ve been crucified on Thursday so the “three days and nights” thing will work. That argument is one thing that seems to happen regularly around this time of year. And my church did do one thing for Easter this year: an egghunt in the gym. The rain probably got them a lot of people. Are egghunts popular in the more formal denominations? ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-good-friday-a-special-thing-for-non-catholic-christians/579370/26 "2011-04-25T08:37:28Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > No Communion on Good Friday? Wow, I don’t remember that from my childhood as a Catholic. It seems odd that you wouldn’t have Communion on the anniversary of the very first Communion. What’s the reason? > [@John\_Mace](#): > > You idiot. Good Friday isn’t the anniversary. That’s Holy Thursday. > > Is it OK to insult yourself in GQ? I was Catholic. Also, the reason we were told there is no Communion on Good Friday is because Jesus died that day. The eucharist being the Body of Christ, if God is dead then you can’t partake of his Body. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-good-friday-a-special-thing-for-non-catholic-christians/579370/27 "2011-04-25T09:43:05Z")
> [@](#): > > For Lutherans (and I think for most Protestants, but maybe someone can correct me) Good Friday is the only day where we aren’t supposed to eat meat, whereas Catholics aren’t supposed to eat meat on any Friday during Lent. It used to be that good Catholics didn’t eat meat on ANY Friday, Lent or not. ---
**Author:** ![dhkendall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a9adbd/32.png) [@dhkendall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dhkendall)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-good-friday-a-special-thing-for-non-catholic-christians/579370/28 "2011-04-25T16:03:00Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > Evangelical Protestant here. > > My church is, indeed, hosting events today (as well as some sort of Maundy Thursday thing yesterday). To be fair, this is a new thing for my congregation. AFAIK this is the first year anything like it has been done. Attendant of an evangelical church here (I can’t really bring myself to say that I myself am an evangelical, but I have no beefs (or very few minor ones) with my church itself) and we’ve always had a Good Friday service as far back as I can remember. Usually consists of a pancake breakfast followed by a sermon. This year, the drama group that I am a part of recreated the Last Supper (it was kind of a mix between the Gospel accounts and Da Vinci’s painting - I was Bartholomew BTW) and we took communion as well (I don’t recall communion being part of the Good Friday service before, but this was the first Good Friday in 10 years I wasn’t working, so they may have changed things recently) - it was coordinated to have communion done at the same time the Jesus character said the familiar words in our play. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-good-friday-a-special-thing-for-non-catholic-christians/579370.md?page=1)